WEBVTT - Hook Suspension and the Complexity of Pain 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.720 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.000 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager. Robert, 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.280 what is the worst pain you have ever felt? Oh, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.479 this is a good question. Um, well, this is a 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.520 tough one, you know, because I'm pretty lucky in that 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.520 I haven't had any major injuries thus far, any major, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:38.680 major lye painful life experiences. Um. I guess the the 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.800 one moment that comes to mind the most just when 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.240 I had an ingrown toenail. Okay, this is years and 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.199 years ago, and I tried to address it myself with 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.639 some sort of which I do not advise anyone to do, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.600 with some sort of bathroom surgery and imagining you with 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.800 like a bowie knife in the bathroom, basically like tweezers 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.200 and whatnot. And I should not have been doing this, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.680 but there was a moment there where I almost blacked out. 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.640 Oh wow, And you know, this is just a tonnail. 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.039 But I guess everything is just so um you know 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.240 tight in their yeah, the the nerve endings at all, 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.720 but that that stands out as a moment of rather 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.200 intense pain. But it was just such a fleeting moment too. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.640 There was no it was immediately back out of it. 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.680 It's like, you know, flying and then dipping down into 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.600 a canyon and then saying, oh, that's a little bit 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.920 too much and then coming back out. See the fact 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.480 that it's your toneail is interesting to me because today's 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.160 topic is connected to something I think about a lot 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.560 when I watched action movies, which is like, inevitably somebody's 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.920 getting tortured, and in the back of my head, I'm 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.120 kind of like, how would I do in these scenarios? 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.280 And I think I could probably deal with a fingernail 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.560 getting ripped out, But I don't know. When you say that, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.280 it makes me think like they're so tied in to 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.520 your nervous system that that's just something I don't have 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.840 any qualification of understanding for. You know, well, it's those 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.160 all pains we can certainly understand a little a little better. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.600 You know, when we're watching a movie, if we have 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.519 a character that gets their arm blown off, most of 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:11.600 us have no frame of reference for that sort of thing. 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.400 But if the character breaks a finger, or their fingernail rips, 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.119 or there's a there's a moment in raising Arizona where 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.920 it is a fight between John Goodman's character Nicholas Cage's 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.840 character and one goes to do a double axe handle 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.400 on the other and they scraped their knuckles across the 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.840 ceiling of the the popcorn ceiling of the trailer, and like, 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.720 that's a moment where we can feel it because yeah, 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.079 because we can relate, we can maybe have not helped 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.080 that exact sensation, but we we have a better idea 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.960 of what that consists. Off. Yeah, I'm like you in 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.280 that I am lucky knock on wood that I have 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.440 not had any you know, I've never broken any bones 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.320 to my knowledge. I've had major surgery once and I 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.040 was pretty well under with anesthetic. But the worst I 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.560 can think of, like when when somebody first asks me this, 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.639 I always think of um sometimes. So I have two 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.640 different types of contact solution. One is just like your 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.680 daily cleaning solution is one. One is the overnight storage 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.560 and it's got some kind of acidic thing in it 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.400 that you're not supposed to put directly in your eye, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.520 and I maybe once a year make the mistake of 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.160 accidentally putting it in my eye and it burns so bad, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.680 it really hurts but every time I do it, I 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.519 start thinking like God, this is this is super painful, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.720 but it starts leaning into a point of not pleasure, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.360 but just sort of meditative transcendence of like everything just 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.760 evens out and the pain is still there, but I 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.400 but I'm just kind of it's flatline isn't the right word, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.080 but you know what I mean, Like it's just everything else, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.320 all other senses sort of level out all of a 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.960 sudden and there's no longer like any kind of overstimulation 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.200 and it's just the pain. And there's something kind of 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.520 nice about that. Well, this reminds me a lot of 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.520 doing yoga and what I sometimes think about like young 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:11.960 really and literally fit people who are doing yoga. I 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.360 kind of want to say, look, if you if you 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.680 don't have injuries, if you don't have soreness, then you 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.920 can't get how much can you possibly be getting out 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.839 of this? Because for me, like sometimes it's working with 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.000 a part of your body that's sore where you get 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.680 into these um these sensations that are difficult to categorize. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.440 Like a few years back, I had to some risk 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.560 injury minor risk injury, but it made it difficult to 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.040 put a lot of direct pressure down, but there were 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.760 some poses where I'm like where I'm bending my risk 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.039 in the other way and putting like subtle pressure there, 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.400 and the resulting sensation was it was difficult to categorize 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.760 because it certainly it wasn't really pleasurable, but it wasn't 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.920 pain either. It was it was a very soothing, you know, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.400 sense of relief that I felt, and I and it 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.799 and it was in somewhere in that gray area betwixt 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.440 the I knew this woman once who was she was 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.200 in my yoga class, but she was also some day 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.440 I knew outside of yoga who was nine months pregnant, 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.599 and she was like really good at yoga, and she 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.800 got into scorpion pose like a week before she gave 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.960 birth to her daughter, and I was just like a 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.279 completely stunned, like like not only like what must that 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.360 feel like, because you know, you're you're carrying this extra weight, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.680 it's a completely different body dimension, but also just like 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.560 the discipline that she must have in her yoga practice 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.440 to be able to pull that off. Oh man, Yeah, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.440 scorpion is a tough one. Super I can't do scorpion, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.080 And yeah, I've never been par oh and by the way, 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.400 I don't mightn't mean to imply that young fit people 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:45.760 can't get something out of yoga. Everybody can get something 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.839 out of yoga. But I'm just saying if you have 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.000 if you have an injury or a soreness, depending on 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.160 the degree of the injury, UH, yoga can open up 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.320 sort of new pathwayte of understanding what do Yeah, well, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.760 here's a if you're young and fit and you're not 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.520 getting anything out of yoga, maybe you should consider body suspension. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:10.440 Y Yeah, move on up to the next level. That's 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.479 what our topic is today. This is why we're talking 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.680 about pain and pleasure at the top is that we've 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.000 actually had I think multiple listeners right into us because 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.280 we've just sort of brought it up casually in the past, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.120 the idea of body suspension, and we've had people send 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.800 us photos and write to us about their experiences with it, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.200 and we decided, you know what, let's take a deep 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.120 look at like how this works. There's there is a 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.880 lot of science behind it, a lot of math. Yeah, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.200 there's certainly physics and UH and in medicine that are 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.880 involved in approaching it. And then in terms of understanding 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.720 what's happening with pain and interpreting the sensations that are 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:48.839 going on. There's of course a lot of research into 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.000 just the human experience totally. Yeah. Now, a number of 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.320 you may remember from our Listener mail episode we heard 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.279 from a listener by the name of Ainsley and she 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.520 wrote in and she shared her own experience with the 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.960 with hook suspension, and she says, quote, I fell in love. 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.600 I was allowed to feel and bleed and openly respect 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:06.880 the process of each It was a whole new world 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.680 for me. Suspension became my life. And when I read 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.480 those words, it made me think back to a book 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.040 that I read a while back titled The Body and 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.920 Pain by E. Laine Scary, and it's a This is 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:24.679 a one of these deep, deep considerations of the idea 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.840 of pain, not only in terms of just physical experience, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:33.440 but what it means philosophically and politically socially. Um. It 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.160 is a it is a deep read, but but one 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:37.640 of the things that she talks about in it, so 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.160 I pret pretty much. Her main statement in the book 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:45.160 is that an individual's physical pain has no voice, but 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.800 when it finds a voice, it begins to tell a story, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.800 a story of of of the vast distances between your 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.360 experience of pain and my own. Uh. She even describes 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.360 this distance as being interstellar, like, that's the that's the 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:03.240 space between my understanding of pain and another person's experience 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.239 of pain. This is a really good example of how 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.760 lonely humanity can be in a way, and that like 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.440 there's no way for us to possibly understand what another 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.560 person's level of pain is. Yeah, the either the limits 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.200 or at least the challenges of of human empathy, right. Uh. 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.640 And then on top of that, we have the complications 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.400 that are inherent in that distance, our an ability to 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.119 to understand each other's pains, and in the very nature 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.439 of human creation. So she ties all of that up. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.880 And of course authors and artists often cite pain is 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.160 a necessary part of creation, some more than others. But 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:41.760 you know, it makes it makes you think, you know, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.720 if we're if we're pretty much okay with that idea 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.320 that that that out of pain, out of personal suffering, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.400 we can create these these great things. And how how 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.520 weird is it really for someone to engage in some 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:01.440 careful manipulation of pain sensation. Yeah, I've I've got to say, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.839 like this is something like I'm constantly coming to terms 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:06.800 within the real life. Is that like things that I 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.080 think of as being like not normal but not being abnormal, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.559 like body suspension. I'm constantly surprised when other people around 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.280 me are like, whoa, that's so weird, or what is 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.320 wrong with you? Or that kind of thing. Not that 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.959 I've done body suspension, and I'm not particularly into body 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.800 modification in any way, but I understand it, like I 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.439 I can identify with what people seem to be getting 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.360 out of this experience. It's I think, in a similar way, 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.680 I'm glad you brought up yoga, like it's similar to 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.480 what I've gotten out of yoga before. But it's also like, um, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.360 you and I have talked about sensory deprivation tanks on 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.040 the show before. I can imagine that they're similar experiences. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.560 It's just that the pain part isn't there. Yeah, and 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.760 and it's certainly not for everyone, to say the least, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.400 there's very much in an outsider enterprise. But but of 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.240 course here's the thing. It's it's still something that emerges 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.360 from the human experience and merges in and at least 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:06.400 a few different human cultures. So it's worth exploring. Like 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.520 we can't just it's it's easy to look at it, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.160 and especially if you look at say a media representation 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.000 of it, be it you know, dateline denied or whatever, 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.000 or or the cell. The cell is the go to 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.800 I mean the minute, Uh, anybody brings this up, I 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.480 always think of Vincent din Afrio in The Cell. And 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.439 it's really, especially after doing the research, I think it's 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.439 like a kind of horrible negative depiction of this process. 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.160 And probably I would imagine people in this suspension community 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.440 probably don't feel great about how they're portrayed in that movie. Yeah, 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.800 because he's a he's a serial killer character in it, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:41.640 and he's you know, he's using it to sort of 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.440 hurt himself while hurting others, and he only does it 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.720 to himself by himself. Yeah, Whereas in as we're going 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.560 to discuss, actual hook suspensions tend to be more of 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.480 a like a seemingly communal experience where they're the people 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.360 facilitating the suspension and those observing it. And you see 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.400 that not only in sort of the the modern primitive 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.760 industrial uh you know, subculture of hook suspension, but even 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.880 some of the traditional users of hook suspension that will 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:13.000 discuss as well from from Native American and uh In 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.400 Indian traditions. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean this goes back a 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.959 long ways, like five thousand years. But still it's difficult 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:21.760 for I think most people to get past the idea 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.959 that this is somebody that is intentionally suffering, intentionally doing 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:30.280 harm to their body and it and we just we 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.320 we tend to just say, oh well then just must 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.439 be a complete whackadoodle and you just put up this wall. 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.120 I'm not getting like, I'm just like walls up, shields up. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.959 I'm not going to attempt to interact with that or 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.000 empathize with that in any other form. Well, you know, 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.160 like I guess because of like the people that I've 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:52.040 spent time with that things like other body modification practices 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:58.160 like tattooing, piercing, even scarification or or gauging like seem 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.560 like totally normal things that like people in my everyday 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.160 life have gone through. So it's like, what is the 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.720 line that is drawn where you go like, well, tattooing 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.439 is totally normal and that's okay, but putting hooks through 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.080 yourself and suspending is not. You know, I don't know, 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.240 like I see that there's different levels again, like there's 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:23.959 variations and pain thresholds too. But like, I get it. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.640 You know, I'm not in any rush to go hook 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.200 myself up and do it. Um. But I but I 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.480 feel like I understand. Why don't we actually give the 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.000 audience like a very basic definition of what we mean 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.839 when we say body suspension. So this is a form 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.080 of body modification that involves hanging the human body by 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.960 hooks that are attached to ropes. So I think a 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.640 lot of us have various ideas of what it means 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.640 that we're going to go through it into deeper detail. Um. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.360 The other form of body modification that I that I 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.400 am unfamiliar with that we've talked about here at How 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.520 Stuff Works before. I don't think we've done a show 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.720 on it is subdermal implantation. Uh. And that's something I'm 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.080 also really interested in. We have a pretty good article 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.880 with some excellent infographics on subdermal implantation on the site. Yeah, 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:12.800 I may have done something. I think I've touched on 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.480 it a little bit on the blogs before. Some forms 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.960 of subdermal implants um, notably I think the bagel head things, 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.440 which ultimately was not a very big thing at all. Right, Yeah, 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.400 what if it's sailing and the forehead and then sort 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:28.480 of make an intention that was kind of like a bagel, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.240 but it was this was hard. It was hardly a trend. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.560 But it's kind of an interesting study in what happens 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.960 when a few people do something that is kind of 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.640 weird or rather weird, and then it gets blown out 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.200 of proportion by the media. Right, It's not like the 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.520 people who give themselves like horns. Yeah, but it's also 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.920 worth noting again that you know, what's normal within one 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:55.360 community is not normal in another, and even major supporters 0:13:55.480 --> 0:14:01.040 of suspension, such as suspension artist Alan Faulkner, he points out, quote, 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.959 hanging from hooks is hardly seen as a normal activity. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.520 That's from an artical eroded safe piercing dot org. So 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.040 you know, it's it's like any like really niche thing 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.079 one maybe into you know, you admit that it's not 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.599 the mainstream thing, and you really you don't want it 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.400 to be the mainstream thing. I haven't seen anybody that 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.360 engages in in hook suspension that's saying, hey, we really 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.440 need to get this everybody. You know, we shouldn't be 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.560 doing this in public schools. Yeah, nobody's making that argument. 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.240 Everyone is seems to be rather cool with the fact 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.200 that this is a very specialist interest. But at one time, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.640 for some cultures, it was I don't know, I don't 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.800 want to say normal, but it was a part of 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.120 their ritualistic behavior. So let's take a look at the 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:45.920 history of it for a minute. And we're going to 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.920 start in North America. Actually, uh, I don't think we 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.640 have records of how far back this practice goes in 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:58.320 North America. But this is the O keepaw hooks suspension ceremony, right, 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.680 and it's it's a much larger ceremony than just the 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.200 hook suspension. Yeah. And and before we get into that, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.600 I do want to also point out that pain, of course, 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.840 is a very normal, everyday aspect of human lives. And 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.160 so you see uh, rituals of pain and just about 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:19.600 every culture, and then that includes Christian culture, Islamic culture, 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.880 Hindu culture, pretty much anywhere you go, there's gonna be 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.880 some sort of right of passage, some sort of of 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:31.200 of self inflicting um ritual that pops up as at 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.360 some point or another. Yeah, maybe we should do an 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.160 episode on self flagellation at something. Yeah, that's it's a 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:40.240 fascinating topic onto itself. But here in in North America, Yeah, 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.840 we had the the Okipa hook suspension ceremony, and this 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.600 was practiced by the North what's now North Dakotan uh 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.000 Mandan tribe. So it was a ride of passage and 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.960 the ceremony saw hook suspended warriors twist and swing until 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.360 the inner ed a transcendent state. And for you, film 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.920 buffs out there. Uh. The nineteen seventy film starring Richard Harris, 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.760 A man called Horse, depicted the right in a rather 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.920 memorable scene. I remember seeing the scene, or at least 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.480 a trailer for it on like KBS or something back 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.200 in the day, and it really confused me. I had 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.160 no idea what was going on. I thought, Oh, they're 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.640 torturing that guy. That's horrible what they're doing to him. 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.200 But I had no idea. I've never seen this movie, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.760 but I am picturing older Richard Harris. I'm picturing like 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.440 Dumbledore Richard Harris instead of you know, I imagine in 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.960 the seventies he was probably what like a man in 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:33.840 his forties or something like that. He was I'm not 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.640 sure what his age was, but he was definitely like 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:41.640 leathery but still handsome Richard Harris. Yeah, well, this particular ceremony, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.040 as I said, it's a four day ceremony, and suspension 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.040 is just one part of it. They also have a 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.720 long vigil, there's dancing, and then trials of endurance, of 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.440 which the suspension is part of it. So what they 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.920 would do is they suspend young warriors from the roof 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.240 of the tribe's lodge by ropes that were attached to 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.200 skewers in their chest, back or shoulders. And sometimes they 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.680 would add weights as well that were attached to their 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.560 legs to increase the pain. Now here's the thing in 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.120 this culture, if you cried out in pain, you were 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:15.560 considered cowardly. So the ceremony itself didn't end until they 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.440 were lowered, and then they had their left pinky finger 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.000 removed with a hatchet, and then there was a run 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.320 around the village with the skewers and weights all still 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.040 in place. Uh. This was first documented by white men 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.320 in eighteen thirty five by a guy named George Catlin, 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.520 and he was a painter apparently, I think he was 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.199 just like visiting this community. He witnessed it and then 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:41.200 brought it back. The last ceremony of this nature. Well, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.679 the public I think that took place was in eighteen 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.560 eighty nine. And and in public again is as an 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.000 or at least semi public. Is the is an important 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.639 thing to drive home because again these are communal experiences. Right, 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.399 It's not just somebody hanging alone in a tent. Uh. 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:58.880 They're being suspended as part of this right. And as 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.400 we'll find out later, the modern suspension practice has its 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.240 roots in the Okipa ceremony. Now, if we travel all 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.960 the way around the world, we get to Hinduism and 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:14.200 at least two additional suspension rights. Uh, probably more, I think, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.040 as we'll discussed. But just to drive the nail into 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.760 a couple of them. Here, there's no Yeah, there's a 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.840 there's Shahrak Puja. This is a Hindu folk festival in 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.840 southern Bangladesh. And here the faithful believe that the festival 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.040 will satisfy Lord Shiva and generate prosperity through the elimination 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.080 of the previous year's sorrows and sufferings. You know. So 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.080 there's a catharsis here. So sometimes a human Shahrak as 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.359 they're called, takes part in the festivities, tied with a 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.400 hook on his back and then moved around a bar 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.640 with a long rope. And then we have Sri Lanka's 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:53.040 vel Hinduism festival named for the divine javelin val of 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.639 the war god Morrigan, also known as uh Kardi Kaya, 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.639 and this entails public suspension as well as with so 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:07.959 many religious rites of pain, including those in Christianity and flatullation, etcetera. Uh, 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.920 these traditions seem rooted in religious penance and the expression 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.160 of devotion. Yeah. So, as I said earlier, this practice 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.520 has been going on for five thousand years. So if 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.240 you look at body suspension today and you go oh weird, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.800 you know, you think about the larger human experience. This 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.320 has been going on for a long time, large far 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.880 longer than many of us can imagine. Back to UH, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.280 there's also the Hindu festival of Tai Posam that still 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.359 happens in Southeast Asia. And one of our listeners actually 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.440 wrote into us about this a year and a half ago, 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.800 maybe for a Listener Male episode. We talked about it 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.359 and he sent us pictures of it. Um he was living. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.120 I think he was an expatriate in Singapore, as many 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.160 of our listeners know. I went to high school in Singapore, 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.920 and UH was totally unaware of this ceremony, so when 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.840 he sent us the pictures, it was really interesting. And UH, 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.480 one of our colleagues, Ramsey and coincidentally went to the 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.000 same high school in Singapore, and I was talking to 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.240 him about this, and he went several times with his 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.720 family to the Tai Pusan festival, so he was able 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.800 to tell me a little bit more about this. I 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.600 guess the basic idea here is similar to some of 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.400 the ones that you just mentioned. Uh. It's a practice 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.040 called vel cavati where worshippers undergo what's sort of referred 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.880 to as a debt bondage to Murragon, that same war 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.400 god and val is the again the divine javelin that's 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.880 used as a weapon against against the against evil. Yeah, 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.520 so these skewers are representative of the spear or javelin 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.200 that Povarty gave Murragon to kill the demon Sura pad 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.720 Um Uh. And so what happens is actually during this festival, 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.159 the worshippers are sometimes suspended in the air with the 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:53.240 levels of pains correlating to their actual devotion, you know, Um, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.840 and it's not My understanding is it's not like what 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.080 we think of his body suspension and that it's vertical. 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.080 I think they're that. I think from the pictures we 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.160 were shown, starts off on the ground and they're lifted 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.679 up by people horizontal to them. Yeah, I believe that 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:10.560 sounds right. Yeah, those of you out there who have 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.560 maybe partaken in this and seen it, let us know 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.840 in looking at any of these religious or semi religious 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.679 modes of of hook suspension. It's it. It reminds me 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.200 again of Scary's writings which she talks about pain becoming 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.960 a sort of proof, an argument that the quote act 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.919 of wounding is explicitly presented as a sign the human 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:36.840 body is in each the site for the analogical verification 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.800 of the existence and authority of God. And of course, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.480 a modern suspension is often a secular affair, rooted in 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:49.160 traditions of personal exploration and performance art. But you still 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.720 see some aspects of this, this idea that that the 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.160 pain is there as a as a proof of something. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.800 You know, why don't we take a quick break and 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.280 when we get back, we're going to get into the 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:14.800