The Ritual of Getting Tattooed

The Ritual of Getting Tattooed

Tattoos have a long tradition with rituals amongst tribal people. Young men would often be tattooed to mark their rites of passage from boyhood to adulthood and to mark other transitions. The process of tattooing is deeply meaningful and contains many of the symbols associated with ritual such as blood, symbolic elements and the awakening of the astral body by the experience of pain.

Tattoos and the updated practice of tattooing can be regarded as an almost mystical experience similar to the exchange of energy experienced during tantric sex or modern day sex magic. The person receiving the tattoo opens up and is trusting much in the same way of opening your body up to the tattooist is the associated with the ecstasy and release of sex.

Tattooing is very much a personal decision. When you open up and say yes to the tattooist, you are giving that person permission to inflict a permanent mark on the body while drawing blood causing pain in the process. All the elements of ritual can be seen here from the marking of the body very often with sacred symbols, the drawing of blood (life-force) and inducing pain which is seen by many as something spiritual.

Prior to the advent of modern medicine many people believed that pain was something that brought the person closer to their God. They didn’t use painkillers but experienced pain fully. As a result, some believe that practices such as branding, suspension, amputations and other extreme body modifications are a reaction to the spiritual emptiness or ‘pain’ of modern day living.

With this kind of spiritual emptiness of the modern world comes the obvious need for people to seek out meaning in their lives. Just ask any tattoo parlor tattooist. They will tell you that this is apparent to anyone working in the tattoo industry. They see this manifested in the surge of people seeking tattoos that have an ascribed meaning to them. People are seeking tattoos with spiritual significance like never before.

People go so far as to believe that the placement of symbols, sigils and seals as tattoos, can help with illness or grief. Modern day tattoos hold deeper spiritual meanings for so many, the world over and that is what makes the art of tattooing so much more than just a fancy craft.