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Tattoos And Their Effects

  
  

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Shortfatdyke
19:00 / 21.03.02
click on the link to see the photo of my helm of awe tattoo (not quite healed in the pic). would love to see other magickal ones here, and hear about their effect; mine has been profound, more than i ever imagined. it feels as if the design is actually projecting outwards, almost a physical thing. as a result, i feel like i have a shield around me, protecting me from bad vibes. and i feel better about my body, too.

[edited to fix link]
http://www.geocities.com/cholister/index.html

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: shortfatdyke ]
 
 
Re-Set
19:04 / 21.03.02
Great looking ink, SFD. But yer link is broken.
 
 
Ierne
19:26 / 21.03.02
Yeah, we all wanna see your tattoo, SFD! {edited cos the link above is fixed – NIIIIICE!!!!}

I don't have any tattoos...yet...but I'm still giving it serious consideration. I'm thankful that I didn't get one when I was younger (late 1980's – early 1990's), because I wanted a Celtic design and just as I was saving up for it everyone and their mother and their dog started getting Celtic tattoo designs. I still want a raven, though

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: Ierne ]
 
 
Shortfatdyke
19:29 / 21.03.02
<link's working now, cheers to cholister>
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:35 / 21.03.02
Groovy!!!
 
 
that
19:37 / 21.03.02
My geocities web-fu is not mighty. But sfd's tattoo deserves exposure... It is amazing, innit?
 
 
Re-Set
20:48 / 21.03.02
Here's a few of my magically inspired inkblots.... HERE
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
09:25 / 22.03.02
Excellent tats everyone.

I'm glad your tattoo is working well for you SFD.
 
 
—| x |—
09:25 / 22.03.02
That is one fuckin' amazing tat, SFD!





Yours are sweet too, Floats...

One small comment regarding (not to be taken as a criticism, nor an endorsement, please?):

quote:...the design is actually projecting outwards

In a sense, everything projects outwards, ya? Or as an old friend used to say, "Everything gets outside of itself."

Peace.
m3

PS: I also have a magically inspired tat, but I have not the web savvy to post a picture of it! Unfortunately (heh—cheers Ierne!), it has some Celtic overtones! Runes for binding, runes for forces, runes for words: "cut, splice, paste, loop" (like YHVH or N, E, S, W or fire, water, air, earth or such other 4s), oroborous, the GO (look again: eye in triangle), sun & moon, and of course, (k)nots!

MAGICALTATTOOPATROLGO!
 
 
cusm
09:25 / 22.03.02
Very nice, SFD. I lke the design you came up with. Congrats on the new ink

FWS: I LOVE the eyes! They rather make for wings too, don't they?

I'm hoping to get some of mine done this summer, finally.
 
 
The Monkey
09:25 / 22.03.02
Very nice, both Floats and SFD.

SFD - did you design the "helm of awe" yourself, or is it a sigil/icon from an occult system? I ask because the compositional elements strike as familiar. The rays extending from the central eye look a great deal like an alchemical symbol.

Floats - You've got the Heru and the Wedjet Eyes watching your back...which is like having the entirity of the Egyptian Pantheon as backup in a fight, but I can't see because of picture quality whether the one on your navel is a Celtic knot, or a mandala?

I am unmarked as of yet largely because I'm still recovering from the letdown of realizing there will never be any justification for me getting proper Aotearoan-Maori te moko (sacred tattoos). I actually became preoccupied with Maori tattooing when I was but a wee bairn thumbing through anthro books that I couldn't read, and they've always struck me as...powerful, both in the aesthetic and the mystical/mana-bearing senses of the word.

I may be visiting a friend in Japan, and I've been toying with getting my arms done in horimono fashion whilst there. While they aren't sacred, per se, they involve a lot of magical imagery and power-symbols, and sort of radiate warding magick in my opinion.

[edited to de-confuse Floats and Flux - this is what I get for posting at bedtime]

[ 22-03-2002: Message edited by: [monkey - greatest sage of all] ]
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
09:25 / 22.03.02
What?

I think you've got me confused with "Floats"...

I was quite surprised to see my name in a thread about tatoos in the magick section... anyone who knows me personally would understand why.
 
 
ShadowRain
09:25 / 22.03.02
In a way, any well thought out design that ends up being tattoed on your body has an inherent magickal influence, whether it was a conscious decision to apply it for magickal reasons or not.

Note : well thought out. Getting a Hotstuff devil tattoed with a group of friends because everyone else is getting one, is a different story altogether. I'm not knocking it, if a Hotstuff devil is something you feel a connection to, and you had it done as something other than a 'fashion accessory', that's fine.

My own design was one that I spent several weeks on designing and getting it just right. Didn't know at that stage that I would go as far as getting it tattoed. But somehow, with the time and effort that went into it, it seemed natural and right to have it permanently inked onto my skin.

In a way, my tattoo is an extension of my inner being, for want of a better word. A stylised image of everything that is me. A statement of and acknowledgement of my right to me my own person.

It's macickal influence has been very subtle, yet profound. I'm not a victim of my circumstances. I can decide my own destiny. And since then, things have been working out for the best, whether immediately apparent or not.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:25 / 22.03.02
Floats: <envy> Oooh, I hate you so much! Particularly the eye-of-Horus backpiece.

Goldarnit. How come I never have ideas like that? Eh? Eh?
 
 
Shortfatdyke
09:25 / 22.03.02
floats - all i can say is 'wow!!!'

monkey - the helm of awe is a runic symbol, based on the elhaz. i used it specifically for its protective qualities, and added the eye at the centre for good measure.

m3 - don't think i was very clear on this. it's hard to describe, but it feels like the whole tattoo is actually being physically projected from the centre of the eye to a bigger version about a foot away, which is covering me completely.

mega thanks to everyone who initially gave me info on this, esp lothar tuppan.
 
 
—| x |—
16:59 / 22.03.02
quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
m3 - don't think i was very clear on this. it's hard to describe, but it feels like the whole tattoo is actually being physically projected from the centre of the eye to a bigger version about a foot away, which is covering me completely.

Oh, so kinda' like a permanent banishing ritual or protective "egg" (see Bonewits) or something like that maybe, ya? (I was only being, well you know, "high-falootin', or whatever--it's kinda' a 'bad' habit )

Groovy.

m3
 
 
Captain Zoom
19:50 / 22.03.02
(dips toes back into the magick forum. Ahhh, the water's nice)

I recently got my first tattoo. It's the Japanese Kanji symbol for "Magic". I was a little wary of getting it at first. It seemed a fairly potent thing to get permanently put on my body. But, apart from my really liking it, I did it to boost my energy in my relationship and to help my store. Both of which appear to have worked.

(Knocks wood)

The only side-effect is that I WANT MORE NOW!!!

Zoom.
 
 
netbanshee
16:54 / 24.03.02
nice tat...sfd.

Magic and Tattooing remind me of a series of books by Hickman & Weiss called the Death Gate Cycle and the one form of magical beings that conjured magic through the tracing of sigils extending from their heart rune to paths all over their body. The farther they were the more articulate the spell or projected energy that was available... Anyone heard of this? Sounds like a groovy idea yet I don't personally have the guts to display that much ink...
 
 
adamswish
17:38 / 24.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Ierne:
I still want a raven, though

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: Ierne ]

I've designed two of the three tattoos I want to get (just some money and bottle to collect first) and one of them is a magpie.

Felt having my personal animal totem on my arm would be a good thing.

The other is the ribbon infinite sign (okay I admit it's the one from THAT comic) as some sort of cosmic joke, under the roman numerals for the number nine as my tarot cards tell me I'm "the Hermit" (in personlity and essence and for my growth during the year of 2000).

One question though, how important is the placing of any "magical" tattoos on the body. IE are there places on the body that will inhance/defeat the tattoo's powers?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:42 / 24.03.02
I am just sooo envious now.
 
 
Naked Flame
18:43 / 24.03.02
Very nice SFD a powerful word of warding wrapped up into a sharp eye- gives me the feeling it's going to be hooking you up with your own latent defensive superpowers

Also groovy, Floats- what's the Tibetan one again, the knot? I vaguely remember having one during one of the years I, er, vaguely remember.

Mine are a bit less overtly magick-ish: a heraldic dragon, a starbursty sort of self-designed thing on my arm and a black panther with a crackling aura electric pink/blue aura on my right shoulder. If I figure the (shamefully easy) tech out I'll post a link.

Another magpie, adamswish? makes 2 of us. They're the world's best dressed crows I am also considering a magpie tat (with a crackling green/gold aura to mirror the panther...)

Tats are definitely magical things, 'sacred' or not. life is a holism: change the body => change the mind => change reality. Mine have all followed major magical events in my life- initiations, vision quests, self-transformational stuff- and I can read the story of my magical life in 'em.
 
 
ShadowRain
02:23 / 25.03.02
Banshee - I've read the Death Gate Cycle several times and the being you're referring to are the Patryns. The other group of magickal beings, the Sartans, also based their magic rituals on runes, but the expression thereof was rather in movement & vocalising, as manifested through dancing, singing, hand movements etc.

A possibility would be to have your 'heart rune' tattoed on your body, but instead of having your whole body tattoed, you could manifest or focus that energy by dancing, gesturing etc, using your 'heart rune' as the starting point. Visualing, mapping it out on paper, radiating from that essential symbol, you could build on that focus, in order to manifest your desires. The more complex the design and the more removed the eventual 'end rune' from the heart rune, the for specific the ritual.

I've found that felt tip pens or magic markers are excellent for 'tattooing' non-permanent symbols on skin for specific rituals. Which wash off the next morning.

Another option is to have then tattoed semi-perminently in henna. In this way, you could see it as if the spell is dissipating into the ethers, and manifesting progressively as the henna fades.

Just a few ideas. Anyone tried something like this?
 
 
Rev. Wright
10:20 / 25.03.02
I have had alot of success using a permenent marker to draw runes on my heart chakra/breast bone. I used this techniques extensively during my degree when writing essays. I allowed the rune to gradually diminish, due to its strong pigmentation, over several days of showering.

I have designed magickal tattoos in the past and I am wanting to find the time to work on some more with a Maori tattooist.

[edited coz ov me spellin]

[ 25-03-2002: Message edited by: will it work wright? ]
 
 
Re-Set
14:00 / 25.03.02
quote:Originally posted by [monkey - greatest sage of all]:

Floats - You've got the Heru and the Wedjet Eyes watching your back...which is like having the entirity of the Egyptian Pantheon as backup in a fight, but I can't see because of picture quality whether the one on your navel is a Celtic knot, or a mandala?


Cusm, that's just the way I like to think of the eyes...There's quite a bit more significance there though. My left, brown eye is nearly blind, but well equipped for sensing energy patterns (not unlike the Horus Eye) while the right, blue eye takes care of the visible for me. The back scene is far from finished, (I am in search of, beleive it or not, my fourth artist on the piece) and will when finished be a rather bizarre desert night scene. You can see the remanats of the first person to work on my back. He misaligned the yes and scarred my back up pretty good. The last few sessions have been fix-and-clean-up.

The stomach tattoo was my first, and is actually a Coptic Cross, not a mandala or Celtic knot. (Yes, I know placing a cross of any variety directly above the reproductive organs is incredibly narcissistic, no I don't care.)

I neglected to include a piece in my collage, but adamswish reminded me. On the "webbing" between thumb and forefinger, on either hand, I have half a moebius strip. Thus, I hold infinity between my hands at any given moment. Also, any number of people bearing similar markings can intrlock. I shared this idea with two of the wrong people, one had hers removed, and I secretly hope the other loses his in a more violent fashion, but I am in a bad mood today.
 
 
—| x |—
17:59 / 25.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Flame On:
...life is a holism: change the body => change the mind => change reality.

To continue to make things difficult (and now that I'm fully out of my troll closet), I would want to express this as:

(change the mind <=> change the body) = change reality

Ya' see why?

{Hint: (mind, body) = s}

m3
 
 
Re-Set
18:22 / 25.03.02
quote:Originally posted by modthree:

(change the mind <=> change the body) = change reality


I'd suggest the converse to this equation is also true.
 
 
Re-Set
20:48 / 27.03.02
If anyone would like...refer back to the link I originally posted. Some new ink, and my first techno-magically inspired piece. let me know what you think.

that link again is....

http://www.microbiz.com/tattoo.jpg

For now, you can call me Re-Set.
 
 
johnny enigma
19:38 / 30.07.06
I thought I'd bump this cos this subject has been seriously bugging me recently.
As yet,I have no ink. However, I have wanted tattoos for at least the last eight years and have recently come into a situation where I can pretty much as much ink as I want for free.
It seems to me that tattooing could allow for some seriously powerful magic to take place, not least because of the fact that blood is possibly one of the most powerful mystical symbols available.
What I'd really love to hear about from other lithers is stories about their own magical tattoos and how such tattoos have impacted their life. For instance, those that posted about their tattoos on this thread years ago - how do they feel about them now?
I'd also hear from anyone who has any runic tattoos. I started to want runic tattoos within months of starting to work with runes.However, I want to know what I'm getting into before I mark my skin for life.
 
 
Sekhmet
22:42 / 30.07.06
How long have you been doing rune-work?
 
 
johnny enigma
09:13 / 31.07.06
I've been doing runework for about seven and a half months.
The desire for runic tattoos popped out of nowhere pretty early on - something inside me said "I want these tattooed on me".
The whole thing was quite strange. My girlfriend at the time got me a set of runes for christmas and it grabbed hold of my imagination big style. Tattooing seemed like the next step.
However, if anyone out there has any wisdom to share on the subject, I'd really like to hear it.On the one hand,I've known loads of people get symbols like the eye of horus tattooed just because they related to the symbol on a subconscious level and suffered no harm. On the other hand, I know the runes are powerful and I definitely don't want to rub the Norse pantheon up the wrong way.......
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:06 / 31.07.06
The next logical step on from being given a plastic toy in the shape of the runes by your girlfriend six months ago is not to then rush out and get them permanently tattooed on your body. I just fucking despair sometimes, I really do.

How's about working with them for a minimum of six to seven years, immersing yourself in the Eddas, forming close relationships with Odin and the other members of His crew, asking Him whether it would be appropriate for you to brand yourself with one of more of the runes, understanding the implications of doing so and the deal that you are cutting, actually approaching the whole thing as magic on its own terms. Not just getting a cool tattoo that means something that you don't really understand - and cannot really understand - without actually putting the work in.

Yes, lots of people get the Eye of Horus tattooed on them with no detrimental effect. I daresay lots of people get runes tattooed on them and no harm comes to them. But lots of people get the Playboy Bunny tattooed on them as well, and it doesn't magically turn them into Hugh Cocking Hefner over night.

If you want to get a runic tattoo as a magical act, I would strongly suggest having half-a-clue before you do so. You cannot get half-a-clue in six months, I doubt you could get a sixteenth-of-a-clue in such a short time period. A tattoo is going to be with you forever. It's a powerful thing to mark yourself with something forever. Why not get a proper grounding in what you are delving into before you decide to break out the ink. The fact that you can currently get it for free should not be a factor in your decision to get a magical tattoo.

Your next step is not to brand yourself! Your next step might be to pour a drink for Odin at a three-way crossroads and ask Him to teach you the mysteries of the runes, or to spend a night alone in the woods with the intention of learning something more about one of the runes, or to throw the plastic toys in the bin and walk the wild places in your town until you are furnished with a living, breathing set given to you by the Gods, or it might be to read everything you can get your hands on about the culture and tradition that gave us these symbols, along with the various accounts of modern day practitioners. Some or all of the above should at least start to factor long before you think about getting the runes permanently marked on your skin. Otherwise you are not doing the work, and you might as well just get the Playboy Bunny put on you instead.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:18 / 31.07.06
A bit vitriolic there, but it just does my head in when people decide that getting a tattoo is the next logical step in a practice that they have barely even started to explore the shallowest reaches of.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:45 / 31.07.06
Oh dear. Um, johnny enigma, that's really not a good idea at all. Runic tatts are very dicey things--it's easy to go wrong. It's not just the individual meanings you've got to watch out for, it's the combinations, the way the runes interract. You also need to be careful with other, non-runic symbols related to Team Norse. Don't want to wake up one morning and realise you've accidently dedicated yourself to Odin or summink.

This site has some good basic information on runic tattoos. I really would advise you to take a lot of time over this decision.
 
 
EmberLeo
20:59 / 31.07.06
You also need to be careful with other, non-runic symbols related to Team Norse.

I'd have to agree - I'm actually more wary of valknots than of most of the runes.

Johnny: Were you considering a rune ring, or a bindrune, or specific individual runes? Which futhark?

--Ember--
 
 
odd jest on horn
21:29 / 31.07.06
While I can see where you guys are coming from, and mostly agree with the sentiment, why be snarky about the fact that the runes are inscribed on *plastic* pieces? Does it really make a difference? Or would you be just as snarky about whaletooth pieces with runes on them, and the whole plastic bit was just the straw that broke the camels back?
 
  

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