I’m not the same man that left Britain on the 5th of September 2018. In a matter of six long and eventful days and nights in the environs of Northern and Central Thailand, this particular and peculiar human being has been changed forever. I have changed not just in visual terms (Sak Yant tattoos aside, which are enough to change anyone) but also in the way I view life, myself within life and all those who exist around me. Some decisions I have made since coming back have been hard, others not so hard. The autumnal leaves are beginning to fall and I see dead worlds collapse inside me and outside of me. The old dead ideas and assumptions falling away into nothingness. I am transformed.
The Sak Yant tattoos of Thailand dispatched by true and authentic practitioners are manifestations of magickal entities and are powerful, life-changing gateways to new realms of being. Their placement, direction and arrangement can have very serious underlying changes and transformations within your psyche. The first two photos below show two Sak Yant bestowed to me from the mighty Ajarn Daeng; the Yant Phra Lak Na Thong (also known as Lakshmana who is described as the incarnation of Shesha, the thousand-headed Naga upon whom rests Lord Vishnu in the primordial ocean of milk (Kshirasagara) a powerful warrior or The Perfect Man as personified by Rama) and Yant Takaab (or ‘Centipede of Luck’ which refers to the local belief that centipedes bring luck, protection and good fortune). Peter Jenx’s book The Thai Occult Sak Yant discusses the qualities of these yants in more detail (his photos of my Sak Yant rituals and the Serm Duang ritual bath he has kindly allowed me to show in this blog). The third photo shows three remarkable fully gold leaf blessed two-tailed Jing Joks (lizards or Geckos) by Ajarn Apichai, a King of the Jing Jok. The Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko) are culturally significant in many East Asian countries. Regional folklore has attributed supernatural powers to the Jing Jok or gecko. It is a symbol of good luck and fertility. It’s believed to be descended from dragons. I received three out of a possible of nine (with yet another one hundred and eight Jing Jok permutations besides.) The day I arrived to receive my Sak Yant from Ajarn Apichai he had just recently finished a seven year study and completion of his acquiring the knowledge of this very specific wicha (knowledge of magickal practices gained through study or practice). There is also a third extra unplanned Sak Yant he bestowed to me personally to create a flow to link up with the Yant Takaab. This is I believe to be the Yant Putsorn Ha Phra Ong, a design which combines three Heart Katas to offer protection, Metta (loving kindness for others and self under the guise of the virtues of the Buddha and the Three Gems) and refuge for the devotee seeking it within the philosophy of Buddhism.
It is safe to say that my second run of encounters with the Ajarns (professors, teachers, lay preachers, former monks, magickians) of the Thai Lanna Buddhist system namely Ajarn Daeng, Ajarn Suea and Ajarn Apichai has cauterized certain aspects of the person that visited them last year. Hundreds of miles were traveled externally and internally. There are roughly sixty Ajarns within the realm of Chiang Mai, a city in Northern Thailand that has the feeling of being one of the last remnants of Shangri La. Ajarn Suea’s legendary Serm Duang ritual cleansing bath has completely re-set me in more ways than one. The shock of the holy water and the specially prepared elements removed any residual defilement that hung around me. I highly recommend it. I feel numerous dynamic and authoritative presences coursing and writhing around my body and mind, making decisions, talking to me, guiding me and empowering me. The rituals have completely changed me. I see clearly a process unfolding before me, like a lotus, slowly but surely expanding and opening.
Each meeting and contact with the three Ajarns has as I said before re-set me but also cleansed, blessed, guided, taught, shocked, foretold of events approaching/past and has given me various amazing cosmic tactical spiritual tools and applications of immense and considerable import. Things were spoken to me that knocked me sideways. Small intimate gestures, words under the breath and geometrically nuanced hand movements at specific body points all conspired to re-programme this organic machine being. I am now permanently tattooed with multiple level spiritually active symbols, entities of becoming, change and transformation. There are very strict rules that Ajarn Daeng has placed on receiving these sacred symbols. They are not to be treated in a flip or hedonistic manner as one would with say tattoos like an anchor or love heart or a rose with ‘mum’ flagged across it. The Sak Yant is a hardcore responsibly. Since becoming a practitioner of Thai Buddhism in the last few years, I have found that my life has gone from lo-fi to 3D high definition. Upholding the Five Precepts, the engine that powers the magick of Sak Yant, is an essential and life-changing adjustment which will prove to be a demanding and challenging devotional pathway but ultimately satisfying once mastered.
If you have sincerely studied magick, Buddhism, Hinduism or Brahmanism in any shape or form whatsoever you will find that reading up on these philosophies beforehand will behove you in appreciating Thai Buddhism which is a complex hybrid of numerous influences. This does not mean though that you will immediately recognize and understand the Thai Buddhist system. On the contrary, this particular form is unlike any other that I have ever encountered or studied during my life, and I have been studying Buddhism since the late 1980s. I don’t view myself as an expert in anyway whatsoever. I take the student role in life, since this is the best way to approach most things that are unfamiliar or unknown to you. It would be unwise to approach it without new set of eyes, ears and consciousness. As with all new forms a sense of gentle and cautious reverence would be appropriate. In the past I have made some mistakes. That’s life. These can be avoided if one has awareness and a complete lack of presumptions while passing into this vast and coreless system of magickal, spiritual and sublime philosophy.
Following a pathway, any pathway, be it magickal, spiritual or in any form or emanation of whatever description you wish to subscribe to or if you really want to create yourself, is a harsh, difficult and at times painful undertaking to devote yourself to. Practicing non-attachment, undertaking a daily practice at a shrine, renouncing former behaviour patterns and associations, devoting yourself to new pathways of becoming, all take the will, surrender and focus of your mind and heart to accomplish. Everything must go. It is the ultimate fire sale of the soul. The higher seemingly you go, the more exposed to the currents you become, the thinner the air but the deeper the silence you will encompass and embody. My second Thai occult road trip was not the so called second difficult album as often described in the music industry, but a second step on an ongoing stairway. I wish to sincerely thank from my heart Ajarn Daeng, Ajarn Suea and Ajarn Apichai for their guidance and teachings.
Sheer Zed ~ Author • Buddhist Shaman • Musician 
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