Customer Reviews

Fakir Musafar: Spirit + Flesh

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...Fakir Musafar's personal transformation from nerdy teenager to seeker of transcendental sublimity is measurable in this collection from brave little Arena Editions. With knots, corsets, tattoos, piercings, suspensions and body modification tools not easily describable, Farkir goes where few dare.

Be forewarned, this book, beautifully designed and realized as it is, is disturbing. If you think Robert Mapplethorpe went too far, this is probably not for you. The images we run here in the Libido Review Gallery are on the cuddly end. Others in the book make me wince no matter how often I see them.

Not all of the images in this book are of Fakir, but most are. And this is as it should be, because it is clear that Fakir is the centerpiece of his own universe, in which the TV idea of the makeover is taken to an extreme hard to imagine without seeing it.

After the initial shock wears off, one can't help but wonder why, one would want to poke very large nails into one's self or hang one's body from giant hooks like so much cattle carcass. Why would one do this to one's self.

The answer is found both in the photos and Mark Thompson's excellent introduction. For me the question turn on the point at which performance art becomes a public spiritural quest. For Fakir, pain is a portal to the divine; he has turned himself into a "technician of the sacred," using his own body much the same way flagellants from a variety of religions use pain to seek the divine.

The only difference is that Farkir has documented his experiments with a photographic artists's eye.

When a young 13-year-old named Roland first began experimenting with body play in South Dakota, he carefully took and developed pictures of the rituals he was imitating from books and National Geographic magazines. Nearly 60 years later, this boy is now a man named Fakir Musafar, who coined the term "modern primitive" and who teaches piercing and leads shamanic rituals in northern California and around the world.

Collected here are images Musafar has taken of himself and friends as they have experimented personally, using body modification methods as a way of exploring themselves and as an alternative to other methods of achieving altered states of consciousness for spiritual growth. This is a high quality publication, the first monograph focusing on Musafar's photography of these journeys. Many of the images are intense, closeup and highly personal. For those unfamiliar with modern-day body modification, some of the images (body piercing, kavandi bearing, ball dancing) may be shocking or uncomfortable.

In the past, Fakir contributed to underground publications, or produced his own small books, or his more recent magazine "body play" as a way of showing his art and photography. Even if you have been seeking out and collecting these random small publication, this is the definitive collection of this artist's work. These images are powerful, intense and unexpectedly beautiful.

This book is very well made. It was not exactly what I expected but I was not disapointed. I was hoping for more piercing pictures or scarification or suspension but all in all it is still fun to look at. I think if you are into bondage it is a good book for you. I myself am not but I still found the pictures inspiring.

Spirit + Flesh - Anyone who picks up a copy of this remarkable book to admire the photographs should first read the tender forward written by Mark Thompson. The forward is a guide to understanding the story behind the beautiful, artistic photographs taken by Fakir over many years. Some people may find them disturbing or shocking, but there is more to the photographs than images of body modification, visual beauty, and our own perceptions of pain that might have been endured to reach the altered states represented in some of the photos. Leafing through the book and studying the stunning photographs, a story of a remarkable and unique man emerges. This is a book to linger over and share with friends whom understand what it is like to be "different". I am very pleased I added this book to my library.

This is a very beautiful book. Although not for the faint hearted Spirit and Flesh is very revealing of the ways in which the mind and spirit can transcend the material body. It deconstructs accepted 'modern' thinking about physical pain as a negative experience and paints a picture of ecstatic and spirit filled existentialism. One of my favourite bod mod books.

Fakir Musafar's "Spirit + Flesh" is a must for any fan of contemporary body art. In a time of crass uniformity and conservative, right-wing ideologies running rampant over the global consciousness, this book shines like a beacon in the darkness. This is what the world needs now. Fakir is a master photographer who is not afraid of putting forth images of his deepest self. Not all of the photos are of Mr. Musafar; there are lovely photos of other individuals, some of whom will be familiar to people who study alt-culture. As stated by others, the forward by Mr. Thompson maps the context of the spiritual place from which Mr. Musafar's art emanates. I cannot recommend the book highly enough.

This book is becoming hard to find, so get it while you can. Buy it before our president bans it. This is an important book because it documents spiritual liberation in its purest form. As such, it is required material for anyone who is interested freedom and free thinking.