Keep Them in Suspense

An author and painter named George Catlin made several trips to visit indigenous tribes and returned to display his paintings and give lectures. He had visited more than 50 tribes and gathered a ton of material. One of his stories would prove particularly influential, that of the Mandan tribe’s Okipa(Oh-kee-pah) ritual.

An initiation ritual for young warriors, the Okipa involved, among other things, being hung from the ceiling by wooden sticks jammed under the warrior’s skin via slits. Particularly brave souls added heavy weights, presumably so they could throw shade at the regular hangers who did it without weights.

In the movie A Man Called Horse, Richard Harris (AKA Original Dumbledore) recreated the feat using a prosthetic chest. Around this same time, or slightly earlier depending on who you ask, the modern primitives movement was beginning to take off, and people started doing suspensions for spiritual reasons, and from there quickly branched out into non-spiritual, meditative and the why-ask-why-it-looks-so-cool type reasons cited today.

 
How mainstream has it gotten? Well, today you can go to Suspension.org and search for groups in your area and probably find a group to join. In Texas, where I live, there are like a dozen groups. They have them in Anchorage, Alaska and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world in increasing frequency. Model/Performance artist Miss Crash, who has been suspended as the opening act for the band Jane’s Addiction has been featured in Spin and Rolling Stone.

Just think how few IKEA locations there are.

It’s getting bigger, people are getting interested and media exposure is, in fact, making the practice more mainstream. The question for many people is why. Some, like Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction, say they do it for the experience, while Suspension.org cites “seeking the opportunity to discover a deeper sense of themselves and to challenge pre-determined belief systems,” but also notes that some people (And I’m quoting), “Find it boring.”

Is not the only article that will appear here on the art and craft of suspension, it’s just the first, a kind of “Intro to Suspension” if you will. In future articles we’ll get more in depth and explore some of suspension’s finer points and talk to some people who actually do it.

If you’re interested in being suspended and getting involved, you can go to Suspension.org and search for groups in your area. These groups have varying levels of experience and proficiency, so go at your own risk. Actually, even with a great amount of experience you’re still very much at your own risk, so keep that in mind. Find a group, take things slowly and get comfortable, or at least as comfortable as possible.