Hyperspace Fool asked me to post about this spiritual practice of Soma-fera which is described in vast vast detail on this website
Somafera - The Body Wild
This turned out alot longer than I thought, so for specific techniques, scrolls towards the 2nd to last paragraph area.
I'll give a rough description, and how I came upon discovering it. It'll be a bit length, since the last ten years of my life (I'm only 24) have been for the most part of spiritual pursuit. The majority of it has been simple research and contemplation, though in the last year I've begun to unite it with my lifelong passion for martial arts, and am working towards integrating my spiritual disciplines into my life (I've always been a bit of a closet occultist, since most of my social circle growing up has been highly nihilistic).
I practice a very personal spiritual practice, which has been a combination of various occult philosophies (most notably Austin Osman Spare and Peter Carrol, also Aleister Crowley, though I feel his system of Thelema has become it's own dogma through misguidance). I try to avoid customs or ritual for the sake of tradition, and try to mostly work through intention, by analyzing my own desires and trying to dissemble their psychological source. I began in late highschool by practicing a number of divination methods; tarot, and the norse runes. I've sort of fallen out of favor with using them regularly, though they comprise an integral part of my personal conceptualization methods, and I often find myself categorizing personal events or people in my life into these symbols (though I remind myself that things are much more complex than any dualistic perspective is able to attribute). I dabbled with meditation then, but didn't have the patience at the time. I like to keep my spirituality casual, yet ingrained with everyday life, a sort of modern animism.
About a year ago I stumbled upon the practice of somafera, which is a modern rediscovering of the ancient practices of the norse berserks. Ancient Scandinavian culture has always resonated with my soul in a profound way, since my heritage has always being of significance to me and I use it's mythological symbolism and the etymological prowess of the culture to help me in drawing correlations between many ideas that sometimes avoid easy interpretation. The berserks have always been of great interest to me, and always stood out when reading the sagas. An especially favorite character of mine is the Icelander Egil Skallagrimsson. Many of these sagas are autobiographical. One of the major qualities of the berserks is the personal conflict of an animal nature and the "noble" human mind. Berserks had a difficult role in society, because they were sought after for their physical prowess and were often skilled pets in their time. But due to their reckless, and unpredictable nature they were not kept around long after the battles were fought, either being payed and sent off, forced to live outside of the established society; or were killed.
The modern take on somafera is based off the assumption that we as humans can trigger certain physiological responses, like the release of adrenaline and serotonin. To me, it is simple intuition that some individuals are more prone towards these abilities, and that it would have a direct relationship towards hormone levels. The ancient reports of berserks and greek maenads seem to resemble what happens to a human when they release high levels of adrenaline; the face swells and turns a reddish purple, the skin becomes taut and hair stands on end, and strength and speed become prodigious. If the body is not used to high levels of adrenaline, one may get the shakes and the muscles will be so flooded with neural signals that movement becomes almost impossible. I personally have experienced this as a child, when becoming extremely angered or afraid.
Normally our adrenaline is only released in such a way under fight or flight stimuli. I became particularly interested in these responses after an incident I had on a large quantity of lsd, where I THOUGHT I was in mortal danger. My mind had completely forgotten that I was in fact tripping, and I took off running from imaginary pursuants only to grab the interest of REAL cops in the port authority bus terminal of New York City. My memory is not completely intact, but I do remember it taking four police officers who significantly outweighed me to restrain me (I only weigh 140lbs). The most profound part of this experience was that I was in a sense AWARE of what I was doing, but I was not in control. It was like my body was moving automatically, yet perfectly, as I was completely outmaneuvering these cops attempts to restrain my ankles and wrists. Luckily it was New Years Eve and I imagine the NYPD had bigger worries that night, as I only spent a night in Roosevelt Hospital's Crisis Center and was able to check myself out the next morning, but only after having another adrenaline surge at the hospital when a nurse came towards me with a needle of thorazine. Luckily I was completely strapped down because I thought for some reason she was trying to kill me.
On another earlier occasion I had gotten myself into trouble drunk driving (.26 BAL), where I had to be tased three times before I would comply. (I had thought I was being car-jacked)
Besides from these experiences being totally embarrassing in retrospect, because I had considered myself a cool customer before-hand, it really forced me to put my evasively reckless nature under scrutiny. So after some searching I came upon the somafera forums and began to find descriptions of what had actually happened to me. Better yet, it presented ways of recognizing signs of it happening. Though the practitioners of somafera do not claim that you can truly control this state, but through spiritual practice you can in essence EXERCISE (or exorcise?) the demon under safer circumstances. So for someone with impulse control issues such as myself, this spiritual and highly physical practice resonates perfectly. I seem to have found it at the right time because I can't really afford any more run ins with the law haha.
Instead of denying, or even fearing the primal nature within, somafera accepts it as an integral part of our nature. It's not quite for everyone, it seems to attract people with impulsive personalities. It is parallel with other spiritual practices that seek to unite one's inner darkness and light, and it seems to force it's presence onto those that seek to deny either's existence in oneself or others.
The most interesting concept expressed by more experienced somaferans is the experience of having the sympathetic (fight or flight response) system being simultaneously active with the parasympathetic nervous system (usually more active in extreme states of relaxation). They claim that this allows for near automatic response towards outward stimulus. It also allows for immediate transition between physiological states of extreme exertion and calmness; being strained to the limit with muscles completely tensed to the point of immobility, followed by a laxness that allows for fluidity. This is again, something I've only experienced while on psychedelics, it reminding me of a long hiking trip I did while on psylocibin.
Sorry if this turned into a sort of rant, I tend to lose focus and jump around. My personal experience with some of the methods in this practice have been highly beneficial however. They are slow-going, but major breakthroughs come quite randomly. Some of the major techniques behind somafera are found in many practices, but mainly they include physical exhaustion through the activation of large muscle groups (this helps to build adrenaline and serotonin levels, and makes relaxation easier following), meditation and mental calmness(this is also described to help raise one's own tolerance to adrenaline, preventing unwanted symptoms like the shivers and loss of motor control prevalent with high levels of adrenaline); also fasting is recommended when one is trying to attempt a major breakthrough (since your trying to activate to bodies sympathetic nervous system, you have to trick the body into thinking that it is in danger), another technique for raising adrenaline are back bends; basically standing on your tippy toes and arching with back, while whipping the head back (this tricks the brain into releasing adrenaline also as the spine comes under stress). Pain is also a good trigger, though the methods can be somewhat dangerous, as some somaferans actually practice burning themselves, or piercing themselves with surgical needles (either to push through into the fight or flight response, or to facilitate an event in which they must summon their para-sympathetic nervous system to stop blood-flow and increase healing to a specific area). For the previous, it's recommended that the practitioner knows something about anatomy. Also, hyperventilation is a useful technique; if you're familiar with tummo, it can be employed with a majority of dynamic exercises to enter an altered state. I also like to use cold resistance as a way to exercise mental focus and breathing techniques, for me sink or swim methods simply bring out abilities that I probably wouldn't use in the comfort of my home. The "Ice-Man" Wim Hof is a real inspiration in regards to surpassing recognized human limits and I suggest googling him if you aren't aware of him.
The link at the start of the post has loads more information, so I recommend anyone with continued interest to visit it, the author is extremely knowledge-able and able to express it in highly practical and easy to understand ways. To me somafera is a bit dangerous; both physically and spiritually, so be smart and keep your intentions clean and clear.
