Interview with Sheer Zed: Thai Tattoo Magick

In this interview, we speak with writer, musician, and Buddhist shaman Sheer Zed about his book Thai Tattoo Magick: The Initiatory Practices of the Thai Buddhist Magicians. Drawing from four transformative journeys through Thailand, Zed explores the sacred world of Sak Yant tattoos, Buddhist ritual practices, spirit work, and personal initiation. Blending memoir, mysticism, and cultural exploration, the book offers a rare firsthand look into the traditions of Thai magick and the spiritual path that reshaped his life. The conversation dives into ritual tattooing, healing through initiation, the role of Ajarns, and the deeper meaning behind sacred symbols and spiritual transformation.

Your book frames Sak Yant and Thai ritual practice not just as cultural artifacts, but as deeply transformative initiatory experiences. What first drew you toward Thai magick on a personal level?

Sak Yant are medicine. Sak Yant are magickal software for the hardware of the body. They have magickal functionality with various seen and unseen effects that work singularly or in tandem with each other (if you have more than one design yantra). The transformation comes not when the tattoo is first implemented, the resplendent visceral vision of a pictorial life force existing on your skin, but later when you have processed the deep and hidden meanings encrypted within the design, almost as if through osmosis. The ink slowly seeps into your body and ends up in the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes filter harmful substances, such as bacteria and virus. They produce lymphocytes, which are essential for fighting infections and diseases. Yes, tattoo ink can migrate into the lymphatic system. After a tattoo is applied, some of the ink particles are carried away by blood vessels and the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system’s detoxification process mirrors spiritual purification, helping to release negative energies and promoting mental clarity. The way that the Sak Yant connects to your psyche and how it shapes your mind is the place where transformation truly takes place. The thing that first drew me into Thai magick is simply put into one word…Coil. While living in Somerset I came across the album If You Can’t Please Yourself You Can’t Please Your Soul in my local record store Acorn Records in Yeovil. It was released on the Some Bizzare label in 1985. It changed my life. It got me into a core selection of Industrial music affiliated groups. Coil was one of them. I was enchanted by Coil; their sound, their rituals, their ascetics and direction. One direction I found to be of great interest was their journeying to Thailand, either as a holiday destination or in Peter Christopherson’s case as a home and final resting place. My book references Coil throughout, as it should, because without them I wouldn’t be here chatting with you now. Peter Christopherson’s fascination with “temple tattooing”, which was not fully realised into film as he originally intended, became my starting point.

You describe undergoing rituals that were physically painful, psychologically intense, and spiritually destabilizing. Was there a moment during your pilgrimages when you seriously questioned continuing the path?

Yes, the pathway of unfolding can sometimes be troubled, shocking or unimaginable. Pain becomes the pilgrimage and the pilgrimage thus becomes pain. We move through these ordeals to bathe in the liminal waters of transfiguration or ultimately metamorphosis. Even before and during the earliest moments of my pilgrimages I questioned myself and the situations I had deliberately placed myself into with considerable depth and circumspection. One moment saw me actually thinking about catching a taxi and heading back to the airport in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. Such was the intense way that my frail ego and my so called identity was being confronted. Each moment became a question. When Ajarn Apichai blew a huge fireball onto me while I quivered underneath a sheet I questioned my pathway. When I received the Yant Soi Sangwan, often referred to as the “Sacred Chain” or “Divine Necklace” yantra from Ajarn Daeng I questioned myself as the needle repeatedly hit my upper chest bone through the ultra-thin skin. When I acquired the Suea Yen Sak Yant from Ajarn Tui, falling into a trance, experiencing the raw and naked power of the spirit of the tiger entering into me, I questioned myself. No matter what you do and no matter where you are there will always be the noble doubt sitting quietly in the background. Such is the nature of existence. We are all questions. Life and its vast and slow unfolding is the answer.

The book blends autobiography, occult study, grief narrative, and travel writing. Did you always envision Thai Tattoo Magick as a personal memoir, or did it evolve into that during the writing process? 

My book is a living multi-dimensional creature, an entity if you will, inhabiting various spaces simultaneously. It is a magickal text that embodies the qualities you’ve described while maintaining its own singular voice, existing in a kind of literary hyperspace. And yet as you say it is a memoir, a subgenre of an autobiography that focuses on a specific theme, time period, or series of events in my life, rather than attempting to tell the story of my entire life. It is also a resource, a history, a repository of magick and documentation of the time it was written in. Writing itself is an act of magick. Some may view text as an attempt to capture the nature of reality—words are spectral figures that sometimes delight in playing tricks. Writing is indeed a process, but what matters is the nature of that process and how you navigate it. One must loyally adhere to one’s original vision while still interfacing meaningfully and
diplomatically with their publisher. Not an easy balance to uphold, especially when one is being published by such a revered and fabulous international house like Inner Traditions. During my pilgrimages, I travelled extensively and made copious field notes. I recorded my magickal experiences every single day. These notes are the bedrock foundation of my book.

Many Western discussions of Sak Yant focus only on aesthetics or celebrity culture. What misconceptions about Thai tattoo magick were you most interested in correcting through this book?

Observation is a highly underrated pastime. I observed while I was in Thailand. I actively and wholeheartedly participated in the magickal rituals of Thailand. Watching, listening, experiencing and recording. I recorded lots of sound while I was in Thailand too. It is a country that has its own very special sounds. The rain sounds only like Thai rain. The Western mind has long struggled to truly embrace and accurately perceive Eastern cultures. This is not a new phenomenon, but a persistent historical foible: the tendency to project our own frameworks onto realities that operate by entirely different logics. Even those who have resided in Thailand for years often fall into this trap, mistaking the surface of what they see for the depth of what is actually there. They interpret the familiar shadows cast by foreign light, failing to grasp the unique contours of the culture itself. It’s a little like owning and treasuring a Dalek when one in fact should have a Mobile Suit Gundam instead. Recently, while speaking at Watkins Books in London, a gentleman approached me afterwards. He spoke of his life in Thailand, using the charged word ‘appropriation’ at one point. He felt there was a ‘glass ceiling’ for foreigners, a barrier he could not breach. I listened, then shared that
my connection to Thai culture was not one of tourism or study, but of faith. Thailand is a Buddhist nation, and I am a practicing Buddhist. My closeness to my teachers and friends there is built on a foundation of faith—a concept that, in some quarters, is viewed with suspicion or dismissed as a ‘dirty word.’ Yet, I hold fast to it. I had no desire to correct him or debate the semantics of his experience. My intention while in Thailand was simply to observe
correctly—to see without prejudice or malice. We all view the world through our own unique optics, after all, often seeing only what we believe we see. In that moment, I chose to trust that my path, rooted in faith, allowed me to see what others might miss.

You write about experiences involving necromancy, spirit contact, and trance states. How do you approach communicating these experiences to sceptical readers without diluting their intensity?

There is a specific quality to phenomena that eludes the rigid grasp of definition. They dwell in the subtle, the robust, and the ephemeral moments that catch us in the corner of our vision. They arise and fall, transient as smoke. In the quantum world, we accept that the atom behaves differently when observed than when left alone; the observer is part of the equation.
Is it not reasonable to suspect that the supernatural operates under a similar law? That the very act of seeking to define it might alter its nature? I have recorded these events to the best of my capacity, preserving them as faithfully as memory allows. Do not hesitate to be sceptical. Apply Occam’s Razor; let it be the blade that cuts away the impossible, leaving only the logical. It is a noble pursuit to seek simplicity. But in the end, the razor may only cut
away our own doubts, leaving the mystery still intact. I recorded what I saw and what happened to me, not to convince, but to observe and witness. The rest is for you to decide.

The relationship between Buddhism and magick in Thailand is much more “intertwined” than many outsiders realize. What did studying with Ajarns teach you about the difference between Western occultism and Thai Buddhist ritual traditions? 

With respect it is not intertwined. It is literally a fused and hybridised myriad of influences on a genetic level that would be practically impossible to draw out, identify and examine in a single interview. Yes, each region in Thailand has its own very special flavour but that flavour is in turn influenced by hundreds if not thousands of years of various ingredients placed subtly into it. The cities have one way. The countryside another. The Ajarns taught me many things which at some points go beyond comprehension. To articulate it here and now would be to partly destroy what I experienced. My book humbly offers up the personal interactions I had with these sublime masters. Western occultism is founded on a tradition of syncretism, constantly absorbing and adapting elements from Egypt, Greece, Rome, Judaism, Christianity, and the Islamic Golden Age to create a system focused on the transformation of the self and the manipulation of hidden forces. Thai Buddhist ritual traditions form a complex, living tapestry woven from the threads of orthodox Buddhism, indigenous animism, shamanism and folklore, Hindu cosmology, and Brahmanical rites. At their heart lies the cultivation of merit, the alleviation of suffering, and the harmonization of the self with the cosmic order, prioritizing spiritual alignment over the domination of external forces. Within this intricate landscape exists the realms of dark magick often associated with the manipulation of spirits to inflict harm, curse enemies, or induce madness. Ultimately magick is just magick in Thailand. It’s tool for construction or destruction. Unlike the mainstream path of liberation, which seeks to dissolve the ego, dark magick operates on a principle of intense, often selfish will, harnessing malevolent entities to bend reality to the practitioner’s desire. Karma still plays its part, no matter what an Ajarn says or does while utilising dark magick. If you use dark magick you take a hit yourself. Guaranteed. This duality reflects a profound cultural realism: the same spiritual framework that offers healing amulets and protective chants also harbours the knowledge of how to weaponize the unseen. While the majority of practitioners strive for the purity of the Dhamma, the existence of the darker magick serves as a stark reminder that in the Thai spiritual imagination, the cosmos is not merely a place of light, but a battlefield where the forces of good and evil, merit and malice, are in constant, dynamic tension. The Western path often ascends outward to conquer the unknown; the Thai path turns inward to transcend from the self which is in fact an illusion.

Grief and personal loss seem to function as catalysts throughout the book, especially regarding the deaths of your parents. Did these rituals help you process mourning in ways conventional spirituality or therapy could not? 

Yes, Thai magick is an excellent medium for healing and processing all kinds of deep seated trauma. Grief has indeed been an undeniable force and catalyst that has propelled me in my pilgrimages to Thailand. As I have mentioned previously Sak Yant tattooing is a form of profound visual medicine. Unlike the entertaining machinations of the third season of The White Lotus where the commodification of spirituality is ruthlessly satirized by showing shallow Westerners consuming Eastern spirituality like a product on a spa menu, my personal experiences were another world away from this kind of TV spectacle. The rituals I went through were sequestered, magickal, authentic, in off the beaten track places and very unique.

Your background in underground music and counterculture appears throughout the book alongside references to chaos magick, Beat writers, and artists like Aleister Crowley and Gary Snyder. How did those influences shape your understanding of ritual and transformation? 

Music has played an extremely important part in my understanding. It would be the single most important influence if I were to be completely honest with you. The deity for music and Buddhist scripture in Burma/Myanmar and Thailand Mae Surasatee was also calling me long before I realised she existed. She called to me all the way from Thailand. I kid you not. A medium identified this sublime and precious goddess before my first pilgrimage. She came out of the shadows and beckoned me to come over to seek her out. She is now tattooed onto my back twice. She is everything to me. I praise her every day. She lives inside all music. Music is her very blood, her bones, her skin. She is the electricity that amplifies speakers. She crushes the ego and screams in an exquisite volume that flattens any negativity or hatred. Mae Surasatee is a goddess of sound. I’ve been listening to her divine presence unbeknownst to me throughout my entire life. Music is all.

One of the most striking ideas in the book is the notion that tattoos are living spiritual technologies rather than symbolic artwork. How did your understanding of the body change through receiving these Sak Yants?

Sak Yant are magickal technology which carry multiple meanings of which only the Ajarn knows the true and sacred meaning of. All tattoos to some extent are imbued with a form of magick. Tattooing has been around for an incredibly long of time. Sak Yant are highly unique because they are constructed from various forms of script which are then embedded into the framework of yantra (a diagrammatic machine or contraption), which may or may not include magick squares, animistic representations of entities or other extraordinary figurative manifestations. The body can highly benefit from the right Sak Yant at precisely the right placement on the body. I’ve learned that through conscious magickal working the body and thus the psyche can be reprogrammed to exhibit any manner of attributes. When someone adds something to the body in an unconscious or unthinking manner it can alter and change not just the body but also the mind. This is why it is absolutely essential that anyone thinking about acquiring Sak Yant should do so only from someone who is a totally qualified and authentic master of this form of tattooing. With respect a regular tattoo artist cannot do this extremely unique form of tattooing. You wouldn’t get an unqualified electrician who doesn’t understand the complexities of electricity to rewire your home would you? Of course not.

During your travels, how did you navigate the ethical tension between being a sincere initiate and being a Western outsider entering sacred traditions that are often misunderstood or exoticized?

Being mindful and watching my breathing at all times helped me to stay calm. Mindfulness is a way of avoiding one’s opinionatedness and any form of personal pretensions. Yes, there were times I lost the plot. The pressure of being in an alien environment can cause mental ill health which is why it is critically important to fully prepare oneself before venturing into this kind of environment. Western seekers often bring their own economic privilege that can distort local practices or create unequal power dynamics within traditional communities. There’s also a persistent risk of commodifying sacred practices, turning living traditions into plasticised consumable products rather than honouring their spiritual depth. Foreigners frequently struggle with the idea of humility and find it difficult to recognize that their perspective is inherently limited compared to the generational knowledge of the traditional Wicha (knowledge) holders. It’s a fine line to walk but not impossible. Just be nice. 

The “Cool Tiger” Sak Yant and other rituals in the book are described almost as identity-altering experiences. Did you feel these rites permanently changed your personality or worldview afterward?

 The person that got onto the plane for eight separate times over a period of seven years is not the same person which types these words. That person at the beginning is long dead. That person has gone. The hard drive was wiped. Only microscopic artifacts of that former self now remain. I am now with the tiger and the tiger is with me. Yes, I do feel the changes. I feel the spirits pouring into me and engorging my isness. I feel the cosmos absorbing my psyche. I feel the rites still reverberating in my daily life. I feel I was destroyed and reborn.

After four pilgrimages and years immersed in Thai magick, what do you think people in the modern West are most spiritually hungry for — and why do you think traditions like Sak Yant resonate so strongly today? 

Most sane humans ultimately seek deep and meaningful personal gnosis, connecting to and embodying the personification of otherness without having to become monsters to do so. Space is our spiritual destiny. On earth we are just simply preparing and rehearsing for the inevitable and that is the expansion of our species into the outer realms. Hopefully we won’t kill each other or destroy our planet before doing so. Practice respect here on earth and embody it in cosmic space. Sak Yant bridges ancient mysticism and a modern longing for meaningfulness by transforming the body into a living sacred shrine. Ultimately, it offers a bridge to ancient wisdom and a sense of belonging and devotional commitment to a lineage and faith, provided it is approached with genuine respect rather than being just a mere fad or trendy accoutrement. People seek the protection and nourishment that Sak Yant give. It is only by being completely devoted to a spiritual pathway can we fully accept these precious gifts. You get out of it what you put into it.