Review: Chakra Capture

I was actually planning on holding off on posting this until my usual Wednesday post; after all, I don’t want to spoil my readers with daily posts when I can’t deliver consistently. 🙂 But Lady Ru’etha happens to be holding a sale on Her CDs and MP3s, and it ends Wednesday. So I figured I’d post this now, when it might be of some use to my readers. (Also note the “Lady Ru’etha’s CDs” tag on this review; clicking it will lead you to my previous reviews of Her CDs. Oh, and note the “Realm of Bliss” link in the sidebar, which will lead you to Her website where you can buy the CDs that are on sale once you’ve read the reviews. That, um, live in the house that Jack built.)

As always, I will offer the disclosure that I am not an unbiased reviewer. I am Lady Ru’etha’s pet, and She owns me completely and has total control of my mind, waking or sleeping. I can’t resist Her suggestions, hypnotic or otherwise. This is something you will have to take into account when you read me saying wonderful things about Her hypnotic talents. However, I will also point out that the very CD I’m about to review has a hypnotic suggestion that compels honesty to Her, and I can’t resist Her hypnotic suggestions. 🙂 When She asks for a review, She gets my honest opinions. When She asks me to post a review, it’s an honest one.

And my honest review of Chakra Capture: YUM. 🙂 At least, “YUM” as far as I’m concerned; this one is a pretty intense brainwashing experience, and might not be to everyone’s tastes. That isn’t to say that She’s mean; Lady Ru’etha doesn’t do humiliation play, and She is soft and sensual and welcoming even as She completely subjugates your will. But it is about complete surrender, and you should understand that before you listen.

But if that’s your kink, you aren’t going to find a better way to indulge it than this. Lady Ru’etha explains the centers of power in your body, the different aspects of you that they control, then takes them and makes them Hers one by one. By the end, everything from your will to your voice to your sex drive belongs to Her, and you love it. (Um, especially the sex drive. It might have been a mistake to listen to this one on a day when She put me “on restriction”, if you take my meaning. I’m still squirming. 🙂 )

It’s lovely, it’s sensual, it’s imaginative (so many “progressive inductions” are just, “Ooh, look, your feet are getting sleepy. Oh, now your calves. Now your knees. Now the kneecap, oh, hang on, there’s the lower three inches of your thighs…”) If you’re looking for something that really takes your will away, without seeming scary, mean, or dangerous, this is perfect for you. My only caution is that it really will leave you wanting more.

And you know, me and my recruitment fetish would feel just terrible if I found out you became addicted to Lady Ru’etha as a result. 🙂

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Yummy Morning Hypnosis

Although to me, of course, it was “yummy evening hypnosis”. I called Lady Ru’etha before I went to bed (one of my many duties is to be Her human alarm clock. It works pretty well, although it worked better before She installed “snooze” as a trance trigger.)

(You think I’m joking…)

Anyhow, I called to wake Her up, and She woke up feeling quite mischievous. After a few minutes of quiet conversation and phone-snuggling, She hypnotized me, and we had a very lovely tranceplay session that I don’t entirely remember. 🙂 I do remember that She took away my ability to say anything other than “Yes, Goddess,” at one point. There’s something so magnificently erotic about being unable to respond with anything but “Yes, Goddess.” Every time She would tell me something, I had to agree, because I didn’t have any other words except “Yes, Goddess.” I was absolutely helpless to resist Her, because the only thing I knew how to say was “Yes, Goddess.”

By the end, I was shouting it quite loudly. 🙂

It was such a delightful session that when Lady Ru’etha suggested I immortalize it with a blog post, I leapt to comply at once. In fact, I’m sure you can guess what I said to Her. 🙂

Hypnosis and Tantra

Another one of the many many many fantastic experiences I had at Dark Odyssey this year involved Tantra; I’ll probably need to dole this out piecemeal over the course of a few posts, because it’s kind of a big topic to get into, but I’ll start by explaining what Tantra is for those who have only heard of it as “that thing that lets Sting have sex for, like, seven hours”. (Obvious and immediate disclaimer: I am not an expert on Tantra. I am, in fact, about as far away from being an expert as you can be, having only spent parts of a weekend fiddling around with it. I not only accept, but encourage correction on anything I get wrong here.)

Contrary to popular belief, Tantra really isn’t about sex. It’s a religious philosophy that involves sex, and that’s kind of made it “about sex” in Western culture because to us, religion and sex tend to be such polar opposites that when a religious practice involves sex, we kind of tend to focus on it to the exclusion of all else. 🙂 But it’s basically a philosophy that believes that the god Shiva and the goddess Shakti are constantly providing the universe with energy through their lovemaking, and that you can use rituals to evoke and channel that energy yourself. (Or with your partner/s.)

But lovemaking doesn’t just mean “sex”. This is where Sting got all tripped up. 🙂 Tantric lovemaking involves focusing on the moment, really being aware of your partner and doing more than just, um, thrusting and grunting, as it were. The first hour of lovemaking could be something as simple as staring into each other’s eyes, or touching each other’s hands and focusing on the feeling of their skin against yours. The point is that you build arousal slowly, and you let it build for a long time, in order to achieve an altered state of consciousness and touch the divine.

Apart from all the divine stuff, this should sound pretty familiar to readers of my blog. 🙂 I’m actually something of a skeptic, and not a very religious person; my general spiritual leanings run along a spectrum from “lapsed Catholic” to “Catholic heretic” to “deist” to “agnostic” to “atheist”, depending on my state of mind. But Douglas Adams wrote a very good essay (reprinted in ‘The Salmon of Doubt’) about separating the literal aspects of a belief from the philosophy that underpins it, and since reading it, I’ve tried to keep an open mind about esoteric teachings (while trying not to keep an empty one.)

Even so, I’ll admit that I was a little bit nervous going into Dark Odyssey. Lady Ru’etha had told me She wanted to try Tantra, and I was willing to give it a go, but I really wasn’t sure if I’d find anything of value to it…and I was worried that She’d be upset if I couldn’t see what was so fascinating about it to Her. But as always, I’m game for anything She wants me to try. (Thank God She hasn’t asked me to eat escargots.)

As it turned out, I was worried about nothing. The philosophy of Tantra translates very well to my experiences with hypnosis. It’s all about achieving a state of focus and altered consciousness, and experiencing a profound and mystical connection to the divine as a result. This is all very familiar to me from being hypnotized, perhaps even moreso than the usual hypnotic subject because so much of my tranceplay with Lady Ru’etha is erotic. Basically, I found out that I’ve been doing Tantra all along. They just have different words for everything. 🙂

Formative Experiences: Chris Claremont and John Byrne

It’s actually something of a running gag of mine that Chris Claremont reads my stories and even follows my blog every week; he’s just afraid to admit how much of a mind-control fetishist he clearly is. 🙂 And he’s managed to pass the meme on quite effectively over his time as a comics writer and artist, as has his sometime-collaborator and sometime-very-much-not-so John Byrne. (For those of you very much into the hypnosis and not so much into the comics, Byrne has what seems to be an entirely one-sided feud with his former X-Men collaborator, based on differing opinions of how to handle the characters during their run together…and on the fact that Claremont stayed on the book for twelve years after Byrne left, ensuring that his vision wound up being the definitive one.)

To list the various hypnosis, brainwashing, and general mind-control storylines of these two authors would probably take ages. Name a female comics character, Marvel or DC, and if they’ve had the chance, they’ve had her brainwashed. Tigra wore a mind-control collar in Marvel Team-Up, the Invisible Woman was brainwashed into becoming Malice, Mistress of Hate (complete with leather fetish gear outfit), Colleen Wing got mindwiped into a harem girl, and as for the X-Men…sheesh, who hasn’t been brainwashed? Psylocke wound up being turned into a sexy assassin, Kitty Pryde was transformed into a sexy ninja, Rogue got enthralled by Brood pheromones, Storm got hypnotized by Dracula…

But of course, the most famous of all the X-MC storylines was the Dark Phoenix Saga, which pretty much tied up every single one of the duo’s kinks into one package. At the time, Jean Grey’s telekinesis had been ramped up to nigh-godly levels of power, making her one of the most powerful super-heroes on Earth. But over the course of several issues, she started having flashbacks to a past life in the 1800s, one where she was a decadent and wealthy wife to a powerful land-owner named Jason Wyngarde. The flashbacks grew more frequent and more intense as time went by, until eventually she lost herself to them completely.

But in fact, the “past life” never existed. The illusion-caster known as Mastermind, with the help of the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, was projecting his thoughts into her mind. When she thought she was indulging in a kinky, debauched lifestyle with her collection of slaves, she was actually beating the crap out of her fellow X-Men…while wearing a black leather bustier, to boot. The number of young minds warped by this story have to measure in the tens of thousands. 🙂

Eventually, of course, the X-Men broke her free, but she went berserk as the dark side of her personality was unleashed by the temptations Jason had offered her. Lots of stuff happened, but most of it has been retconned, so even if I wanted to offer spoilers, it wouldn’t make much sense to anyone who doesn’t have a yen for the bizarre convolutions that comic-book history can take. Suffice to say that it turned out never to have really been Jean Grey to begin with. Oh, and that she wound up getting cloned and the clone got corrupted by demonic magic into becoming the Goblyn Queen, who wore a skin-tight body-stocking with lots of bits missing. Not that Claremont has a fetish or anything.

The two of them have also done some work in prose; John Byrne’s “Whipping Boy”, though out of print, is pretty easy to find and is one long, almost-non-stop mind control fetish fest. I remember reading it during puberty…remember it quite vividly, actually.

So if you’re reading this, Chris and John…thanks for making me the writer I am today. And don’t worry, you don’t need to leave a comment. 🙂

Being Green

Today, I’d like to…um, pretend that it’s still Wednesday, when this post was supposed to go up. I can do that, right? 🙂

But seriously, today, I’d like to talk about a subject that’s near and dear to my heart–BDSM. I’m only a couple weeks back from the wonderfully overwhelming experience that is every year’s Dark Odyssey, and my thoughts are still somewhat turned towards a mix of BDSM and hypnosis rather than purely the latter, so I figured I’d have a little chat about an often-neglected tool in a dominant’s toolbox. (And no, it’s not nipple clips. No, not rope, either. No, not the dildo–I said “often-neglected”, people! How often does a dominant neglect the fur-lined handcuffs?)

That tool is the word “green”. Its counterparts, “yellow” and “red” are ones that just about everyone in the BDSM scene is familiar with, even if they hope never to use them; “yellow” is the common code for, “Something’s wrong here and you need to put things on hold while we figure out what it is,” and “red” is the common code for, “I’m freaking out/in genuine pain/losing circulation to my hands and we need to stop the scene right now and let me go.” These are important, necessary tools for conducting BDSM, and with very few exceptions, any dominant who insists that they don’t need them is a douchebag. (If you think you’re one of the exceptions, you’re probably not.)

But a lot of people never really think to use “green” as a code for “Whatever you’re doing right now is wonderful, and I love it, and I would like this to be a regular part of our play together!” Which is a shame, because one of the big secrets of being a top is that dominants aren’t really filled with god-like wisdom and a perfect, innate sense of what it is that will make their submissive whimper in delight. (Except Lady Ru’etha, of course. 🙂 ) Dominants are always expected to be the one to come up with ideas about what to do, and a lot of the time, they’re winging it. Giving them positive feedback is a huge plus.

This isn’t the same thing as “topping from the bottom”, of course. That’s the wonderful thing about it. “Green” isn’t demanding or pushy; it’s just an expression of sheer, unmitigated bliss at whatever the dominant is doing to you at that moment. Your dominant can use it as a baseline, something they can go back to when they want to without surrendering control of the scene to the person being whipped/flogged/spanked/tied up/insert kinky thing here. Or there. Or…oh, goodness, will it even fit there? 🙂

In my particular case, Lady Ru’etha has literally installed a post-hypnotic command in my brain forcing me to say “green” when She finds something I like. The word just slips out all on its own, and She has said many times how much easier it is for Her to top me after She installed that trigger. Because She doesn’t have to guess at what I like from body language, She knows. It’s like a road-map to my brain. (She’s even made sure I know the sign language for “green”, “yellow” and “red” just in case I can’t speak for one reason or another. Which isn’t to say that it’s perfect…one of the workshops at Dark Odyssey left Her in the dark because everything She was doing to me felt so good that my hand was permanently locked on “green” for a solid 90 minutes, and I was way too blissed-out to talk. Of course, neither of us really minded the imperfect communication there. 🙂 )

So remember to encourage your subs to use “green” when you’re topping them. Or if you are a sub, try to use “green” when your dominant finds something you like, and be ready to explain why you’re moaning it out to them. 🙂 Because sometimes when it comes to BDSM, “go” is just as important as “stop”. Heck, maybe even moreso!

Overloaded

It’s been an overwhelming week, here; I feel like I’ve been somewhat whiplashed. I haven’t, actually…there was some light bondage and hypno-play, but no flogging…but emotionally, it’s been an intense week. 🙂

I spent this last weekend at Dark Odyssey, as mentioned in last week’s entry. It’s going to be a while, I think, before I’ve sorted out what I want to post here and what’s going to filter its way into my stories where the fig leaf of fiction can cover up the bits I blush to talk about; suffice to say, though, that it was a wonderful, emotional experience that brought me a lot closer to Lady Ru’etha…and for those of you who know us, you might be surprised that this was possible. 🙂

We also took a little field trip and had a lovely dinner with Wiseguy, who is a great host and an excellent cook; I always enjoy visiting with him, and I hope he enjoyed having us over.

And then, of course, we got home to the news that blankpage had died. I didn’t know him as well as Lady Ru’etha did; the timing of some of his health problems meant that I was getting to know Her at around the point where he was drifting out of Her life. But I knew him well enough to be sad at his tragic, untimely loss. Coming right at the start of my last big, extended absence from my Lady, it’s combined to make things a little rough. We’re both doing alright (for the most part), but any sympathy and comfort that you can spare Her is appreciated. (Me, I always feel better knowing my Lady is being looked after.) She has written a very moving tribute to blankpage that can be found here.

Oh, and Lady Ru’etha turned in Her notice at Her day job yesterday to become a full-time hypnoDomme. Which is awesome. 🙂 On the whole, an emotionally intense week. When I’ve processed it fully, I hope to be able to talk about it more.