The Rif??? and Sa?d? Sufi orders are known for the material ways of practicing their dhikr rituals (remembrance of God’s absolute unity and transcendence) as something they – literally and figuratively – feel in the flesh. The spiritual goal of leaving behind the multiplicity of the world to achieve ecstatic union with God is reflected in the coming together of the participants in a shared ritual context and the creation of a single ritual performance from a variety of sensual and multisensory elements. Based upon a series of ethnographic observations of these rituals in the Balkans, I will discuss the embodied practice of these charismatic feats. To celebrate Nevruz, the beginning of the New Year which coincides with the arrival of spring, the orders hold a propitiatory ritual which lasts about five hours and is extremely exacting. I will focus on the ecstatic performances with self-mortification, rendered at moments of physical and emotional arousal of the members of these Sufi communities, the material artefacts (especially the ritual weapons) and images featuring in the ritual space as well as the motivation to pierce—in such moments of intoxication— cheeks, throats, and other body parts with sharp iron pins, skewers and swords without any blood flowing. I will thereby consider the powerful dimensions of the body’s pain of these ‘rites of passage’ in the taming and domesticating of the dervishes’ own ‘animal’ or base soul (nafs), often referred to as ‘training (one’s) soul’, and the dramatic immediacy that the practice conveys to both participants and audience. The ritual activities are seen as a sign that the struggle with one’s nafs is the supreme choice. By mastering the vulnerability of the perishable physical body, the dervishes demonstrate that, in order to experience pure love, physical passions must be mitigated, overcome and mastered.