This article's core idea is that body modification can be seen as a nonstandard symbolic expression of a long-standing project of the enlightenment: to control human destiny, with the dream of conquering death. This idea is based on experimentally validated tenet of existential psychology that the denial of death is one of humanity's deepest motivations. The first highlights a common denominator in the articles by Pitts-Taylor, Sullivan, and Knafo: they courageously oppose the knee-jerk reaction that body modification necessarily entails giving in to social or gender pressure. Instead each proposes refined psychodynamic hypotheses. Knafo's analysis of body artist Orlan is taken as the starting point for an elaboration of this cultural phenomenon as a reflection of the denial of death.