Trance

The Oracle at Delphi was famous for her divinatory trances throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Oil painting, John Collier, 1891

Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the directions of the person (if any) who has induced the trance. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.

The term trance may be associated with hypnosis, meditation, magic, flow, prayer, and altered states of consciousness.

Etymology

Trance in its modern meaning comes from an earlier meaning of "state of extreme dread or suspense," or "a half-conscious or insensible condition, state of insensibility to mundane things," via the Old French transe "fear of coming evil," from transir "be numb with fear," originally "die, pass on," from Latin transire "cross over, go over, pass over, hasten over, pass away."

Historical examples

Trance states have been recorded in numerous cultures throughout history, with a variety of interpretations.

Sleep temples

Sleep temples in Ancient Greece were called Asclepieions, built in honor of Asclepios the Greek god of medicine. According to Hoffman (1998: p. 10), pilgrims visited the Temple of Epidaurus, an asclepeion, in Greece for healing sleep. Seekers of healing would make pilgrimage and be received by a priest who would welcome and bless them. This temple housed an ancient religious ritual promoting dreams in the seeker that endeavored to promote healing and the solutions to problems, as did the oracles. This temple was built in honor of Asclepios, the Greek god of medicine. The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation, and focused on prayers to Asclepios for healing. The asclepion at Epidaurus is both extensive and well-preserved, and is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Asclepius. The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation and focused on prayers to Asclepios for healing. These sleep chambers were filled with snakes, the symbol of the rod of Asclepios, the serpent-entwined rod that symbolizes medicine to this day.

In Egypt, sleep temples (also known as dream temples) functioned as hospitals, healing a variety of ailments, perhaps many of them psychological in nature. Patients were taken to an unlit chamber to sleep and be treated for their specific ailment.The treatment involved chanting, placing the patient into a trance-like or hypnotic state, and analyzing their dreams in order to determine treatment. Meditation, fasting, baths, and sacrifices to the patron deity or other spirits were often involved as well.

Divination

Divination is a cultural universal which anthropologists have observed as being present in many religions and cultures in all ages up to the present day (see sibyl). ^{[citation needed]} Divination may be defined as a mechanism for fortune-telling by ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency. Divination often entails ritual, and is often facilitated by trance.

In Tibet, oracles have played, and continue to play, an important part in religion and government. The word oracle is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit, deity or entity that enters those men and women who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms. The media are, therefore, known as kuten, which literally means, "the physical basis".

The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, still consults an oracle known as the Nechung Oracle, which is considered the official state oracle of the government of Tibet. He gives a complete description of the process of trance and possession in his book Freedom in Exile.

The Oracle at Delphi was also famous for trances in the ancient Greek world; priestesses there would make predictions about the future in exchange for gold.

Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American psychic who could channel answers to questions on many spiritual topics, including history, astrology, and health. Most of his work consisted of diagnosing and prescribing cures for individuals with physical ailments. These readings involved many alternative health concepts and practices. He performed the readings while in a self-induced trance state. When he awoke from trance, he remembered nothing, and thus, he is commonly referred to as "The Sleeping Prophet."

"Trance mediumship" is often seen as a form of mental mediumship. Most trance mediums remain conscious during a communication period, wherein a spirit uses the medium's mind to communicate. The spirit or spirits using the medium's mind influences the mind with the thoughts being conveyed. The medium allows the ego to step aside for the message to be delivered. At the same time, one has awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with one's own bias. Such a trance is not to be confused with sleepwalking, as the patterns are entirely different. Castillo (1995) states,

Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in the brain.

In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums were very popular. Spiritualism generally attracted female adherents, many who had strong interests in social justice. Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage. Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of the most famous trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism.

In the typical deep trance, the medium may not have clear recall of all the messages conveyed while in an altered state; such people generally work with an assistant. That person selectively wrote down or otherwise recorded the medium's words. Rarely did the assistant record the responding words of the sitter and other attendants. An example of this kind of relationship can be found in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under the statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones. The latter was a non-medium Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand. He edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form.

• Trance states have also long been used by shamans, mystics, and fakirs in healing rituals, being particularly cultivated in some religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism. Australian shamanism has been observed.

Oral lore and storytelling

Stories of the saints in the Middle Ages, myths, parables, fairy tales, oral lore and storytelling from different cultures are themselves potentially inducers of trance. Often literary devices such as repetition are employed which is evident in many forms of trance induction. Milton Erickson used stories to induce trance as do many NLP practitioners.

Mysticism and religious ecstasy

As the mystical experience of mystics generally entails direct connection, communication and communion with the divine; trance and cognate experience are endemic. (see Yoga, Sufism, Shaman, Umbanda, Crazy Horse, etc.)

File:Giuseppe Bazzani - The Ecstasy of St Therese - WGA01527.jpg

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Giuseppe Bazzani.

Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional (and sometimes physical) euphoria.

Although the experience is usually brief in time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during one's lifetime.

In Sufism, the term is referred to as wajad and the experience is referred to as either jazbah (jadbah o jedbah for Maghreb) or majzoobiyat.

Mysticism involves an explanatory context, which provides meaning for mystical and visionary experiences, and related experiences like trances. According to Dan Merkur, mysticism may relate to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness, and the ideas and explanations related to them. Parsons stresses the importance of distinguishing between temporary experiences and mysticism as a process, which is embodied within a "religious matrix" of texts and practices.Parsons: "...episodic experience and mysticism as a process that, though surely punctuated by moments of visionary, unitive, and transformative encounters, is ultimately inseparable from its embodied relation to a total religious matrix: liturgy, scripture, worship, virtues, theology, rituals, practice and the arts.}} Richard Jones does the same. Peter Moore notes that mystical experience may also happen in a spontaneous and natural way, to people who are not committed to any religious tradition. These experiences are not necessarily interpreted in a religious framework. Ann Taves asks by which processes experiences are set apart and deemed religious or mystical.

The religious ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila of the Carmelite Order.

The adjective "religious" means that the experience occurs in connection with religious activities or is interpreted in context of a religion. Journalist Marghanita Laski writes in her study "Ecstasy in Religious and Secular Experiences", first published in 1961:

"Epithets are very often applied to mystical experiences including ecstasies without, apparently, any clear idea about the distinctions that are being made. Thus we find experiences given such names as nature, religious, aesthetic, neo-platonic, etc.. experiences, where in some cases the name seems to derive from a trigger, sometimes from the over belief.

Ancient

Yoga provides techniques to attain an ecstasy state called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various stages of ecstasy, the highest being Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Bhakti Yoga especially, places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice.

In Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are eight states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are Rupa or, materially-oriented. The next four are Arupa or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation. In Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and not all individuals are able to accomplish it at all.

In the Dionysian Mysteries of ancient Greece, initiates used intoxicants, ecstatic dance and music to remove inhibitions and social constraints.

Modern

Modern meditator experiences in the Thai Forest Tradition, as well as other Theravadan traditions, demonstrates that this effort and rarity is necessary only to become completely immersed in the absorptions and experience no other sensations. It is possible to experience the absorptions in a less intense state with much less practice.

In the monotheistic tradition, ecstasy is usually associated with communion and oneness with God. However, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them. Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states (such as "being slain in the Spirit") and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit. The firewalkers of Greece dance themselves into a state of ecstasy at the annual Anastenaria, when they believe themselves under the influence of Saint Constantine.

Historically, large groups of individuals have experienced religious ecstasies during periods of Christian revivals, to the point of causing controversy as to the origin and nature of these experiences. In response to claims that all emotional expressions of religious ecstasy were attacks on order and theological soundness from the Devil, Jonathan Edwards published his influential Treatise on Religious Affections. Here, he argues, religious ecstasy could come from oneself, the Devil, or God, and it was only by observing the fruit, or changes in inner thought and behaviour, that one could determine if the religious ecstasy had come from God.

File:Rose de Lima par Thibaud Maistrier - Saint Exupère à Toulouse.jpg

St. Rose of Lima who was canonised in 1671, 54 years after her death.

In modern Pentecostal, charismatic and spirit-filled Christianity, numerous examples of religious ecstasy have transpired, similar to historic revivals. These occurrences however, have changed significantly since the time of the Toronto Blessing phenomena and several other North American so-called revivals and outpourings from the mid 1990s. From that time, religious ecstasy in these movements has been characterized by increasingly unusual behaviors that are understood by adherents to be the anointing of the holy spirit and evidence of God's "doing a new work". One of the most controversial and strange examples is that of spiritual birthing  – a practice during which women, and at times even men, claim to be having actual contractions of the womb while they moan and retch as though experiencing childbirth. It is said to be a prophetic action bringing spiritual blessings from God into the world. Many believe spiritual birthing to be highly demonic in nature and more occult-like than Christian. Religious ecstasy in these Christian movements has also been witnessed in the form of squealing, shrieking, an inability to stand or sit, uttering apocalyptic prophecies, holy laughter, crying and barking. Some people have made dramatic claims of sighting "gold dust", "angel feathers", "holy clouds", or the spontaneous appearance of precious gem stones during ecstatic worship events. Others have claimed to have received spontaneous gold tooth fillings. The Range Christian Fellowship in the conservative Australian city of Toowoomba demonstrates such displays of religious ecstasy on an almost weekly basis. In addition to all the above, worshippers there also use textile banners and during moments of religious ecstasy believe these banners carry special powers of "anointing" as a result of divinely inspired artwork.

The Ecstasy of St. Catherine of Siena by Pompeo Batoni.

In hagiography (writings about Christian saints) many instances are recorded in which saints are granted ecstasies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia religious ecstasy (called "supernatural ecstasy") includes two elements: one, interior and invisible, in which the mind rivets its attention on a religious subject, and another, corporeal and visible, in which the activity of the senses is suspended, reducing the effect of external sensations upon the subject and rendering him or her resistant to awakening. The witnesses of a Marian apparition often describe experiencing these elements of ecstasy.

Modern Witchcraft traditions may define themselves as "ecstatic traditions", and focus on reaching ecstatic states in their rituals. The Reclaiming Tradition and the Feri Tradition are two modern ecstatic Witchcraft examples.

As described by the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known in Sufism as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: "[M]asts are desperately in love with God – or consumed by their love for God. Masts do not suffer from what may be called a disease. They are in a state of mental disorder because their minds are overcome by such intense spiritual energies that are far too much for them, forcing them to lose contact with the world, shed normal human habits and customs, and civilized society and live in a state of spiritual splendor but physical squalor. They are overcome by an agonizing love for God and are drowned in their ecstasy. Only the divine love embodied in a Perfect Master can reach them."

Shaman

According to Dan Merkur, shamanism may be regarded as a form of mysticism, in which the world of spirits is accessed through religious ecstasy. According to Mircea Eliade shamanism is a "technique of religious ecstasy."

Shamanism involves a practitioner reaching an altered state of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with spirits, and channel transcendental energies into this world. A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into trance during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

Neoshamanism refers to "new"' forms of shamanism, or methods of seeking visions or healing, typically practiced in Western countries. Neoshamanism comprises an eclectic range of beliefs and practices that involve attempts to attain altered states and communicate with a spirit world, and is associated with New Age practices.

Notable individuals or movements

• Montanism, a prophetic Christian sect of the 2nd century, founded by Montanus and two female colleagues, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maximilla, who attained ecstatic visions through fasting and prayer.
• Alexander Scriabin, late 19th century Russian composer and pianist who intended his music to induce religious ecstasy.
• Anastenaria
• Thomas Aquinas experienced an ecstasy during a church-service towards the end of his life that caused him to stop writing.
• Dionysos/Bacchus, ancient Greek and Roman god of religious ecstasy, ritual madness, and wine among many other things.
• Teresa of Avila, Roman Catholic mystic, first entered states of ecstasy while studying religious texts when taken ill in a Carmelite cloister.
• Hildegard of Bingen, Benedictine abbess and mystic.
• Caitanya Mahaprabhu, founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, immersed into deeper and deeper stages of ecstasy towards Krishna during the last 24 years of his life.
• Pio of Pietrelcina
• Joseph of Cupertino
• Maulanah Rumi, mystic poet
• Hafez, mystic poet
• Moinuddin Chishti, Sufi saint
• Amir Khusrow, mystic poet
• Marguerite Porete, Beguine and Christian scholar, burned at the stake for her writings.
• Simone Weil, 20th century French philosopher and Christian mystic.

• Bhakti: (Devanāgarī: भक्ति) is a word of Sanskrit origin meaning "devotion" and also "the path of devotion" itself, as in Bhakti-yoga. Within Hinduism the word is used exclusively to denote devotion to a particular deity or form of God. Within Vaishnavism bhakti is only used in conjunction with Vishnu or one of his associated incarnations, it is likewise used towards Shiva by followers of Shaivism. Saints in these traditions exhibit different trance states or ecstasy.

As shown by Jonathan Garb, trance techniques also played a role in Lurianic Kabbalah, the mystical life of the circle of Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto and Hasidism.

Many Christian mystics are documented as having experiences that may be considered as cognate with trance, such as: Hildegard of Bingen, John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, Saint Theresa (as seen in the Bernini sculpture) and Francis of Assisi.

Taves (1999) charts the synonymic language of trance in the American Christian traditions: power or presence or indwelling of God, or Christ, or the Spirit, or spirits. Typical expressions include "the indwelling of the Spirit" (Jonathan Edwards), "the witness of the Spirit" (John Wesley), "the power of God" (early American Methodists), being "filled with the Spirit of the Lord" (early Adventists; see charismatic Adventism), "communing with spirits" (Spiritualists), "the Christ within" (New Thought), "streams of holy fire and power" (Methodist holiness), "a religion of the Spirit and Power" (the Emmanuel Movement), and "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" (early Pentecostals). (Taves, 1999: 3)

Taves (1999) well-referenced book on trance charts the experience of Anglo-American Protestants and those who left the Protestant movement beginning with the transatlantic awakening in the early 18th century and ending with the rise of the psychology of religion and the birth of Pentecostalism in the early 20th century. This book focuses on a class of seemingly involuntary acts alternately explained in religious and secular terminology. These involuntary experiences include uncontrolled bodily movements (fits, bodily exercises, falling as dead, catalepsy, convulsions); spontaneous vocalizations (crying out, shouting, speaking in tongues); unusual sensory experiences (trances, visions, voices, clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences); and alterations of consciousness and/or memory (dreams, somnium, somnambulism, mesmeric trance, mediumistic trance, hypnosis, possession, alternating personality) (Taves, 1999: 3).

• Rapture or religious ecstasy: is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive (and sometimes physical) euphoria. Although the experience is usually brief in physical time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during one's lifetime. Subjective perception of time, space and/or self may strongly change or disappear during ecstasy.
• Samādhi: yoga provides techniques to attain a state of ecstasy called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various stages of ecstasy, the highest of which is called Nirvikalpa samādhi. Different traditions have different understanding of Samādhi.
• Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states (called, e.g., "being slain in the Spirit") and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit.
• Communion: In the monotheistic tradition, religious ecstasy is usually associated with communion and oneness with God. Indeed, ecstasy is the primary vehicle for the type of prophetic visions and revelations found in the Bible. However, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them.
• In Christianity, the ecstatic experiences of the Apostles Peter and Paul are recorded in Acts 10:10, 11:5 and 22:17.
• In hagiography (writings on the subject of Christian saints) many instances are recorded in which saints are granted ecstasies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, religious ecstasy (called supernatural ecstasy) includes two elements: one, interior and invisible, in which the mind rivets its attention on a religious subject, and another, corporeal and visible, in which the activity of the senses is suspended, reducing the effect of external sensations upon the subject and rendering him or her resistant to awakening.

Peak experience

Peak experience: is a term developed by Abraham Maslow and used to describe certain extra-personal and ecstatic states, particularly ones tinged with themes of unification, harmonization and interconnectedness. Participants characterize these experiences, and the revelations imparted therein, as possessing an ineffably mystical (or overtly religious) quality or essence.

Hypnosis

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was an influential but discredited promoter of trance states and their curative powers. He discovered the curative powers of what he called magnétism animal (animal magnetism). Mesmer applied magnets to his patients’ bodies and produced remarkable results, especially in the case of a young woman suffering from hysteria. He did not attribute his cures to any power in the magnets themselves; instead, he argued that the body was analogous to a magnet and contained a fluid that ebbed and flowed according to the laws of magnetic attraction. Mesmer's ideas and practices, often called "Mesmerism," would later be developed by James Braid as modern hypnosis.

Hypnosis is normally preceded by a "hypnotic induction" technique. Traditionally, this was seen as a method of putting the subject into a "hypnotic trance," whereby critical thinking faculties of the human mind are bypassed and a type of selective thinking, attention, and perception is established. There is reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion, often interpreted as an altered state of consciousness or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary state of consciousness.

Trance states

{{#invoke:Message box|ambox}} Trance conditions include all the different states of mind, emotions, moods and daydreams that human beings experience. All activities which engage a human involve the filtering of information coming into sense modalities, and this influences brain functioning and consciousness. Therefore, trance may be understood as a way for the mind to change the way it filters information in order to provide more efficient use of the mind's resources.

Trance states may also be accessed or induced by various modalities and may be a way of accessing the unconscious mind for the purposes of relaxation, healing, intuition and inspiration. There is an extensive documented history of trance as evidenced by the case-studies of anthropologists and ethnologists and associated and derivative disciplines. Hence trance may be perceived as endemic to the human condition and a Human Universal. Principles of trance are being explored and documented as are methods of trance induction. Benefits of trance states are being explored by medical and scientific inquiry. Many traditions and rituals employ trance. Trance also has a function in religion and mystical experience.

Castillo (1995) states that: "Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in the brain and depend to a large extent on the characteristics of culture. Culture-specific organizations exist in the structure of individual neurons and in the organizational formation of neural networks."

Hoffman (1998: p. 9) states that: "Trance is still conventionally defined as a state of reduced consciousness, or a somnolent state. However, the more recent anthropological definition, linking it to 'altered states of consciousness' (Charles Tart), is becoming increasingly accepted."

Hoffman (1998, p. 9) asserts that: "...the trance state should be discussed in the plural, because there is more than one altered state of consciousness significantly different from everyday consciousness."

Trance induction

Trance-like states are often interpreted as religious ecstasy or visions and can be deliberately induced using a variety of techniques, including prayer, religious rituals, meditation, pranayama (breathwork or breathing exercises), physical exercise, sexual intercourse, music, dancing, sweating (e.g. sweat lodge), fasting, thirsting, and the consumption of psychotropic drugs such as cannabis. Sensory modality is the channel or conduit for the induction of the trance. Sometimes an ecstatic experience takes place in occasion of contact with something or somebody perceived as extremely beautiful or holy. It may also happen without any known reason. The particular technique that an individual uses to induce ecstasy is usually one that is associated with that individual's particular religious and cultural traditions. As a result, an ecstatic experience is usually interpreted within the context of a particular individual's religious and cultural traditions. These interpretations often include statements about contact with supernatural or spiritual beings, about receiving new information as a revelation, also religion-related explanations of subsequent change of values, attitudes and behavior (e.g. in case of religious conversion).

Benevolent, neutral and malevolent trances may be induced (intentionally, spontaneously and/or accidentally) by different methods:

• Auditory: driving through the sense of hearing by chanting, auditory story telling, mantra, overtone singing, drumming, music, etc.;,
• Disciplines: Yoga, Sufism, Surat Shabd Yoga; meditation;
• Gustatory: driving through the sense of taste and indigestion; including: starvation, herbs, hallucinogens and drugs. As the intake of food and beverage entails intra-bodily chemical reactions through digestion, some infer that all food may be considered medicine or drugs and therefore contribute to the induction of discernible psycho-physical states (see Ancient Medicine). Trance states can be attained through the ingestion of psychoactive drugs, particularly psychedelics, such as cannabis, ketamine, LSD, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, and MDMA.
• Kinesthetic: driving through the sense of feeling and movement through the kinesphere by ecstatic dance, story telling by movement, mudra, embodying rituals, yoga, breathwork, oxygen deprivation, sexual stimulation etc.;
• Miscellaneously: traumatic accident, sleep deprivation, nitrogen narcosis (deep diving), fever, by the use of a sensory deprivation tank or mind-control techniques, hypnosis, meditation, prayer;
• Naturally occurring: dreams, lucid dreams, euphoria, ecstasy, psychosis as well as purported premonitions, out-of-body experiences, and channeling.
• Olfactory: driving via scent through the sense of smell by perfume, pheromones, incense, flowers, pollen, indeed any scent for which we have an association or memory, etc.;
• Photic or Visual: driving through the sense of sight by yantra, visual story telling, mandala, cinema, theater, art, architecture, beauty, strobe lights, form constants, symmetry;

Auditory driving and auditory art

Charles Tart provides a useful working definition of auditory driving. It is the induction of trance through the sense of hearing. Auditory driving works through a process known as entrainment.^{[citation needed]}

The usage of repetitive rhythms to induce trance states is an ancient phenomenon. Throughout the world, shamanistic practitioners have been employing this method for millennia. Anthropologists and other researchers have documented the similarity of shamanistic auditory driving rituals among different cultures.

Said simply, entrainment is the synchronization of different rhythmic cycles. Breathing and heart rate have been shown to be affected by auditory stimulus, along with brainwave activity. The ability of rhythmic sound to affect human brainwave activity, especially theta brainwaves, is the essence of auditory driving, and is the cause of the altered states of consciousness that it can induce.^{[citation needed]}

Visual driving and visual art

Nowack and Feltman published an article entitled "Eliciting the Photic Driving Response" which states that the EEG photic driving response is a sensitive neurophysiological measure which has been employed to assess chemical and drug effects, forms of epilepsy, neurological status of Alzheimer's patients, and physiological arousal. Photic driving also impacts upon the psychological climate of a person by producing increased visual imagery and decreased physiological and subjective arousal. In this research by Nowack and Feltman, all participants reported increased visual imagery during photic driving, as measured by their responses to an imagery questionnaire.

Dennis Wier states that over two millennia ago Ptolemy and Apuleius found that differing rates of flickering lights affected states of awareness and sometimes induced epilepsy. Wier also asserts that it was discovered in the late 1920s that when light was shined on closed eyelids it resulted in an echoing production of brainwave frequencies. Wier also opined that in 1965 Grey employed a stroboscope to project rhythmic light flashes into the eyes at a rate of 10–25 Hz (cycles per second). Grey discovered that this stimulated similar brainwave activity.

Research by Thomas Budzynski, Oestrander et al., in the use of brain machines suggest that photic driving via the suprachiasmatic nucleus and direct electrical stimulation and driving via other mechanisms and modalities, may entrain processes of the brain facilitating rapid and enhanced learning, produce deep relaxation, euphoria, an increase in creativity, problem solving propensity and may be associated with enhanced concentration and accelerated learning. The theta range and the border area between alpha and theta has generated considerable research interest.

Kinesthetic driving and somatic art

Charles Tart provides a useful working definition of kinesthetic driving. It is the induction of trance through the sense of touch, feeling or emotions. Kinesthetic driving works through a process known as entrainment.

The rituals practiced by some athletes in preparing for contests are dismissed as superstition, but this is a device of sport psychologists to help them to attain an ecstasy-like state. Joseph Campbell had a peak experience whilst running. Roger Bannister on breaking the four-minute mile (Cameron, 1993: 185): "No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed." Roger Bannister later became a distinguished neurologist.

Mechanisms and disciplines that include kinesthetic driving may include: dancing, walking meditation, yoga and asana, mudra, juggling, poi (juggling), etc.

Sufism (the mystical branch of Islam) has theoretical and metaphoric texts regarding ecstasy as a state of connection with Allah. Sufi practice rituals (dhikr, sema) use body movement and music to achieve the state.

Theories and explanations

John Horgan in Rational Mysticism (2003) explores the neurological mechanisms and psychological implications of trances and other mystical manifestations. Horgan incorporates literature and case-studies from a number of disciplines in this work: chemistry, physics, psychology, radiology, and theology.

Religious

The religious interpretation of the trance state is that it is God's work: Entering the Trance Realm Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines trance this way, “An ecstasy; a state in which the soul seems to have passed out of the body into celestial regions, or to be rapt into visions.” A trance is a state of one who is “out of himself,” according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary. The word trance comes from the Greek word ekstasis, form which the word ecstasy is derived.

According to The King James New Testament Greek Lexicon, ekstatis means “a throwing of the mind out of its normal state, alienation of mind, whether such as makes a lunatic or that of a man who by some sudden emotion is transported as it were out of himself, so that in this rapt condition, although he is awake, his mind is drawn off from all surrounding objects and wholly fixed on things divine that he sees nothing but the forms and images lying within, and thinks that he perceives with his bodily eyes and ears realities shown him by God.”

I suppose it’s hard to describe it if you’ve not experienced it, but Smith’s Bible Dictionary goes a little deeper, saying a trance is: “The…state in which a man has passed out of the usual order of his life, beyond the usual limits of consciousness and volition, being rapt in causes of this state are to be traced commonly to strong religious impressions. Whatever explanation may be given of it, it is true of many, if not of most, of those who have left the stamp of their own character on the religious history of mankind, that they have been liable to pass at times into this abnormal state.”

The International Bible Encyclopedia defines trance this way: “The condition expressed by this word is a mental state in which the person affected is partially or wholly unconscious of objective sensations, but intensely alive to subjective impressions which, however they may be originated, are felt as if they were revelations from without. They may take the form of visual or auditory sensations or else of impressions of taste, smell, heat or cold, and sometimes these conditions precede epileptic seizures constituting what is named the aura epileptica.”

Psychological

Wier, in his 1995 book, Trance: from magic to technology, defines a simple trance (p. 58) as a state of mind being caused by cognitive loops where a cognitive object (a thought, an image, a sound, an intentional action) repeats long enough to result in various sets of disabled cognitive functions. Wier represents all trances (which include sleep and watching television) as taking place on a dissociated trance plane where at least some cognitive functions such as volition are disabled; as is seen in what is typically termed a 'hypnotic trance'. With this definition, meditation, hypnosis, addictions and charisma are seen as being trance states. In Wier's 2007 book, The Way of Trance, he elaborates on these forms, adds ecstasy as an additional form and discusses the ethical implications of his model, including magic and government use which he terms "trance abuse".

Scientific research

Convergent disciplines of neuroanthropology, ethnomusicology, electroencephalography (EEG), neurotheology and cognitive neuroscience, amongst others, are conducting research into the trance induction of altered states of consciousness resulting from neuron entrainment with the driving of sensory modalities, for example polyharmonics, multiphonics, and percussive polyrhythms through the channel of the auditory and kinesthetic modality.

Neuroanthropology and cognitive neuroscience are conducting research into the trance induction of altered states of consciousness (possibly engendering higher consciousness) resulting from neuron firing entrainment with these polyharmonics and multiphonics. Related research has been conducted into neural entraining with percussive polyrhythms. The timbre of traditional singing bowls and their polyrhythms and multiphonics are considered meditative and calming, and the harmony inducing effects of this tool to potentially alter consciousness are being explored by scientists, medical professionals and therapists. ^{[citation needed]}

Scientific advancement and new technologies such as computerized EEG, positron emission tomography, regional cerebral blood flow, and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, are providing measurable tools to assist in understanding trance phenomena.

There are four principal brainwave states that range from high-amplitude, low-frequency delta to low-amplitude, high-frequency beta. These states range from deep dreamless sleep to a state of high arousal. These four brainwave states are common throughout humans. All levels of brainwaves exist in everyone at all times, even though one is foregrounded depending on the activity level. When a person is in an aroused state and exhibiting a beta brainwave pattern, their brain also exhibits a component of alpha, theta and delta, even though only a trace may be present.

The University of Philadelphia study on some Christians at the Freedom Valley Worship Center in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, revealed that glossolalia-speaking (vocalizing or praying in unrecognizable form of language which is seen in members of certain Christian sects) activates areas of the brain out of voluntary control. In addition, the frontal lobe of the brain, which monitors speech, significantly diminished in activity as the study participants spoke glossolalia. Dr. Andrew B. Newberg, in analysis of his earlier studies as opposed to the MRI scans of the test subjects, stated that Buddhist monks in meditation and Franciscan nuns in prayer exhibited increased activity in the frontal lobe, and subsequently their behaviors, very much under voluntary control. The investigation found this particular beyond-body-control characteristic only in tongue-speakers (also see xenoglossia).

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Hoffman, Kay. The Trance Workbook: Understanding & Using The Power Of Altered States. Sterling, 1999. ISBN 978-0806917658

• Cameron, Julia (1993). The Artist's Way. Oxford, London: Pan Books. Template:ISBN
• Castillo, Richard J. (1995). Culture, Trance, and the Mind-Brain. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 6, Number 1, March 1995, pp. 17–34.
• Goodman, Felicitas D. (1999). Ritual Body Postures, Channeling, and the Ecstatic Body Trance. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 10, Number 1 (March 1999).
• Heinze, Ruth-Inge (1994). Applications of Altered States of Consciousness in Daily Life. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 5, Number 3, September 1994, pp. 8–12.

• Horgan, John (2003). Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Template:ISBN
• Hubbard, Timothy L. (2003). Some Correspondences and Similarities of Shamanism and Cognitive Science: Interconnectedness, Extension of Meaning, and Attribution of Mental States. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 14, Number 1, March–June 2003, pp. 26–45
• Inglis, Brian (1990). Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind. London, Paladin. Template:ISBN
• James, William The varieties of religious experience (1902) Template:ISBN
• Lawlor, Robert (1991). Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal dreamtime. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. Template:ISBN
• Lewis, I.M. (2003). Trance, Possession, Shamanism and Sex. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 14, Number 1, March–June 2003, pp. 20–39.
• McDaniel, June (1989). The Madness of the Saints: Ecstatic Religion in Bengal. University of Chicago Press. Template:ISBN (Paper); 0-226-55722-7 (Cloth) & Template:ISBN (Paper); 978-0-226-55722-9 (Cloth).
• Michaelson, Jay (1997). "Paths to the Divine: Ecstatics and Theology in R. Dov Baer of Lubavitch" (6 December 2006)
• Narr. Maybrey, Vicki. "Speaking in Tongues Medical Study proves Holy Spirit praying." Nightline. ABC. Gettysburg, Philadelphia, 17 July. 2008.
• Neophytou, Charles (1996). The Encyclopedia of Mind Body and Spirit. Millennium Edition. Yanchep, Western Australia: Lindlahr Book Publishing. Template:ISBN
• Nowack, William J & Feltman, Mary L. (date?) "Eliciting the Photic Driving Response". American Journal of Electroneurodiagnostic Technology. Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 43–45.
• Rich, Grant Jewell (2001). Domestic Paths to Altered States and Transformations of Consciousness. Volume 12, Number 2 (September–December 2001).
• Smith, Huston (2000). Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals. Tarcher/Putnam, Template:ISBN, Council on Spiritual Practices, Template:ISBN
• Tart, Charles T. States of Consciousness (2001) Template:ISBN
• Tart, Charles T., editor. Altered States of Consciousness (1969) Template:ISBN
• Taves, Ann (1999). Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Vitebsky, Piers, The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul – Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon, Duncan Baird, 2001. Template:ISBN
• Von Gizycki, H., Jean-Louis, G., Snyder, M., Zizi, F., Green, H., Giuliano, V., Spielman, A., Taub, H. (1998). "The effects of photic driving on mood states" in Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Vol. 44, N. 5, pp. 599–604. New York, NY: Elsevier. ISSN 0022-3999
• Vyner, Henry M. (2002). The Descriptive Mind Science of Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and the Nature of the Healthy Human Mind. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 13, Number 2, September–December 2002, pp. 1–25.
• Wallis, Robert (1999). Altered States, Conflicting Cultures: Shamans, Neo-Shamans and Academics. In Anthropology of Consciousness. Volume 10, Numbers 2–3 (June–September 1999).
• Warren, Jeff (2007). "The Trance", The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness. Toronto: Random House Canada. ISBN 978-0-679-31408-0. * Wier, Dennis R. Trance: from magic to technology (1995) Template:ISBN
• Wier, Dennis R. (2007). The Way of Trance Laytonville, California: Trance Research Foundation. Template:ISBN.
• Wilde, Stuart. (1996). The Art of Meditation. Carlsbad: Hay House. Template:ISBN

External links

All links retrieved

• Trance State Meditation Khris Krepcik, The Hooded Sage.
• The Emergence of Novel Information during Trance by Lee Humphries, Thinking Applied.
• A Gentle Introduction to Trance Theory by Dennis R Wier, Positive Health Online.
• Entering the Trance Realm by Jennifer LeClaire, Destiny Image.

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