Trance

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com

 

S3E24 TRANSCRIPT:

 

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science Based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.

Yucca: And I'm the other one Yucca.

Mark: Today, we are going to talk about something that is very central to pagan practice of all kinds. And that is trance.

Yucca: Right. And this is something that we see in paganism. We see it in a lot of other religions as well. It seems to be a very like, a very important experience for. being in that space, having those transformations, when really important things are happening, there's often a trance state.

Mark: Right. The attainment of altered states of consciousness is often something that is viewed as holy. In various religions or is viewed certainly as transformative or divinely inspired or or divinely provoked. There are a lot of different frameworks for understanding what this is, but there are so many examples all over the world of people using various different kinds of techniques in order to enter a trans state.

Yucca: Right. And since we are non theist, we're not coming at it from a, from the divine perspective. So we're looking at it, we'll look at it from a more neuroscience perspective and the usefulness of it as well, because it really is very useful.

Mark: right, right. The, and I guess the, where we need to start with that then is to talk about what it is.

Yucca: Right,

Mark: trance is kind of a. It's a general term that isn't used by many other religions, other than paganism to describe a particular neurological state. And you can get to that neurological state through a lot of different approaches. Repetitive motion is one of them listening to very dreamy kinds of music with beautiful harmonies in it can take you into that state.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, and it's the state that's characterized by being very much in the present. So you're not thinking about. Your list of things to do or about worrying about the future or any of that?

You're very much in the present moment. Also with a very kind of emotional openness and a sense of focus, a sense of of experience that you're having.

Yucca: Right. And, and I, a word that does get used in, in the common cultures, often in the zone, right. When someone talks about being in the

Mark: That's exactly right. Another term that is used by people like sports, psychologists is flow.

Yucca: zone, that's actually a trance state, right?

Mark: When you, when you are in a flow state, you're very creative, you have access to your subconscious You're not distracted by thoughts of other times or other obligations. You're really in a, kind of a peak optimal state for for working with your own creativity and your own psychology.

Right.

Yucca: right.

Mark: So there are other, oh,

Yucca: Oh, I was gonna say, this is something that I see. Young children do very, very naturally. They get into a state like that. And it's something that later on, we don't tend to practice as much. We kind of train ourselves out of it, but I think that there's, there's something very instinctual about it, that humans.

That we, we gravitate towards that. We really do that when given the opportunity to

Mark: There's something about trans that is play.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: Because it's creative. In, in many cases now, in, in the case of some religious traditions, trans states are very narrowly defined as only being allowed to be particular kinds of experiences. And so there isn't as much creativity associated with them. But we'll be talking later on about how to induce these trans states.

But when you think about, Hildegard Von, BGAN having her, Amazing sort of visions of the Virgin, Mary and all these angels and saints and all that kind of stuff. That's very much a trans state. Now the odds are good that in her case she was probably epileptic and One of the, one of the characteristics of epilepsy is that people can go into a, kind of a phasic trans state, which can lead them into a very altered reality.

Right? Oh disconnected from the current present physical circumstances and often unable to.

Yucca: Hm.

Mark: There are there are often when people go into a trans state, they, they, they are often in kind of a pre-verbal state and they really aren't able to summon language to address what they're experiencing or to communicate that with others.

That can be a problem sometimes. I've, I've. There have been people that I've worked with at pagan festivals who have gone kind of way, way out there and are having a hard time taking care of themselves. They're kind of stumbling around the fire, not cuz they're drunk, but because they're really, really entranced. And there's a certain amount of danger associated with that. And so when I've tried to sort of steer them a little further away from the fire and. Check in with them and see how they're doing. In some cases, they simply can't summon words because those parts of their brain aren't what is

Yucca: that's not the active part at the moment.

Mark: That's right. It's not at the forefront. So let's, let's think for a minute about some examples of trans states that are used in various sorts of religious contexts throughout the world. And I should say that it's not just religious contexts that have trance or flow or the zone artists know this space really well.

Yucca: yeah. Artists and writers

Mark: As a writer. I know when I'm writing good stuff, I can feel that it's, it's just pouring out of me and I'm just typing as fast as I can to try to capture it.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Um, and it's, it should be said, this is a pleasurable experience. Trans feels good. It's associated with high levels of serotonin in the brain, and it's a, so it's a state that people tend to want to gravitate towards many people who are deeply religious, do their religious practices in order to reach that pleasurable trans state, which they may interpret as communing.

Deities or with the entirety of the universe? All of those kinds of feelings.

Yucca: So one of the religions that immediately pops into my mind when we talk about that is the SoFi,

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: right? That's a that's probably the, the picture most people think of when they think of the SoFi is the whirling Dees. Right. And that they're doing that and getting into this shared trance state.

Mark: Sure exactly. It's this very slow, steady, repetitive movement, which of course also kind of spins their their middle ear. So that there's this. This potential for dizziness, but it's sort of a managed dizziness. It's a learned technique that they use to take themselves into this very out there kind of space of communing with, with what they believe is their God.

Yucca: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And what's interesting to me is that this is such a beautiful and impactful kind of experience that people will actually pay money to go and watch Sufi spinning in place. Right?

Yucca: Oh, I hadn't heard about that. There's a pretty big community in, in my area, but I hadn't heard of people go paying to watch that happen.

Mark: there's at least one touring troop. Of of dervishes. Yeah, I I've seen them advertised. I haven't gone to actually see them do it, but I've, I've seen them advertised. In other cases we can think about the sort of intense altered states that come with. And of course, once again, in a pre-verbal kind of sense with people who fall into speaking in tongues or who who ki kind of lose control of their bodies and fall down through this incredibly intense trans like, experience happening in their brain. And. I mean, I'm, I'm not telling any secrets out of school here. We, we here don't believe in divinity. We don't believe in, in gods. And so when we look at that phenomenon, we don't see it as the Christian God reaching down and touching these people. And they're having this, sort of Transy spasmodic experience.

We're seeing it as a, a psychological and neurological phenomenon.

Yucca: Yeah. Which does not make it less valuable, just because we might have some understanding on what, how it's happening, why it's happening. It that's not less. To use the word magical, right. It's not magic in a Harry Potter sense, but it's magical in a, in a, in a meaningful wow, amazing kind of way.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Because just because we understand how something works does not, as you say, make anything less wonderful about it. So we can understand, for example, that, that. The experience of love is very high levels of serotonin and oxytocin, right? Your body is like singing with these neurotransmitters, that connote connection and affect and focus and a bunch of other things too, like not being hungry and having a hard time sleeping and a lot of other things that go with that.

Now does that mean that love isn't real? Well, of course not, of course not, but that's what, when you're, when you're experiencing being in love, that is what is happening in your brain.

Yucca: Right. Or if we're watching the sunrise.

Mark: Mm-hmm

Yucca: Understanding in fact that in some ways to me makes it even more inspiring is to start to see those deeper connections to wow. Right. And when we start thinking about the neurotransmitters, thinking about, how many generations. How many millions of generations of mammals were there for using those same neurotransmitters.

And then we were using them before we were even mammals for different purposes and all of that.

Mark: Right. And, asking the big questions, like why did we evolve to have these states? I mean, we can understand why we have love because it draws us together for reproduction for caring in, in survival and caring for our offspring. Right. But. Why a sunrise, why a sunset, why the beauty of leaves blowing in wind?

Why the Aurora Balis, why the shapes of clouds moving in the sky? All of these are things that can really inspire us and move us with the sheer beauty of the universe. And you have to ask the question, why did we evolve the capacity to feel that.

Yucca: Yeah,

Mark: It's a great question. I don't have any idea of the answer, but it's a super question,

Yucca: right. Yeah. That's, that's a question to work on.

Mark: But the good news is we do have this built into ourselves. We have this capacity for trance, this capacity to be transported by the moment and brought into a state of focus and clarity and a feeling of belonging and connection, all of those things. And one of the things that we as pagans are about is crafting the skills.

Learning the skills to be able to create that state at will. And, and that is something that's kind of unique about the, the broad pagan umbrella. There are, there are other religious traditions which teach you to go into deep trans states. Zen Buddhism, for example, sitting Zen, looking at a blank wall.

But they're very constrained in how they use that experience and how, the rituals around it are very, very strict, right? Whereas as pagans, we create a lot of our own rituals and so we can use this trans state for a lot of different purposes.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So why don't we talk a little bit about why then you would want to go into this, this trance state.

Yucca: Yeah. the first thing is, at least from my perspective is you have a lot less in the way. When you're going into a state like this, you're setting aside the, the worrying about the rent for next week and the, this and the, that. And you're, you're kind of going to this, this deeper level where you're dealing with the, with the, your raw emotions and beliefs and feelings.

Mark: Mm-hmm. mm-hmm . Yeah. And what's cool about that in my experience is that trans is an opportunity to kind of get in under the hood and tinker with those things.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: We know now from research that our memories are not recordings. They are retellings of stories and they get edited and embellished and pieces get dropped all the time in the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives.

So we have the capacity when in this very open emotionally malleable state to get in there and actually change some core assumptions that we have change our story or our, our uh,

Yucca: or

Mark: Conclusion our beliefs about an event that happened to us in our lives, right. That can help to bring us closure. It can help to bring us healing.

It can help to instill greater self-esteem. It can help to bring us more confidence as we pursue our goals. It can do lots of really cool things like that. All in this kind of glowing present. Very pleasurable. Experience. So it's, it's, it's a way of doing it. It's an opportunity to do things that are good for you while also having an experience that isn't an ordeal that instead is something powerful and moving and and happy.

Yucca: And it can be the real heart of a ritual. Right? A lot of times when we're setting up a ritual, a lot of the things that we're doing are to help get us to that state.

Mark: yes. Yes. In the, in the atheopagan. Recommended ritual structure that I put in my

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: for example, the whole point of that is induction into a trans state doing stuff while in that trans state and then transitioning back out of it and back into a normal sense of reality. Right. So the arrival phase, you have things like grounding and you have things like sensory stimulation that brings you into the present moment in your body.

And you have things like invocation of safety and security, so that you feel okay about opening yourself to the experience stuff like that. And then In the qualities phase, you invoke the, the various characteristics and emotions that you would like to be with you during these things, so that you feel like you have allies and ingredients to work with. And then in the main body of the ritual, which is the, the working or the deep play, that's when you're in the trance and now you can do this transformative work, right.

Yucca: yeah,

Mark: And then the other two phases are coming out the other side. So that, that it really is about a technology of trance ritual is, is in my experience, a technology of trance.

Yucca: right. So why don't we talk a little bit about some of the hows, right? We've been talking a lot about the why.

Mark: Okay. Okay. That sounds great. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: there are so many ways to get there and the, there can vary a lot depending on which one you use. I don't want to, in any way, imply to people that all trans states are the same. They, they aren't, they aren't The kind of trans state that you have from dancing to incredibly rhythmic drumming, for example, or, electronic dance music, stuff like that is not the same thing as the kind of meditative trans state that you can enter while sitting quietly, smelling the scent of a little incense, calming yourself and opening yourself in that more gentle kind of way.

But they're both trans states and they both present opportunities for growth and learning and, and joy.

Yucca: Yeah. Well,

Mark: So, oh, go

Yucca: To share a technique for going into that kind of quiet sort of meditative trance state. One thing that, if you've never played with this before, that you can do is find whatever the situation is. You, you it could be quietly inside or sitting out, looking at the stars or the sunset or whatever, but sitting down, creating your space.

And then, calm your breath, do your grounding and stare at something. Stare very, very intently at it. And then start to relax your eyes. And if you can blur your vision a little bit, just go ahead and blur that and bring it back. And just bring, feel like you're bringing that blurred relaxation back into your, back through your eyes, into your head and down through your body as you're staring and letting that focus shift, right.

Just playing with that focus in your eyes and that seeing that as your body. And for me practicing that, that's something that can get me into a trance state very, very quickly. Is that staring. Relaxation.

Mark: great. Yeah, that's, that's a very effective way. One thing to be aware of when you do that kind of a practice, is that the thing that you're looking at may appear to disappear? Because of the holes in your retina, where your optic nerve is detached. When you really calm down your eyes, stop vibrating, back and forth, which is what they do in order to adjust for that hole in your retinas so that they can collect data about what would otherwise be in the hole.

Yucca: right. And all of that, you're getting your depth perception. You're getting all kinds of information from those tiny, tiny little movements. Yeah.

Mark: Right. So, if you are calming yourself and staring at something and it disappears, don't worry about it. That's there's there, there are reasons for that. And it's okay.

Yucca: And if there's a little bit of color difference that happens too. Like you see some spots where like the color is a little bit like pink or, or blue or things like that. That's again, that's totally normal. Yeah.

Mark: Right. We mentioned drumming drumming is either, either doing the drumming yourself or being in a place where there is, powerful drumming or very, very simple, steady heartbeat, kind of drumming, which can also be very transi in its own way. Those are, those are technologies that are as old as humanity.

They probably go back to pre-human, predecessors. 

Yucca: And the rush of water. That's another one too, that, that either the trickling for a fountain or the rush of the, the stream or the filling of the, the tub.

Mark: mm-hmm, the sound of waves crashing on the ocean.

Yucca: Yeah. Right.

Mark: Or of wind in trees, all of those kind of white noise,

Yucca: I,

Mark: somewhat varying, not, not entirely the same all the time. They just, they kind of low you into this very nice sort of dazed, calm, Transy space.

Yucca: suspect that they remind us on a very primal level of hearing our mother's blood inside the womb.

Mark: That sounds very reasonable to me.

Yucca: Right that rushing.

Mark: Right. Yeah, that that's cous. The another way is to contemplate something that leaps and dances like fire staring into a fire is a very Transy activity. And it's a way to you can do that with a candle flame. You can do it with a campfire. Don't do it with a wildfire. 

Yucca: Well, I, I mean,

Mark: I mean, you

Yucca: a safe distance yeah. Right. If, if you're, if you're in a safe situation and you're not being called upon to, be part of the effort in that moment yeah.

Mark: So that's another and I, I go back to this a lot because I find this very Transy when, when wind is blowing through trees and leaves are kind of shaking and dancing as the bows move in the wind. To me, that's a very Transy experience. I, I just. I, I, I, I start to enter the trans experience, reflecting on

Yucca: thinking about it.

Mark: just, just thinking about all the math that goes into.

All those motions, all those calculations, the, with the pressure and the, the friction coefficients and the angle of the leaves and all the different things, theoretically, you could actually calculate how this tree is going to move based on the wind that comes up against it. But in practical terms, it's impossible,

Yucca: Yeah. You'd have to have all those initial conditions. Yeah.

Mark: Right. So, I don't know. I wrote a poem once where I talked about wind and trees and mathematics as the language of God, it's, it's this, this in a Einsteinian sense, right? The, the language of the way the universe manifests.

Yucca: Yeah. Right.

Mark: So that's another, kind of way that we can end. Dancing lights. I mean, there, there are reasons why dance clubs have low light conditions with lots of, dancing around colored lights, Because it puts people into a trans state and in a trans state, they feel less inhibited, more comfortable, more safe and more able to express themselves.

So, and it's very pleasurable and that's why they go,

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: yeah.

Yucca: Also the full moon, right. That's one hanging out and just watching that full moon.

Mark: yeah. Watching the line of the Moonlight move across the floor is one that I really enjoy. Yeah. So, dancing, drumming, singing, singing in harmony with other people is a very trans activity, especially if you're doing kinds of music and harmonies

Yucca: some of those chance can really get you, get you

Mark: Really take you out there. There's a, there's a, a church in Southern France called in a, in a town called where they have a, a specific practice of doing these Catholic chant.

Very simple Catholic chance. And people come to sing and have this experience at TA. And there are songbooks that you can buy with these Chan in them, and the chance are simply beautiful wonderful stuff to sing. So you know what your fun, what, what you may be realizing as we talk about this stuff, is that a lot of the things that people.

To enjoy themselves or because it puts them in a trans state,

Yucca: Right.

Mark: right. An awful lot of things that we just like are things that we enjoy because they tend to lead us in that direction. And as pagans, we can then take advantage of that, not just to have a good time, which we are all in favor of. We are in favor of people having a good time.

But you can also make some use of that in a ritual context.

Yucca: Yeah. And like so many things that we talk about, there's this very. Intuitive instinctual component of it, but the practice can, can really help you to build in making it easier to slip into it, making it more effective. The practice element really is important.

Mark: It is and using a focus or an alter,

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: um, is one way to kind of, what's the word I want to use? Kind of fast track that

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: Process, because if, if there's a particular place that you go in your house and a thing that you look at where you are accustomed to going into a trans state before it, whether it's to read to road cards or light candles and incense, and.

Meditate or, or to place things for that are seasonal symbols to represent the time of the year or to put pictures of your ancestors so that they'll be remembered, whatever that is. The, the speed with which you will drop into that trans state. Really increases the more you practice in front of that focus. I, I find that when I first started my pagan practice, especially because I have ADHD and so focus and concentration are not exactly my strongest suit. And so my brain would be going all over the place and it was kind of hard to get into that trans state. But now all I have to do is step in front of my focus and light the candles and close my eyes and then open them to this rich display of symbols and items that, that are meaningful to me and tell me stories.

Right.

Yucca: mm-hmm

Mark: I'm there. I'm I'm in the trance state and I'm ready to do some kind of inner work.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So

this varies from person to person, there are people for whom like modern dance is the way that they get there, and that's great. It's good to know that about yourself. If you're just starting your practice. And you're just learning about how to work with trance, with yourself, try some different modalities.

Think about what has been, what has been enjoyable for you in the past.

Yucca: Mm-hmm

Mark: And maybe for you, it's sitting down with some art supplies and a blank canvas and, going into that zone of creativity you, you can do. Paintings or sculptures or whatever it is that have a symbolic quality that can then help to work with your psychological nature as well.

That's another, way that you can approach this. So, for those that are new to the practice, I really encourage people to experiment, try different kinds of stuff.

Yucca: Right. And in that ex experimentation, trying different kinds of things and trying the same thing multiple times too, because the very first time we do things, sometimes they're re it's, it's really awkward. Right.

Mark: Yes, that critic voice that we talk about erects itself in the back of your head and says, this is stupid and you're making a fool of yourself and yada yada, yada, yada. And after you have some practice with this. That voice doesn't have the kind of power that it used to. It just doesn't, it doesn't impact you the way that it used to.

Which is good for you on all kinds of levels, because the self critic is a cruel voice. It's not good for us. And an ability to set that aside and say, no, I'm doing this now. Cuz it's good for me is one opportunity that we have to heal as people.

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So what else do we have to talk about on trance?

Yucca: It's like so many of the things in paganism that it's, it really is a about experiencing it. We, we find things to talk about on a weekly podcast, but really what we're doing is about. experience, how we feel our relationship and interaction with the world with ourselves. And it's just, it's a, we're a doing religion, right?

We're an experience religion.

Mark: That's right. That's right. And. Our, our experiences are our life, right? And so enriching those experiences and making them as powerful and as positive for ourselves as possible is central to what our paganism is about. Because we're not. Worshiping gods or making offerings to them, or, spirits or demons or any of that kind of stuff.

What we're doing is we're working with our own psychology. And with that, of those that we share rituals with for the betterment of all.

Yucca: Right.

Mark: And so yes, practice try out different modalities, even little as, as you were saying, Yucca even little kids do this. Little kids will spin and spin and spin and spin and spin until they get dizzy and fall down because they want to be in an altered state.

Yucca: Listen to them on their own. They'll they'll we didn't talk about this mantras, right? They'll come up with their own mantras and they'll repeat that over and over and over, I was watching my daughter play just was absolutely fascinated by a tree that had some SAP. And she was out there for, it had to be 30, 40 minutes just in just watching that SAP, looking at that SAP and just, I couldn't quite hear what she was saying, but she.

Singing something to herself over and over, just in just super engrossed entranced. Right. And we just, we, when given the opportunity we do that, right. And of course there's different types of personalities. Some peop some personalities will do that more than others. Some personalities are, hyper-focusing like my personality, you were talking about, focus, being something you've cha that. is a little bit more challenging for you. For me, it's kind of the other way. It's hard to get myself to get out of whatever I'm focusing on. There's different personalities, but it's something that is kind of still in all of us to a certain degree.

Mark: Yes. Yeah. And when you look at cultures all over the world, you see that the attainment of altered states of consciousness is something that humans just gravitate to everywhere. And whether it means that they have to build these soaring cathedrals with stained glass, windows, and burn incense and candles, and have, flickering low levels of light and, and Gregorian chant.

Yucca: and out.

Mark: Right. And, have Gregorian Chan singing and leaders telling people what they're supposed to do to get their trans experience, or whether it's as simple as, spinning on one foot, like the Sufi. 

Yucca: Or wake up for Dawn

Mark: mm-hmm

Yucca: and just hang out with the Dawn.

Mark: yeah, yeah. Especially at this time of year when the sunsets and sunrises are so long.

Yeah. It's really, really a good time. Well, so as with so many things that we talk about here on the podcast, really encourage you to do this stuff. It's a, it's a kind of a strange thing to me. One of the things that I heard a lot when I first entered the pagan community is you have to read these 70 books. Some, some huge stack of you have to read this and this and this and this and this and this and this. And a lot of what I found was in those books was stuff that I don't really subscribe to now. To me, what really made the difference was having the experience, going to the rituals, sharing in those experiences, getting to know the people and then.

Yucca: practice.

Mark: Daily practice. Absolutely. And then starting to craft the rituals myself and starting to invite others, to join me in doing, rituals that, that felt meaningful and, and impactful. So, that is a very joyous joy. It's a, it's a really enjoyable path to travel. And if you're just getting started, I really encourage you to set forth, find out how you best fall into trance.

And maybe you wanna learn to be a really good drummer, it'll, you'll, you'll be a, a super asset to the other pagans around you because you can help them to go into trance. And you will always have a means available of going into trance as long as you have something that you can tap on.

Yucca: just be your. Right. If, if you have nothing else, it could be your, your belly or your thighs or or that beautiful drum that you hand painted and whatever it is. Yeah.

Mark: I'm, I'm actually buying a drum this week. I'm excited about it. My, my frame drum, big round kind of flat frame drum disappeared at an event the event where I broke my arm back in 2017 and my friend whose truck it flew off the back of apparently has always said that he.

Wanted to wanted to buy me another one, but he has never gotten around to it. So now I'm going to go buy it and he's going to pay me back for it. So I'm excited about having a frame drum again. That'll be really cool.

Yucca: nice.

Mark: Yeah.

Yucca: Hmm. Well, thank you, mark. This was a lovely and inspiring conversation. We're supposed to get some rain this afternoon and I think maybe I'll sneak away and see if I can trance out with the rain.

Mark: Yeah, that sounds wonderful. Especially that wonderful blood warm rain that you get in the Southwest. It's so nice.

Yucca: Yeah. yeah,

Mark: Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks again so much Yucca. And we'll see you all next week

 

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