We show here that the state obtained by a person in an ecstatic trance shows all the features of "best health" and can provide guidelines for the theory of healing and the therapeutic strategies. The use of ecstatic trance as a technique to complement and boost psychotherapy has been previously stated. It is advocated to use this technique, as other techniques, only in a definite and workable transference setting, referenced to a high level psychoanalysis theory. In the state of ecstatic trance, the person is void of the current psyche, of the ordinary personality, including thoughts and emotions, actually void of the contents pertaining to the personal past. We get a drastic lowering of the muscular tensions and a consequent reduction of the habitual autoprotective system, and a noticeable increase of the liveliness of the body. Contrary to the expectations of the Id-Ego-Superego Theory, there is no explosion of wild and sexual activity, but manifestations of recognisable patterns, pertinent to the treatment, to the relationship with the therapist and group, and to the improvement of the ailment. Forms of archetypal significance are also recognisable. Thus, only the deeper structure of the psyche is actualised in such states. Therefore, we have two possible lines of working with the pathology. First: the therapist is in the trance state and works on the patient, using the increased abilities of the state. Second: the patient is taught to go into the trance state and work is done on what he manifests in this state. The usual outcome of a session where this state has been attained is wholeness, spontaneity, liveliness, clarity and knowing, relatedness to others, and profound joy. The remarkable fact that without the recorded information pertaining to the past, and without the defence system, the psycho-body is able to show its structural form and its structural "defects", and also, that without the so-called "ego" contents, the body is still able to express forms and actions remarkable by their wisdom and their pertinence to the ailment and its healing suggest five new ideas: 1 · the entire usual ego system is the "pathological" unit of the patient; 2 · with the ego temporarily "removed", the psycho-body is in full health, or rather in the highest health possible, according to its structure; 3 · it knows the path of healing itself, and the necessary help of others; 4 · the structure can be either sound, or disabled, but it is efficient and workable, and this effectiveness can be attained directly only in the trance state; 5 · the trance state is a model of (almost) perfect health: no tensions, absence of repression, high degree of life-force manifestation, wisdom of actions, knowledge of truth and relationships, exact pertinence to the situation.
Therapy is not guided by ideas, therapy is guided by experience.
Experience is experience of health.
Experience of health is experience of what is good for me and what is not.
And much more
But some defences feel good, or appear to be good, for a certain time and as long as the social benefits hold. So experience of health has to do with what is good for me and not defensive. What is really good for me. Beware of all social benefits, they produce unconsciousness. Adjustment is not health, adjustment is defence.
So, health has to do with personal health, therefore certain specific feelings, for we do not know if a society is healthy or not. It is too big to be evaluated from inside.
Therapy is ultimately guided by what experience of health the therapist has.
That is to what degree of health he has attained.
Kill the dragon = Get rid of the Superego and recordings of the infancy. Live to your potential, whatever the risks = Let-go and follow inner drives, through fears beyond fears. Invest freedom of all bondage, thus respecting nature.
Adjust between Superego restrictions, Reality constraints, Pressure of the Id = limit the inner conflicts. Get insight on inner drives from the unconscious (past, infancy) = know thyself. Sublimate your impulses = find social rewards for your neurotic impulses.
Liberate sexual impulses, make way for energy flow in the body = put life in your body. Orgasm = learn to let-go. Discharge the repressed emotion cycles = free the ego from the motivations of infancy.
Dive in the hell of the relationship (couple, analytic, or alchemistic) and get out of it transformed = therapise yourself through the hardship of a transferential, regressive and workable relationship until psychic death and rebirth happens. Individuation = state of the hierosgamos, completeness and integration of the psychic system. Self rooted, non-influenced, clear vision, care of others, just relationships, balance.
Thorough analysis leads to acceptation of the psychic separation and difference, autonomy, integrity, emotional ability, pertinence of sentiment life in relationship and permanent sense of self.
Getting up the scales from infancy to adulthood: Trust -> Autonomy -> Initiative -> Industry -> Identity (sexual identity) -> Intimacy -> Generativity -> Ego integrity.
Getting up the scales of getting rid of the vital needs of the infancy to the higher needs of self-development. From the needy child to self-actualisation. Going from Need-Love (deficit based) to Being-Love (recognition and giving). Self-actualisation means: reality rooted; acceptance of self, others and nature; importance of every small event, inside and outside (feeling, reaction, other's features, etc.); spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness; purpose, problem centredness ; justness (clear notions of 'right and wrong'); ego strength, detachment; independence from culture and environment (no investment in conformity); resistance to conditioning; group consciousness (desire to help fellows and humankind); depth of relationships; generativity (creativeness); occurrences of peak experiences.
Paroxystic or peak experience is the transforming event toward self-actualisation. Generally death and rebirth type of experience.
Transformation of the infantile psyche into an adult psyche (system of sentiments proper to the environment, nature and the group). Infantile is investment in: uncommitted action, unaware of self, without bounds exploration and demands, pleasure, strong investment in power, pleasure and control; Adult is investment in: commitment, responsibility, sense of duty, generativity, parentage and transmission, recognition of the bondage of love, virtue and death.
The tool of transformation is the rite of passage. Death and rebirth experience. Death of the child and rebirth in an adult form. Sacrifice is the mean by which one acquires spiritual power. Self-sacrifice is the highest. Sacrifice of the ego leads to the beyond and the spiritual world.
Loss of the 'ego' , desire, and affective drives. Being so conscious that the awareness is everywhere. Total objectivity. Renunciation of selfish drives in relationships. Meaning of life. Compassion, simplicity, let-go, being loose and natural, single-pointedness, choiceless awareness, deep concern, excellence, justness, wisdom.
All models run finally along two main lines: 1- spontaneous life unlimited by the hindrances of childhood, conditioning, repression and lack of reality access ; 2- reference to a law which is an evidence of the grave and constant forms of nature. In addition, guidance from 'above' is quoted in certain systems.
I thus propose that health is characterised by a quality I name here bia, which is twofold; it is: 1- the measure of Life, or liveliness, in an individual. i.e. the aptitude for spontaneous involuntary life in the body, whether in some parts of it or in the body as a whole; and by way of derivation spontaneous unhindered action of the individual as a whole; 2- obeying certain forms guided by a Law (or by laws ) ascertaining the necessities of how and where this spontaneous life is to be invested.
bia = Life + Law
Deviations from this leads to difficulties, psychic troubles or pathology, here named pathos. Pathos is again twofold, it is: 1- lack of liveliness; or psychic Death. Reduction to biological life, or life obeying to ideas and mental fantasies, without spontaneous reality rooted action-reaction. 2- lack of law; or craziness. Life without guidelines, references or bounds, either with respect to reality (nature), or with respect to affection (relationships). Erratic, non-referenced, chaotic.
pathos = Death + Chaos
In neurotics individuals, let-go will produce a enormous amount of painful repressed material to burst out. And thus undesirable. In this case, increase in bia will take a preliminary effort to liberate the recorded emotions of childhood. References will be gained by the concomitant increase in sensitivity and progressive recognition of the true human nature. Basic laws (taboo of the incest, taboo of violation or devouring another, taboo of doing harm to the children) will then be recognised. In psychotic individuals, let-go will normally produce decompensation. And thus improbable and punished by the upright society. Therapeutic smooth decompensation and subsequent restructuring of the psychic system is the effort it takes to have access to bia. Omnipotence will then have to fall off and crumble to pieces. Taboos will have to be first experienced and then acknowledged and integrated.
In people transformed by rites of passage, the transformation process is expected to happen in a short time, without the mishaps of unstructured development as in neurotic-psychotic societies.
Guidance is the ultimate of let-go, when bia comes to the service of unknown natural forces, on the archetypal or collective level. Inner guidance and outer guidance both meet.
There is a subtle difference between bia and Eros, pathos and Thanatos. Eros and Thanatos were viewed by Freud as more or less in relation with what is expected of a better life, with reference to society. Bia and pathos are to be figured in a more absolute sense, as an increase of life and reference independently of the system of beliefs and norms of the society. The whole of society is defensive, and therefore is no model for life nor reference.
Life and Law are of Nature, not of society.
Trance (trans) means passage, crossing over, voyage, beyond.
As the word "trance" is widely used in anglo-saxon countries, for a variety of wide apart experiences, it is better redefined, or at least carefully defined each time we use it.
"Trance" as used in the hypnotic methods is defined here as a state where the psychic functions corresponding to the left cerebral hemisphere are blocked, i.e. a state of heightened sensitivity due to a lessening of the mental awareness and control. In this state, all the personal unconscious remains present but is easier of access.
These trances are of the trophotropic type, i.e. a condition where a toppling over in a state of high vitality (hi charge of the body, easiness of reaction, non-voluntary action) and loss of control (hi relaxation) happen . It is a hi charge and non emotional state. It is obtained by strong rhythmic stimulation of the brain through the feedback of strong rhythmic muscular movement. The same happen with strong rhythmic breathing, or with breathing and movement associated. Collapse of mental control and trigger of a new neurovegetative balance happen.
These trances, when no emotional activity hinders the process, normally lead to a state of relative ego vacuum and enhanced body sensitivity and reactivity. Non-voluntary movement, pulsation, vibrations, spasms, and distortions of space and time appreciation happen; manifestations can show or not precise forms. Individuals who are too neurotic may not experience anything. Strong unconscious emotional life and associated repression hamper let-go states.
Trances obtained by the gyration method give similar results; however they normally go a step deeper than the previous ones. Gyration/let-go induce the deeper trance state I know together with an enhanced ability of the body. These states lead normally to a short automatic panting respiration, burst of sweat, tremulous reactions of almost all parts of the body, loss of body boundaries, precipitation in a world of only sensations all invested at the same time and heightened . A vanishing of all ego features (emotions, thoughts, imagery, memories and all personal material) occurs together with a heightened feeling of life in the body, freedom, surprising motion, total spontaneity (void of the ideic/voluntary restraint), guidance of the body from the inner. There is a definite sense of purpose of action however with a limited possibility to put words on it afterwards. The blowing out of all personal drives and material and subsequent simultaneous investment in all sensations of- and out-of-the-body is characteristic of this type of trance. It is of the deepest type and it is used world-wide .
In this vacuum state, blown-out ego, the feeling of a highly lively and enriched body without will and control, and nonetheless actions driven from another source which are full of purpose and meaning, can be compared to the out-of-body experiences, depending whether the point of observation remains in the psyche (out-of-the-body trances) or in the body (void-of-the-psyche trances). The feeling of falling, losing control, crossing the deep black frontier (abyss symptom) and being caught by another system of drives is characteristic.
In many traditions, this state of vacuum is used to let another psychic system in, take possession of the command, drive the body, and give guidance or cure from another source.
Here, we restrict our interest to the last type of trance, ex-static, where the egotic personal drives and materials are temporary evacuated and the point of observation lies in the body.
The absence of personal drives, personal memories and egotic interests seems to be the main characteristic of trance. The point of observation is the centre of all feelings.
The investment is in all features at the same time, i.e. both in the heightened body sensations and all the items of the environment. Every single bit of information in the surrounding becomes significant and acquires a meaning, gives information, and is integrated in the process. The surrounding becomes psychically meaningful, and is source of information and action. All psychic entities in the vicinity (individual selves and numinous presence) are present to the trancer. The trancer is everywhere.
There is an instantaneous and close relationship of pure sentiment with everyone. There is a knowing of exactly what is needed to this relationship in this moment. Action, evidence and easiness of contact follows.
Total let-go do not lead to chaotic motion. It leads to fluidity, flowing action, motion that is felt but cannot be controlled, discovering it at the time it happens. The body is very lively, very strong, feels very safe and knowing. It is fully immersed in the present instant and extremely aware of all that is more or less near and all that is meaningful to the present task. The motion is unperturbed by foreign pressure or demands.
The wisdom of actions in these states is astonishing; this is acknowledged in most ethnic groups the world and usually looked for. The 'other source' of drives can be thought of as: deep unconscious (beyond personality and even sometimes beyond instinct!), collective unconscious, archetypal plane, the beyond, etc.
The tendency of the body in these states is to
· discharge self of tensions and energetic currents (fluidizing function)
· express and discard possessions of the past (exorcism function)
· express fundamentals of relationships with group, nearby individuals and especially close individuals; increase bonds (immersion function, transference function)
· cure itself and help others curing themselves (healing function)
· express personal and collective information (consciousness: revelation and guidance function)
The deep change in the appreciation of self is frequently referred to as being 'another self in another world'.
The fluidized state of the body leaves afterwards a deep sentiment of joy and replenishment, a tranquillity and lack of questions and concerns with self or with the future, however paradoxically sometimes with clear vision of the near future.
The trance state called ex-static characterised by high spontaneous liveliness of the body, loss of personal drives and past, and strong references for the guidance of relationships shows temporarily all the desirable features of healthy individuals as inferred or imagined by other systems of psychological investigation and cure.
It obeys fully to the principle of bia.
This state is thus a valuable guide to understand what is better health, and what is the essence of health and healing. Furthermore, it is actual and experiential, and thus directly accessible to the senses and individual experience. It is learnable and transmissible. Its learning can be shared by individuals having similar experiences.
It is thus no wonder that these states have been used at all times and places as healing states.
Following this rationale, the whole system of personality, or the complete egotic ideas of self, or the totality of our psychic usual information appears to be the problem of living with neuroses, psychoses and anxiety. We are not sick of the Superego, or of the Id or of the inner conflicts, or anything of the sort, we are sick of our total psyche! Or to put it more precisely, of the complete set of personal conscious and unconscious contents. We are sick of our total egotic self! When it is not there, we are truly marvellous beings. When we are not in the way, everything is OK.
Trance is a death-rebirth experience. Death of the infancy investments and rebirth to a integrated aware and just individual. Death of the personal narrow and anxious world and rebirth to a greater meaningful and fearless world.
It remains to explain why self-actualising people show these remarkable features while obviously not in trance? Can trance healthy features be progressively integrated to the psyche in the normal state?
Health appears thus as an unlimited process
Suppose an individual state is descripted by an unknown very large number of parameters. How does one guides a client from a state of 'disease' (neurose, psychose, perversion, autism, psychosomatic illness, psychopathy, etc) to a state of health? How do you know the path to health? What does health feels like? What does the path imply? What is the cost of the transformation? What are the transformation devices? What is a healthy state? What experience of health do you have? My hunch is that x-trance (temporary) is a valid model for a (permanent) state of health. It is not an idea. It is a fundamental experience of what to be healthy is. It may help know the way to health, it is a step to permanent health. It can guide the therapy, and increase the motivation 'to go to health'.
How do we know the path from disease, ailment, or psychological trouble to health?
Here are a few exemples of trance methods which can lead to ex-static states (called here X-Trance).
|
passive states |
Hypnotic trance Contemplation, meditation Sound or rhythm induced |
(ex. vipassana, tratak) (ex. rattles, drums) |
|
| active states | Specific motion strong dancing Heavy specific breathing Whirling |
(ex. gnawa) (ex. sufi zikhr breathing, or dervish howling) (ex. dervish, umbanda) |
· neurotic types will have to get less neurotic first! Otherwise, let-go tentatives will take the labile ones into spectacular fits of hysteria, and the obsessional ones into lots of thinking and criticising.
· psychotic types will have to come back to earth (more into their body) from their 'psychotic trance' before they can go into x-trance!
X-TRANCE can be achieved by (depending on previous training): the less training, the stronger should the method be.
-> whirling and let-go
-> spinning body
-> spinning head
-> release movements of specific segments joints
-> nearing a person already in trance
-> just by letting-go totally when one feels a gap in the space-time continuum
Sensations are usually
· fears of all sorts
· dizziness
· like puking
· falling
· going through a pitch black space
· abandoning everything
· 'I am no longer here'
· being caught by some surprising foreign drive
| N° | Speci- ficity |
Characteristic | Description |
| 1 | *** | Loss of I (sense of self and identity) |
Going into x-trance, vanish: thoughts, emotions, memories, imagining, prospects for the future, even close, self-consciousness and self-importance, tensions, will, control, usual sensations of the outer reality. The vanishing of the 'I', of the complete ego set (ego-superego-id-reality check, or of the personality-ego-id-functions) is patent. What remains is rather a non-partial non-interested observing point, or in other terms a subtle self-function and a live body void of recorded material with a center of consciousness. In the deeper let-go occasions, even that consciousness may disappear without altering the capacity of action and response. |
| 2 | *** | Total spontaneity of action/reaction | Loss of muscular tensions gives a fluidized motion of the body. Unhindered action (from inner sources) and reaction (from outer sources), high degree of response, whithout thinking, control or restraint. |
| 3 | *** | Freedom from archaic and infancy drives | There is an absence of thinking and emotional life, desires, archaic and infancy material and drives, tentatives of discharge or repression of such, and of all personal material and memories. However, a high input of enhanced sensations and body activity remains. |
| 4 | *** | Very high degree of livelihood (bia) | Strength, intensity, presence in the body, inhabited body. Very strong inner source of energy, life throughout, abundant livelihood in the body, pouring out, manifesting freely. The body feels very tough to an outside person, but not of tensions, but of intensity. |
| 5 | *** | Spread awareness | Loss of the active filtering of stimuli and the automatic search for specific stimulations to help discharge. Non-selective awareness, global input of what is available without discrimination, choiceless awareness. Merging of outer and inner reality. Impression of being spread everywhere. Things (as symbols) and persons both have meaning. Intentions are felt. |
| 6 | *** | Freedom from personal interests | Loss of personal desires. Feeling of being an instrument of something bigger, deeper, or higher than self, helpful, directed at others, benefiting of the group and benefiting to the group. |
| 7 | *** | Strong and deep inner references (bia) | Action shows unusual responsibility and knowing, adequation to the situation, certainty of action. Conveys the sense of meaning, of law, of taboo, of wisdom, and even in some cases, of sacredness. |
| 8 | *** | Connection with the collective | Action generally shows definite patterns, which can be recognized as from the deep unconscious, collective, archetypal, or mythic. |
| 9 | *** | Connection with the beyond | In the deeper case of x-trance, the body is felt as driven by forces of another plane, having recognizable patterns ranging from animalistic, naturalistic, anthropomorphic, to more general principles of life. |
| 10 | *** | Transforming experience | The experience is transforming in itself, if only by the singular experience of a state of no-tensions, direct uncontrolled action, strong interaction with others, and sensations of being driven by another source. |
| 11 | *** | Deep joy and unbounded love for self and others | During but especially after the x-trance experience, body fulfilment, contentment, replenishment, deep joy, lack of questions and ok feelings, unbounded heartfull openness towards self and others are generally felt and reported. |
| 12 | ** | Surprise, wonder, awe, mystery | Restores the sense of ignorance, of the mysterious, of hte wonderful, of awe in the face of what happens, and of reverence for life and living beings. |
| 13 | ** | Healing experience | Elation, bliss and beyond feelings High discharge or release levels, exorcism of archaic possessions, exposure of the naked stucture of the psychic system are possible in this state. Orgasm like and associated experiences are likely to happen also. |
| 14 | ** | Meaningfulness of action | Action shows pertinence and meaningfulness of relationship to all present, justness, however devoid of social and consensual conformity. |
| 15 | ** | Freedom from pressures from others | The body is felt very strong, driven by high forces, unperturbed by surrounding influences, and pressures from others or from the social sphere. |
| 16 | ** | Strong connection with others | Strongly enhanced transference effect with all present. Transsubjectivity or transpsychism, or in other words the relative mobility and inter-diffusion of psychic contents between two individuals is here manifested and enhanced. |
| 17 | * | Strong investment in purpose | Unperturbed direction of action, discovered as it happens together with its meaning, is felt. Centered, focused action occurs, single-pointedness. |
| 18 | ** | High potential of actualizing | The non-restrained motion gives the feeling of a capacity of actualizing all information that comes from the spread awareness and the connections it provides in the various planes. |
| 19 | ** | Freedom from imaginary world and fantasies | Together with the personal material, emotions and repression, vanishes all fantasy production, imagining and prospects for the future. Some individuals see in this state, with a different sight, some hear, some feel, some even only know. |
| 20 | * | Enhanced sensivity | Enhanced sensitivity, sensivity to a large variety of stimulations and symbols, mostly outside of the normal perception range, sensivity to hidden presences and hidden motivations and intentions of the individuals. The loss of tensions and fluidity of the body entrains many microreactions giving lots of information, in seing or in hearing or in sensing, depending on the subject. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0 | disconnected | no-drive = denial | mental, talk, factual, intellectual keeps to outer reality no body involvment void of meaning and connection |
none (even with self) |
| 1 | wanting | needs & defence | searching for discharge, blocked action driven by repression motives wanting what is not the case defensive desires |
other (archaic object) |
| 2 | release | discharge disinvolvment |
inner actuality emotion, truth of the past (archaic) desire driven by release and satisfaction |
none (but connected with self) |
| 3 | flowing | easiness | let-go, surrender lack of tension, openness no investment in needs or desire |
other (real or group) transference |
| 4 | revealing | full and motionless | insight, silence, fullness, awe truth of this moment inner truth, feeling of knowing |
none |
| 5 | X-Trance (free) |
from the collective | void of personal matters or interest total surrender and very active strong transference on deep plane |
other (deep unconscious of all present) |
| 6 | X-Trance (incorporated) |
from the beyond | incorporation of foreign psychic systems (entities, spirits, disincarnate souls, ) | none for the self soul of the other for the entity |
 depth of connection |
MODEL features |
Nietzsche | S.Freud | Reich | Jung | Rogers | Erikson | Maslow | Campbell | Sufi & Tibetan |
Ritual |
|
widespread awareness |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ||||||
|
enhanced sensitivity |
· | · | · | · | · | |||||
|
total spontaneity |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ||
|
strong inner references (bia) |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | |
|
meaning of action |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· |
|
hi connection with other, heightened relationship |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ||
|
hi connection with collective plane |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ||||
|
hi connection with the beyond |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ||||||
|
free from outer pressures |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ||||
|
free from archaic drives |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | |
|
loss of the I (identity) |
··· | ··· | ||||||||
|
free from imaginary world |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | |||
|
free from personal interest |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ||||
|
high potential of actualisation |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ||
|
high livelihood (bia) |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | |||||
|
purpose, singlepointedness |
· | · | · | · | ||||||
|
transforming event |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | ··· | |||||
|
surprise, wonder, mystery |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ||||
|
transcendental, elation and/or orgasmic feelings |
·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | ·· | |||||
|
unconditional love feeling (self and others) & joy |
··· | ··· | ··· | ··· |
| MODEL score - |
Nietzsche | S.Freud | Reich | Jung | Rogers | Erikson | Maslow | Campbell | Sufi & Tibetan |
Ritual |
| Number of occurences |
14 | 4 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 5 | 17 | 13 | 19 | 20 |
| Total score | 32 | 9 | 21 | 36 | 16 | 12 | 42 | 32 | 46 | 49 |
| PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION
|