Importance of Ecstatic Trance
At this time in our lives upon the Earth my biggest concern is the effect of Global Climate Change and the dire potential for our demise. I believe that Ecstatic Trance is important in our journey through this time and into the New World of Time-Free Transparency.
Yes, there are other important reasons to use Ecstatic Trance. The first is for journeying into our unconscious mind for healing and personal growth. But upon this healing we are then ready to go beyond our interior concerns to see beyond into what I have called the Universal Mind, an awareness and ability to communicate with the spirits of our ancestors and with the spirits of the Earth as did our early hunter-gathering ancestors. It is how these ancestors experienced life that brought them into oneness with the Earth, oneness that now is lacking in our greedy attempts to control the Earth and everything of the Earth.
According to Jean Gebser, the German philosopher and historian, we are now entering the fifth stage of the evolution of human consciousness. He recognized five evolutionary stages of human consciousness beginning with the Archaic Era of Consciousness when we lived in what was experienced as a dream world. This stage led to what he calls the Magical Era when we became aware of the magical powers of these dream like experiences and used them to give direction to life, to aid us in hunting by giving us direction to our prey, what plants to eat, what plants can be used in healing, and how to live in oneness with the Earth. During this Era the Shaman of the community became the seer to give us this direction.
The Magical Era was followed by the Mythic Era, the era when we attempted to explain why things are the way they are and our creation. During this era was the beginning of recorded history. Until then the stories and directions from the Shamans were passed down orally. The Myths of the Mythic Era came about from the nighttime dreams and other dreamtime experiences that cohered in their telling and retelling. This era began approximately 10,000 years ago when we began moving from a hunting-gathering society into the agricultural society and domestication of animals, when we began to seek ways to control the Earth, when “we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden,” and when the distinctions between good and evil started becoming apparent to us.
The following Era, the Era of Rational Consciousness began about 2500 years ago, the Era which we have been living in while rejecting mythology and the world of the spirits, thus limiting our experience of the Earth to our five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. The transitions between each of these eras were difficult with considerable violence when some tried to hang on to the older era of consciousness while feeling threatened by going into the new ago in the evolution of consciousness. Gebser sees that we are now going into the new era of Time-Free Transparency, an era in which we realize the reality of power of journeying into the spirit world, the world of dreams, daydreaming and other trance experiences that brought our hunter-gathering ancestors into communing with the spirits of all life, the spirits of other species of life, of the fauna and flora of the Earth, that have a consciousness and have important information to share with us.
We are practicing many ways we are preparing for the New Age, e.g. recycling, raising our foods and eating organically, valuing nature to overcome the malnourishment of living in the concrete world of a city, listening to what our Native American brethren have to teach us in how to live with the Earth, and appreciating the diversity of all life, but one thing that the hunter-gathering cultures of our present world have to show us is how to listen to the world beyond our five senses. One way to listen is through Ecstatic Trance, a form of trance for which I have become a certified instructor through the Cuyamungue Institute in New Mexico. This ability to listen to the spirits of the Earth is quite central to the new era of Time-Free Transparency, i.e. to listen to the spirits that are free of time, from the past, present and future. I personally find excitement in what these spirits are showing and teaching us, and this is the major reason why I have put my energy into teaching others of the power of entering the world of the spirits.
Pictured is the Bahia Metamorphosis Posture from 300 BC to 650 AD, found in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador.
