What is Ecstatic Trance? Professor of Anthropology and husband-wife team, members of the CI COmmunity Todd and Christine Van Pool share the historical journey as anthropology evolved over the last century. While the wide spectrum of ASC (Altered States of Consciousness) and the ecstatic trance state of our own work has a 50,000 year track record, over time our culture lost both the practice and the language around it. Is the common meaning of the term “ecstatic trance” and “religious trance”, used by the previous generations of anthropologists from our own Dr. Felicitas Goodman to Mircea Eliade, in transition as more and more of us are adopting and adapting practices to engage in these states? Are we ‘hardwired’ to seek such states? What can we learn from the 1960’s survey of the beneficial attributes of visionary states funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (to which Dr. Goodman contributed by translating many of the ethnographies studied) and why did the West divorce itself from these practices? Why were shamanic states ever viewed as a pathology? How are ecstatic states being revived and enjoyed today? What will bring ASC back into the mainstream?
Hosted by Laura Lee and Paul Robear. Conversation4Exploration, Conversation 4 Exploration, Conversation for Exploration, Cuyamungue: Felicitas D. Goodman Institute, The Laura Lee Show