The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Author:Starhawk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1999-03-17T05:00:00+00:00

“The seekers of new mind states—the mind control devotees, encounter group enthusiasts, the drug takers, the psychics, the meditators—all are on a journey into the interior universe trying to burst the limits of the socially conditioned mind. Whether acceptable or unacceptable, moral or immoral, wise or foolish, the mind of man is stirring toward a new evolution.”

Dr. Barbara Brown1

The universe is a dance of energy, a uni-verse, a single song of ever-changing rhythms and harmonies. Sustaining the melody of the physical world is a rich interplay of counerpoint and descant. We see only a fraction of the band of radiation that makes up the spectrum; we hear only a small range of possible frequencies of sound. Ordinarily, we are conscious of only one, isolated melody; we listen to only the piccolo out of an infinite orchestra. To trance is to shift and expand our awareness: to pick out the beat of the drum, the throbbing violins, the cry of saxophones, to know the interwoven harmonies played in new keys, to thrill to the soaring symphony itself.

Trance states, states of nonordinary consciousness, have been called by many names: expanded awareness, meditation, hypnosis, “getting high.” Trance techniques are found in every culture and religion—from the rhythmic chant of a Siberian shaman to free association on a Freudian analyst’s couch. The pull to burst beyond the limits of the socially conditioned mind seems to be a deep-seated human need. There are an infinite variety of possible states of trance. We all experience light trance whenever we are daydreaming; concentrating deeply; watching a play, film, or television show; turning attention inward; and forgetting the sensory world. In deep states, we may have experiences such as John C. Lilly describes:

“I moved into a region of strange life forms, neither above nor below the human level, but strange beings, of strange shapes, metabolisms, thought forms, and so forth. These beings reminded me of some of the drawings I had seen of Tibetan gods and goddesses, of ancient Greek portrayals of their gods and of some of the bug-eyed monsters of science fiction.”2

Deeper levels of trance may open up paranormal senses, psychic awareness, precognition. We may empathize and connect with other beings and life forms; in Balinese, the word for trance means “to become.”

Occultists and metaphysicians delight in attempting to order, define, and rank the various states of consciousness, a process somewhat like attempting to measure a cloud with a ruler. I will not indulge in it here, because I feel it creates an erroneous impression that we know more than we do about these states. When we impose a left-brain, linear order on a right-brain, complex pattern, we tend to feel that we have gained control of the phenomenon—when we have done nothing more than point out a few stars with the beam of our flashlight. Classifying consciousness also encourages “higher than Thou” games of one-upmanship. People waste energy defining which state they are in, as if consciousness were a cosmic grammar school, in which third-graders were entitled to look down on kindergartners.

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