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Trance

(from a talk given at the Dunedin Spiritualist Church on 29th July 2007 by Graeme Wilson)

In some ways, my talk tonight follows on from the talk I gave back in January 2007 about the Will (Who is running you life?). Some of you may have been here for that talk, or perhaps read the transcript of it on the Spiritualist Church website.

Whether or not you have, it may be useful to keep in mind the concept of choice as I talk tonight. This was a major theme in the previous talk, and while not directly what I am talking about, tonight’s talk certainly has elements which relate to choice.

Tonight’s talk is on trance. What images does the word trance conjure up in your mind? Perhaps a deep mediumistic trance (channelling), perhaps hypnosis? Maybe whirling dervishes or fire dancing?

Those are certainly forms or manifestations of trance. Tonight though I will be talking primarily about trance in our day to day life, or at least trances that are easily available to all of us.

First I would like to give the definition of trance that I am working with. Think of it as any prolonged deviation from our normal waking state of awareness. I realise that this is very broad, however, hopefully during the duration of the talk it will become clear why this definition is useful.

The etymology of the word trance is also useful to consider. It derives from a Latin word (trānsīre) meaning “to cross”, or “pass over”. This certainly fits in with the definition I am choosing to work with, as it is a crossing or passing over into an altered state of consciousness from normal awareness. For the purposes of the talk it isn’t important what “normal” is, so just consider it a base-line state of consciousness or awareness for each individual person.

There are various indications that you, or another person is in a trance. Sometimes there can be physical indications, like seeing someone’s eyes glaze over in boredom while you’re talking to them. The common association with hypnotic trance is that a person’s eyes will be closed and they will be in a sleep type state. This is true for some hypnosis, but it is also possible for hypnotic states where a person is still seemingly awake and alert, although their inner state of awareness is narrowed or focussed on a specific point – perhaps someone’s voice, or watching a flickering object such as a candle, or a TV screen.

Other indications of trance include:

  • Narrowing of awareness
  • Repetition of thoughts
  • Focusing on the “inner world”
  • Cognitive impairment (difficulty thinking or making a choice)
  • Short-term memory loss

Narrowing of awareness

Most people can probably relate to this, although they may now realise they’ve effectively been in a trance. For example, being busy on a task such as reading a book, and someone walks into the room, and right up to you, and then speaks and you get a fright. Your awareness had been narrowly focused onto the reading of the book.

Repetition of thoughts

A common form of meditation is the repeating, either out-loud or in one’s head, of a mantra. This leads fairly quickly to a state of meditational trance. However, this isn’t the only way repeated thoughts lead us into a trance. We may be unaware that when we are walking around repeating to ourselves “my life is terrible” that we are effectively putting ourselves into a trance. The repetition of such thoughts in our head leads to narrowing of awareness, and likely we will literally ignore all possibilities to make our life exciting, and choose to see all events around us of proof of how terrible our life is.

Focusing on the “inner world”

Hypnosis works by getting us to focus on our inner state. So do guided meditations, such as the healing meditation used here at the Spiritualist Church. By getting us to focus on our inner thoughts and feelings a trance will set in, and a certain level of disconnection to the physical world occurs. The same thing happens spontaneously when we daydream. When in daydreaming we don’t even realise that we’re “away with the fairies” until we either drift back to normal awareness, or someone talks to us and we are jolted back to reality.

Cognitive impairment

The deeper trance goes, the more we may find it difficult to think. It is common for our mind to start spontaneous creating imagery or for random thoughts to start entering our mind. This is one problem people often face when learning meditation (such as mantra meditation), that after repeating the mantra a few dozen times they realize they’ve stopped repeating the mantra and are now thinking about something else. The same can happen with guided meditations or hypnosis, where the mind wanders from what is being said and spontaneous dreamlike events start unfolding.

Short-term memory loss

Have you ever experienced driving home from work and suddenly realised you don’t recall having driven past certain places, or being surprised you’re already passing a certain place on the route? The chances are, you were in a trance. Perhaps you were busy thinking about the day at work, or what you will be doing once you get to your destination. In this case you have been focusing on the inner world, lost a certain amount of awareness, and your short-term memory has effectively been bypassed.

These indications of trance are neither good nor bad. It depends on the situation as to whether the trances are beneficial to you or not.

Some trances that are generally considered beneficial are meditation, hypnosis (ie. Hypnotherapy), ecstatic trance (which has been linked to healing). However these too are open to being abused. Meditation for instance can be used by cults to keep your mind away from critical judgement by meditating for many hours in a day. It is claimed that suicide bombers are taught to repeat verses from the Koran over and over while they undertake their deadly missions. Effectively this creates a trance, one which is undoubtedly necessary for a human being to take their own life in such a manner.

There are trances that are more decidedly negative. Addiction is one thing. Addictive trances aren’t just around the use of drugs. An addiction can build up around other activities, such as food, or various behaviours, such as computer or internet usage, or perhaps certain activities on the computer or internet.

Charismatic trances are also dangerous. Charisma can be seen as a type of trance that can lead other people into a trance where they will be more compliant and suggestible to a leader. This kind of trance is common in various cults where a leader is very charismatic and devotees will accept all behaviours by the leader as acceptable, even though they wouldn’t normally consider these things acceptable if done by a member of the public.

Any trance that is covert, and you do not choose, can be considered abusive or invasive. That includes sales pitches that use hypnotic patterns and careful crafted sentences to induce you to buy something whether or not you need it. This can be more of a problem for people with a shopping addiction, or in a shopper’s trance, who are already in a state that makes them more suggestible.

Things to consider

There are various things for you to consider about trance. I will list a few here.

  • Be careful about who or what you allow to guide you into trance. The TV isn’t necessarily a good choice!
  • Reflect on your day-to-day life, and see if you can become more aware of trances you experience, addictions, repetitions of thought, or times you have experienced short-term memory loss or difficulty think while undertaking an activity. Awareness is a key to breaking unhealthy trances or patterns of behaviour, and allows you to begin making new choices to enrich your life.
  • Consider finding out more about trances. Personal responsibility is a key to Self-growth.
  • Be mindful that there are almost always other ways of doing things, and other choices you can make.
  • Be willing to address repetitive patterns in your life, such as repeated behaviours and repeated experiences, especially if they are things which are not healthy or beneficial to you.

Resources

Books

Websites

Specific web pages

NZ Spirit Web Directory

Read spiritual articles in the Occult Library.