I have practiced ecstatic trance for much of my life, as a teenager a friend of my mother’s, my older sister’s godmother, called my mother and asked to borrow her children to use to explore a theory she had regarding inducing trance with specific body postures and repetitive sounds.

Dr. Felicitas Goodman, the late linguist and anthropologist, taught that ecstatic postures are an entry to alternate realities. Dr. Goodman argued that the human body is wired for ecstatic experience—that we need to feel connected to everything around us rather than isolated. 

Different from meditation which puts people into an alpha state, Ecstatic Body Postures produce the ultra-slow theta waves.  In Dr. Goodman’s book: Where the Spirits Ride the Wind, physical studies indicated that blood serum drops in the stress compunds of adrenaline, noradrenalin, and cortisol. Simultaneously, the brain starts synthesizing beta-endorphins, the body’s natural, miracle pain killers that are also responsible for the intense joy after a trance. All postures showed these affects. In addition, there has been a great deal of research indicating that entering an alternate state of reality “helps us reduce our resistance to the multiple levels of awareness that we may experience at all times. Accompaniment of audible beats at 200-210 per minute shuts off the left side of the brain, thus allowing an ecstatic trance to occur. This enables contact with the alternate, the sacred. 

WORKSHOPS:

Nika Annon offers one-day workshops in which she uses a rattle and the ecstatic body postures of our spiritual ancestors to guide participants to a “waking dream” state.

The goal is to take participants beyond their daily constructs, barriers and filters and move them outside their habitual behavior and thought patterns. The rattle takes us on into a deeper part of ourselves and allows us to move into a theta brain waves state.

Workshop participants can control the depth and focus of their trance, using it to heal, to release trauma, or to enhance their creative vitality or their understanding of life. 

Nika offers trance work in coaching sessions one-on-one and in groups that meet regularly or for just one session. I also enjoy working with those groups who wish to paint or write after trances.

Ease your journeying between realities, support opening to inner wisdom, the presences of your spirit.

THE PROCESS:

In preparing for a trance I invite a sacred circle to bloom, encompassing all members of the trance group. We take a few minutes to group and prepare ourselves, breathing, closing our eyes, and letting this reality fade in priority. We invite the spirits from each of the seven directions: North, East, South, West, Above, Below, and Here, to guide and support us in our journeying. I speak in the moment invoking the beloved guides, spirits, and being essences of self to join us, guide us, and support us, gracing us with their knowingness.

We always start with each participant calling those spirits with whom they connect with. We then move into the postures we will use.We rest after each posture, taking time to sit quietly and draw in some way to honor the experience. If anyone in the group has insights or experiences they want to share, we do so. There is never any pressure to share, though. We then move into another posture and repeat the trance, we absorb, then share. Each trance lasts about 15 minutes. After the last sharing we come together as a circle, to express gratitude and send the spirits home. This process usually lasts a total of 2 hours. A series of trances done over several days are marvelous and transforming.