even if I'm insane

Jun 28, 2005 03:48

A lot of Americans (or modern Westerners in general) have trouble experiencing ecstasy, trance, anatman, ego-death, or what Maslow called "peak experiences." This is simply due to the fact that Americans are hung up on some reified sense of self, some sense of self as an autonomous substance that inherently exists. I've said before that you can ( Read more... )

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hermeneut September 6 2005, 21:01:36 UTC
It is difficult to stay what trance is precisely, mainly because trance involves the dissolution of the sort of finite limits we use to make precise definitions of words. Basically, trance is a word used to express transition, transformation, transmutation, transcendence. In the West, trance is often regarded as madness (schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination, dementia, etc.), but for mystics and visionaries like St. John of the Cross or William Blake, trance was an important part of their religious experiences. Sometimes trance is called ecstasy, inspiration, ego-loss, and other expressions that are intended to represent an experience wherein the normal boundaries of the self are overwhelmed by the power of something infinitely other than the self, the power of something sacred.

Sometimes trance is used to describe the sort of half-conscious state of somebody listening to the car radio and not paying attention to their driving. In its religious context, trance is mainly used as a synonym for an experience of the transcendent power of the holy, the sacred, the infinite, ineffable, absolute, eternal....

I hope that makes some sense.

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