Shamanic Trance Postures

In 1998, my close friend and collaborator Judith Thomson introduced me to ecstatic trance postures after she took a four day workshop with the late Felicitas Goodman, the modern discoverer of ritual body postures. Judith and I began facilitating workshops together in early 1993. She was called by Spirit to teach drum making and I was called to teach shamanic drumming. My trance experiences with the body postures I learned from Judith inspired me to begin a 32-month experimental journey into trance posture practice. I meditated several times a week for 15 minutes while holding specific body poses, then recorded my trance experiences in a journal.
 

I highly recommend incorporating trance postures into your journey work, though not as a daily practice. Too much trance work can leave you feeling ungrounded and disconnected from physical reality. This practice is compatible with all other consciousness raising practices when done separately. There is no belief system or dogma associated with this work. Some of my most profound trance experiences have taken place while holding shamanic body postures. "Waking dream" is an apt description of these visionary trance states.
 

In the 1970s, linguist and anthropologist Felicitas Goodman demonstrated that the capacity to enter ecstatic trance states is built into our nervous system, our body-mind-soul, our very DNA. It can be achieved through a shift in our physiology. And that is something our nervous system knows how to do when given the right cues. What's more, she learned this was discovered long ago by our ancestors around the world going back 50,000 years or more.
 

Goodman discovered that specific yoga-like poses recur in the art and artifacts of world cultures, even societies widely separated by time and space. Goodman's hypothesis, therefore, was that these postures represented coded instructions on how to produce consistent trance-like effects. Goodman researched and explored ritual body postures as a means to achieve a bodily induced trance experience. Her studies led her to many countries and to trying out these body positions practically with hundreds of participants worldwide. She discovered that people who assume these body poses report strikingly similar trance experiences regardless of their worldview or belief systems.
 

According to Goodman, these postures produce a common effect because they all share one thing in common: the human body, the basic structure and functioning of which has remained unchanged since the time of our most ancient ancestors. The nervous and endocrine systems are, in fact, all much the same as they were 30,000 years ago--a fact which enables contemporary urban dwellers to enter nonordinary reality just as effectively through the same neural doorways as shamans throughout history. Combined with rhythmic drumming, the postures engender a profound change in consciousness, leading to new insights into healing, inner development and soul purpose. There are different postures that facilitate healing, divination, spirit journeys, metamorphosis, and more.
 

The results from my ecstatic trance posture practice have been astonishing, confirming Felicitas Goodman's theory that, "if one adopts such a posture, one will have such an experience." Rhythmic stimulation combined with trance postures produces a physiological shift that leads to a profound change in consciousness, enabling one to experience different dimensions of reality. I highly recommend Belinda Gore's book, Ecstatic Body Postures: An Alternate Reality Workbook. With clear instructions and illustrations, Gore reveals how to work with these shamanic body postures. I hope this practice becomes a valued tool in your repertoire. The following are postures I recommend and use in my shamanic practice:
 

1. The Bear Spirit Posture for healing and restoring harmony;
2. The Lady of Cholula Posture for divination, guidance and advice;
3. The Tattooed Jaguar Posture for a metamorphosis into a jaguar;  
4. The South American Lower World Posture for journeying to the lower realms;
5. The Psychopomp Posture for guiding departed souls into the afterlife.