How To
Entering a trance may seem difficult and even scary to some people the first time, but it's really the most natural thing in the world. Humans are hard wired for trance. Western culture is the only culture that rejects trance as a valid form of spiritual expression. This may be why so many people seek unhealthy ecstatic experiences and become addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex and pornography and thrill seeking. All of these fulfill similar needs as trance as all produce an ecstatic state, but they may have harmful affects on the body or on the person's life and relationships.
There are several ways to enter a trance or ecstatic state. One of the easiest is through the use of drugs, and this is practiced in many cultures worldwide, but I do not recommend it in our culture because many of the most useful drugs for this purpose are illegal and those that aren't can have devastating affects on your mind and body. Another way is asceticism. That is, causing yourself so much pain that your consciousness flees your body in an effort to relieve the suffering, thus throwing you into an ecstatic state. This can be accomplished through fasting, subjecting yourself to severe heat or cold or lack of sleep or whipping or cutting yourself. For obvious reasons, I do not recommend this method either. However, exercise or dancing to the point of exhaustion is a type of asceticism that is very useful and, assuming you are a healthy individual to begin with, it will improve your health in the long run. See ecstatic dance.
Not to worry, however, there are many other safe methods of entering trance.
One of the most simple is complete relaxation and focus. That is, you simply get comfortable and focus on something, say the tree in your back yard. Get more and more relaxed, always thinking about that tree and then boom. There you are. But this is difficult for many people. Not just the relaxing, but also the focusing. The reason this is difficult is because your brain is always busy. It's noticing all the sounds around you, the changes in light, the smells and the whole time it's talking to you and telling you how silly you're being. So, you have to do something to keep your brain busy busy.
Drowning out environmental noises with some sort of repetitive sound is much more affective than eliminating them. Drumbeats are the best (180 beats per minute is ideal) but wave sounds or just static are also helpful. This gives your brain something to listen to, but nothing really to wonder about and because it's repetitive, it'll eventually lull it into a place where it's not even listening anymore.
Your eyes also are constantly sending messages to your brain, and again, just blocking out all light isn't going to be as affective as providing some sort of distraction. Watching the aforementioned tree move in the wind and observing the play of light over its leaves is a great distraction. You can also pick a simple picture to look at; something tricky is ideal, like an optical illusion. Your brain will puzzle over it and forget to worry about what your mind is doing. Some people find gazing at a candle is helpful while some people prefer to overload their brain with strobe lights. Don't do that if you have a history of seizures! Disconnecting your TV from the cable and turning it up loud will give you not only and incredibly boring visual but also a annoying audio, which will lull your brain into a stupor in no time.
Your body is also sending messages to the brain. It's saying that you've got an itch, you're a little hungry, you might have to go to the bathroom soon, it's a little too cool in here, don't you think and I think our pants are too tight. For many the discipline of ignoring these sensations is part of trance, but others find these sensations impossible to ignore. If you find your body is distracting you, you'll have to distract it. You can distract your body by repetitive sensations, like massage or flogging though you may need someone else's help with this or by submerging yourself in warm water or by simply exhausting it through some sort of exercise.
Many people enter a trance state through ecstatic dance. You may have seen movies in which Voodoo Priestesses or some tribal Shaman performed a ritual dance and received the answers to his or her question, either by journeying to talk to the spirits before or after the dance or having a spirit actually speak through them. Ecstatic dance keeps your brain busy so your mind can wander by tying it up with moving your body, exhausting your body so that it doesn't provide a distraction, and filling your ears with drum beats.
It's difficult to describe exactly what it's like to be in a trance state. Most people don't realize they are in a trance state the first time and once they do they snap right back out of it. This is okay; it's all part of the process. Eventually as you move, or lay there, you will find that the music is very distant, or you will find if you are dancing that you no longer are directing your body, it's dancing on its own. You will be in a dream state- and that's okay. You will feel distant, relaxed, and yet hyper aware. You will feel as if your body is unimportant, perhaps even out of your control, but you will look on the world with new understanding.
Once you are in a trance state you may wish to explore journey, astral projection, mediumship or a variety of other interesting methods of divination and enlightenment that are available to you through trance.
