Types of Trancework & The Mysteries
(Pictured: Kore & Demeter with initiate.)
This is going to be a long one.
Being a dance ethnologist, I have focused a lot on the practical techniques for trancework utilized by Mediterranean peoples past and present. If I had come from a classics background first and did not have a solid background in dance history and methodology I think the outcome of my work would be expressed very differently. A lot of the folks who read this blog do have some kind of background in classical Hellenic studies and are also interested in how to utilize this stuff in the context of the Mystery Religions of the ancient Med. If you are one of those people, this post is for you. Happy reading, friends, and feel free to ask questions if you have them.
A Quick Overview of the Types of Trancework
I break the different types of trancework used in the Med down into 4 categories based on the methods used and the purpose of the trance. This is specifically something you would get from looking at it from a practical perspective--How do we do it? What does it take? What is it for?
1. Basic Trance--For joy, celebration, experimentation, work, sleep, pain management, and things that are not specifically spiritual.
2. Catalyst Trance--Shapeshifting, heroic embodiment, bilocation, and things that might be described as magical workings. A lot of the things this is used for relate directly to archaic folk religion.
3. Spiritwork--Any type of trance that involves interacting with spirits other than your own but are not gods. Death spirits, nature spirits, and wind spirits being the big 3.
4. Euphoric Trance--Deity bridalwork, prophecy, coming into the presence of divinity.
Each type of trance builds on the skills and cognitive developments supported by the previous category. I have done a full blog post on some of these categories so if you would like to explore deeper definitions for those, follow the links.
*Also check out:
Training for Trancework
(There are a lot of ways to break down trancework--which is helpful if you want to puzzle out the different methods in use and what they are used to do. You could have a completely separate category for every purpose if you wanted to. It really only affects how you think about trancework. I use these 4 to give us some common understanding so we can build from there but if it helps to think of it differently then go for it.)
(Image: Sailor pulling rope. Sea shanties are excellent examples of basic trance in action.)
Understanding Basic Trancework
Just about everyone in the ancient world would have understood and participated in basic trancework from infancy until death. It would have been something they were very familiar with even if they didn't put words to it. This is because trance is and was everywhere in daily life. Lullabies are trance. Work songs that are used to time things and coordinate movements are also trance. Prior to industrialization it was just how things got done.
-Sing a song that lasts X length of time while kneading dough to make bread. It is and was a popular method for detemining how long it takes to complete a task.
-Songs are used to keep a working rhythm for weaving, especially works that take multiple people like weaving cords of rope.
-Threshing and harvesting songs keep people working long hours under hard conditions to reduce exhaustion.
-Rope handling and rowing songs are used by sailors to coordinate feats of strength that have periods of muscular rest and tension.
Humans are musical creatures. We have done a lot with those skills. Bluring the lines between secular and sacred in daily life.
(Image: Kallikantzeroi. Boogeties associated with winter mischief. These roles were actually played by people as shapeshifted humans terrorizing anyone who went out at night.)
Understanding Catalyst Trancework
Catalyst trancework involves utilizing a fuel source to power the trance effects. This allows the trance to go on longer without being laced to a type of labor. Without having a job to repeatedly perform and get lost in, entheogens and powerful emotions can be used to keep it going for long periods of time. There is also a fuzziness to the mind that occurs during catalyst trance that does not feel the same as the wandering mind more commonly found in basic trance. You are more likely to have an active imagining mind while engaging in basic trancework and a bit more of an empty head caught in current sensory experiences with a catalyst trance. (More likely but this is not a hard and fast rule--humans come in a lot of varieties so it is hard to generalize about experiences.)
In the context of the Mystery religions, catalyst trancework is not done by everybody. Anybody can get drunk and trance but that is an entirely different thing than the coordinated and specific efforts that go into a mystery tradition. Catalyst trancework is used in Mysteries that involve heroic embodiment--becoming a hero and engaging with a ritual play that involves what some might describe as sympathetic magic. All of the traditions described in my blog post titled, "Ancient Agricultural Rites Hiding in Plain Sight" are examples of heroic embodiment and catalyst trance. Catalyst trancework is strongly tied to heroic carnival traditions like Anthesteria and Quirinalia. Anything that involves an appearance from the entourage/ thiasos.
Regalia for this often involves masks and dressing up as named characters (every region has their own names). And the whole thing is fueled by whatever the local favored alcohol is--and there is a lot of variety. The fact that it is local is important to carnival traditions. It isn't just a matter of opening any ol' bottle of something, it is opening the locally produced something that honors the spirits of the area you are in.
The difference between heroic embodiment and shapeshifting is rather skin deep. Shapeshifting is the embodiment of animals and wild spirits while heroic embodiment involves taking on the mantle of hero, being the hero. Shapeshifters are frequently (but not always) cast as boogeties, monsters, and spirits of death. Heroes are the ones that ritually fight them in dance battles that may or may not involve trading actual blows. Their objective is to battle it out in rituals of sympathetic magic where life triumphs over death.
Catalyst trancework can also describe the act of drunken trancing without any purpose. So, it does not refer strictly to any Mystery religion but it is one technique among many that was and is utilized in some mystery traditions. More on that later.
(Image: A wind spirit. The personification of passion (in the illness sense, not in merely feeling an emotion). These bodiless beings like to take possession of human bodies so that they can experience their preferred physical sensations but the byproduct of that is a troubled mind for the human host--aka the Bride.)
This is a category that has the least amount of written material out there about it but it is the one I have studied in living traditions most extensively. Spiritwork can be divided into possession or communication based. To an outside eye, possession and heroic embodiment look very similar. Both involve the use of regalia and can involve the entranced interacting with named spirits. The differences appear on closer examination. For one thing, it is usually done without mind altering substances. No alcohol or emphasis on emotional connection to the music to kick things off. And secondly, possession is thought of as a spirit marriage between a human and their possessing spirit. There can also be more than one possessing spirit at any given time hovering over the Bride. For heroic embodiment and shapeshifting, there is only one role per person at a time. Also a Bridal relationship is permanent while heroic embodiement and shapeshifting are often temporary--usually lasting a period of about 9 years (unless it is a hereditary tradition, this can change from region to region).
Possession is always permanent from a reconstructionist standpoint. Exorcism (as a ritual and thoughtform) did not enter the equation until somewhere around the 1st century CE. So, there are living traditions of exorcism in the Med but they tend to relate to monotheistic concepts about the hierarchy of the spiritworld. Excorcism is being defined here as a removal of a spirit who has attempted to form a Bridal relationship with a human. Spiritwork can encompass rituals of exorcism, I just don't do it because the recitivism rate makes the point nearly moot. (It is ridiculous, something like 97% of exorcisms relapse within the first year.) Ancient peoples knew this and understood it but a lot of people really, really wanted a quick and easy fix to this problem so there was a ripe market for anyone offering exorcism services.
Possession is tied to two categories of spirit--nature/wild spirits & wind spirits. Nature spirits are tied to romance and intimacy while wind spirits are tied to mental health. At their core, these traditions are ancient methods for dealing with anxiety, intrusive thougts, obsessions, addictions, and things that make life difficult. That is what these spirits are and the rituals we do with them are methods of keeping them in check. This is why it is expressed as a marriage. By externalizing these things, they can then be isolated and managed where otherwise living with them would be debilitating. It doesn't affect everyone but the harder a life has been, the better the odds of requiring these kinds of rituals to keep life in balance and allow a person to be more functional while also keeping the onus of the blame somewhere else. Because a person will have a harder time healing if they cannot separate these things from the whole of themselves. It is a kindness.
The other kind of spiritwork relates to what we might think of as mediumship. Essentially communicating with spirits, including the spirits of the dead. This is also not considered voluntary as far as I know. The ability to do this is passed down in families, though not genetically. It can ricochet off your aunt who married into the family and land on you. Usually there is some kind of story or reason for this ability to spontaneously appear, it afflicts widows more than anyone else. And I say affliction because this is not exactly thought of as a purely positive thing. Not everything can be defined as good or bad and this is one of those mixed blessing, grey area, cursed with awesome sort of things.
Spiritwork features prominently in the customs associated with Summer Dionysos as well as the goddess Kybele. Dionysos as a god of madness (there is that mental/emotional health connection) and Kybele as a mother of monsters (winds). More on that later.
(Image: Persephone and Demeter in iconic regalia.)
Understanding Euphoric Trancework
Euphoric trancework is a big deal. It takes the most dedication, the most preparation, and the most formality to successfully pull it off. It utilizes skills acquired from all the other categories of trance as well, which means to my eyes that this is not something to rush into before exploring at least some of the other forms of trance first. However, this seems to be the one that a lot of folks make a beeline towards when starting out. Which can really shoot you in the foot if you actually want to experience everything that it can do.
Trancework has physiological and neurological components to it. It is not something that you can just believe whatever you want about and expect to get the same results as someone who picks and follows a specific known path to get there. All trancework makes you feel funny. If you want to feel a little giddy while dancing around and dedicate that to a deity, that's wonderful but it is not what I am talking about here. Euphoric trancework is something very specific and difficult to do on accident.
I break it down into deity Bridalwork, prophetic Bridalwork, and coming into the presence of divinity--just being in close proximity to a deity. It cannot be treated casually if you want to experience these things in a similar way to how these things were experienced in the ancient Med. Deity Bridalwork and Prophetic Bridalwork are extremely similar to each other but they have different ritual objectives.
Deity Bridalwork is essentially making yourself into a horse for a deity. This is a culturally encoded concept that means "your body gets possessed by a god." Pay close attention whenever a sacred legend talks about a deity or daemon being strongly associated with horses, that is often a pretty big clue that they are frequently associated with these types of rituals. Bride is a gender neutral term in this context.
This is done in ecstatic rituals where the deity is expected to be present and presiding. Non ecstatic rituals where the deity is expected to be present and presiding will involve a statue as a substitute for this. Ecstatic rituals are occasions where miracles take place and people get to interact with an embodied deity in the limited ways that would be appropriate--engaging with their prefered rituals tools, foods, colors, scents, drinks, and anything relevant to the current place in the calendar cycle.
Prophetic Bridalwork involves all of that plus the added bonus of receiving a truthful statement about matters beyond human perception. That phrasing is important. If a prophecy is truthful and useful then it is divine. If it is untruthful or not useful (or just gibberish) then it comes from some other source--most likely a daemon. The ability to do this accurately and to be able to spontaneously compose it in verse on the spot provides proof of state. In other words, the proof is in the prophetic pudding.
Coming into the presence of a deity is done without any kind of embodiment. It is merely a matter of singing the right songs and doing the right kind of dances. These are (usually) stately and highly formal. Most of the gods are dignified in their conduct but there are a few yahoos in the pantheon that prefer a bit more crash and chaos. (Looking at the entourage of Dionysos and Kybele here.) This can be done without a lot of messing around with other forms of trance but you should at least be able to reliably get yourself in and out of a basic trance before giving it a go. The goal of this one is just unity, oneness, feeling close to divinity. It has a positive impact on the mind, body, and spirit of the participant and that is enough of a reason to do it.
How this Applies to the Mysteries
I would love to give an overview of each Mystery Religion and be able to say, "X trance category is used in Y Mystery tradition," but (alas) things are a wee bit more complicated than that. The complicating factor is that in some of the more involved Mysteries, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, there are multiple kinds of trance utilized by different people at different times depending on the role being performed--the initiate experience is going to be very different from that of someone who is embodying a deity or a hero. So, it isn't as simple as saying "X category of trance is used for Y Mystery."
Also, the Mysteries are strongly associated with trancework in popular imagination but they are not the only place where it can be found. Trancework is involved to some degree in just about every avenue of traditional worship. Any religious occasion that features music and dancing will feature trancing as a byproduct. It can be fancy stately well-coordinated trancing in a large circle dance that goes on for a long time. Or it can be goofy drunken reveling that goes on for a long time. Holy is holy. We don't discriminate in this house. Both of those examples are of basic trancework done in a religious context because the goal is just to dance with the community, the trancing is a happy byproduct. The trance produced by it is not used to do anything beyond keep that dance going. Context is everyting.
The other thing to keep in mind is that different types of trance would be used in the same type of mystery in different places. As an example here, in the wider pattern of Grain Mysteries, the fellahin of Letopolis would basically all practice ritual heroic embodiment instead of it being just a limited number. Whereas the Arkadian methods would have called for a separation between the duties of pilgrim first timers and old-hat locals, with limited numbers of people performing heroic embodiment with a whole separate ritual selection for who gets to do it/has to do it.
I try to simplify things and show you what to look for so that you can apply those concepts to whatever Mystery or tradition you happen to be studying. It is easier to take a look at a known ritual occasion and just ask yourself, "What kind of trance experience is being described here?" That being said, I'll get into some of the low hanging fruit to give you some examples to start working from on your own.
Dionysian cults do it ALL. They do not pick a lane. Each method is utilized for something different in the context of Dionysian trancework. Basic trance is utilized during harvesting and in the process of pressing fruits to make wine. Spiritwork is heavily involved in the trancework done for Dionysos in the summer months (like Tarantella). In the cold months (during carnival season) it is almost entirely about heroic embodiment--which is Catalyst trancework and that makes sense because it is when the new booze becomes available. And then there are the Orphic hymns which, to my eyes, are primarily intended for euphoric trancework.
So, if you want to engage with Dionysian trancework, you really can't go wrong. Any category you want will engage with some aspect of it. But if you are looking at your calendar and trying to plan out what kind of ritual you want to participate in:
Harvest = Basic Trance
Summer = Spiritwork
Winter = Catalyst Trance
Whenever = Euphoric Trance
If you read in between the lines here you can also imply that the Orphic hymns are suitable for Euphoric trancework--which can be done at any time or at specific points on the calendar that hold some meaning for you or the tradition that you are engaging with. Shapeshifting rituals are most likely to take place during the colder months. Possession rituals happen in the warm months. It helps to structure and pace things a bit. There is a cycle to it.
The Grain Mysteries are not confined to the rites of Eleusis but those are probably the most well known. The Grain Mysteries rely quite heavily on heroic embodiment. It is a major aspect of the ritual process and one of those neat little details that does not get discussed much in classical texts about it. It is extremely prominent in living traditions and folk religion though, so that is where I am coming from with this. There are 4 dates of importance for those who participate in the heroic embodiment dance battles. In the Christian world, they map onto the four embertides--Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, & St. Lucy's Day. These correspond to 4 Grain Cycle festivals of the ancient world (I'm going to pick on Rome for this since their dates are fixed and easier to chart):
Quirinalia on February 17th
Robigalia on April 25th
Consualia Aestiva on August 21st
Larentalia on December 23rd
(Not everybody has calculated their calendars in the exact same way over the last 3,000 years so be aware that dates will not line up exactly, which is why I generalize it a little bit.)
These are the days when those who have been chosen for a role as a hero or as a boogety will get dressed up and beat the stuffing out of each other in dance battles that go bonk. Those are all catalyst trance rituals.
Drinking kykeon as an initiate would not be catalyst trance unless it is done in such a volume (or recipe) as to produce intoxication. Intoxication is not required to produce a trance but a lot of modern folks with no background in trancework sure like to emphasize it. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I don't know. To my eyes, it sounds like it was used as deiknumena (a hypnotic trigger that produces an expected dromena/responses). In this case, it sounds like the initiate drinks the kykeon and the mere act of drinking a single sip of it is holy enough to induce feelings of euphoria. Given that the purpose here is to come into the presence of a deity, I would categorize it as a type of Euphoric trance that happens to involve a sip of something (alcoholic or not).
Deity Bridalwork could also be involved here with the Lesser Mysteries in Anthesteria (February-ish) and the Greater Mysteries in Bodromion (Sepember-ish). They function like book ends for Death Season.
I'll have to make a Part II to include some of the fun ones like the rites of Mithras and those of Aset/Isis. This should give you plenty to chew on for a while though. As always, let me know if you have questions.
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