Sacred Ritual Trances and Altered States of Consciousness
Early humans believed that most everything is spiritually alive. The trees, mountains, rivers, animals and of course humans have souls that give them life. The first peoples regularly sought assistance from these spirits/souls through trance and altered states of consciousness, which may have been the origins of their worldviews and thus the origins of religion. Entering altered states of consciousness as a method to experience sacred ritual trances has been practiced religiously since the beginning of human history and is still prevalent in many societies today.
All known indigenous peoples have imagined their universe populated by a multitude of supernatural beings that interact with them in life. Relating with spirit beings (or souls) entails making ongoing reliable connections with them via communal rituals such as altered states of consciousness as well as discovering an avenue leading to an understanding of the unseen powers of life, the inner world or personhood and to explore the ultimate mystery, that of death.
These deep trance states go by many names, including spirit flights, soul journeys, vision quests and intense prayer rituals. Three methods that are used to achieve these religious trance-like states are meditation, physical endurance of extreme pain and ingesting psychoactive substances. These types of experiences cultivated among the first peoples began humanity’s religious experimentation with altered states of consciousness and extremes of bodily endurance.
Meditation is generally defined as the act of extended thought or contemplation/reflection and is most often associated as being spiritual or devotional in nature. Used for religious purposes it is believed to be a way to achieve spiritual enlightenment and communicate with deities. Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years as a form of achieving an altered state of consciousness, dating to antiquity as the Rig Veda, the earliest recorded religious literature of Northern India, written in Sanskrit about 1000 B.C.E. which describes in detail the ecstasy experienced in meditation.
The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, himself found spiritual enlightenment while meditating under a bodhi tree. Kabbalistic literature and teachings, as well as biblical passages throughout both the Old and New Testaments reference prayer and meditation as a source of mystical communication with God. Today many still practice meditations in the spiritual context, but many also take up meditation as a way of bringing balance in their lives and as a form of relaxation and a means of alleviating stress through chanting, breathing techniques, imagery and exercises.
Throughout history, humans have inflicted physical discomfort and suffering upon themselves in the name of religion. Participants in extreme rituals show physical and psychological evidence of altered states of consciousness which is seen by some as a way to be closer with god.
Plains Indian warriors that were skewered with wooden sticks expected to receive mystical visions. In Mandan Indian ceremonies warriors were hung by hooks on their skin. The sweat lodge ceremony is central to most native American cultures.
The practice of mortification of the flesh for religious purposes was utilized by some Christians throughout most of Christian history, especially in Catholic monasteries and convents. Common forms of mortification that are practiced to this day include fasting, abstinence, as well as pious kneeling.
Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church, regularly practiced self-flagellation. Judaic and Islamic rituals include fasting to commemorate religious events. Some Shia communities hit themselves on the back with chains and sharp objects such as knives.
The most famous example of mortification of the flesh in order to achieve cosmic union in when Jesus is nailed to the cross. As Jesus suffers this crucifixion, he is experiencing intense physical pain of human dimension, but is paradoxically transcending his physical being and commencing his journey toward heaven. The crucifixion epitomizes the experience of pain as a pathway to spiritual transformation.
In some religions, drug induced psychosis and euphoria accompanied by mystical visions provide a method to communicate with the spirit world, other realms and a means of sensing the self as united with god and the universe.
The reliance on psychoactive substances to assist in reaching altered states of consciousness is not universal. Drug induced trances are limited mostly to groups in the Americas, where the use of the cactus peyote, the vine extract ayahuasca and plants such as Jimson and Datura have long been in the shaman’s medicine bag.
With the Native American Church, a mild hallucinogen plays a role, in this case the root bark of the iboga plant, which is specially cultivated for its religious purpose. Individuals joining the Bwiti community are taught that iboga induces a rich spiritual experience, one that allows the disciple to be healed and solve problems. In present day Mexico, shamans have integrated Catholic saints and sacramental theology into healing rites that utilize peyote.
Traditional shamanic practices now appeal to those in dominant societies who are drawn to the mysteries of life and want to discover them outside the practices and normative views of the major world religions. Viewed as the last remaining spiritual frontier on Earth these “adventurers, romantics and spiritual explorers” venture on tours to Siberia, the Amazon, the Himalayas, the Southwestern deserts using sanctioned psychoactive drugs in controlled environments. Many others use unsanctioned psychoactive drugs like psilocybin, LSD and DMT in uncontrolled environments. In indigenous societies, the shaman has a social role rather than a personal reason for entering a trance and contacting the spirits, with primary concern for the community and its wellbeing where as “neo-shamans” primary interest is self-development, self-healing, scientific interest or simply to satisfy their curiosity of experiencing supernatural visions.
Indigenous religions early animist views and efforts to manage the activities of supernatural spirit-beings planted the seeds of evolution for these later religious rituals. Still in practice in multiple cultures around the world, even growing due to Western interest, methods of experiencing states of altered consciousness are still central to spiritual growth.