Trance and it's relationship with psychic development and phenomena is recorded throughout history. Shaman's go into trance to communicate with spirits, mediums and magicians do the same thing in meditation or ritual, to leave your body you go into trance, to remote view you trance out, to do spiritual healing you trance out... so what is it?
Again, this is a huge topic, but for the purposes of this conversation we can state that trance is what happens in the lower brain states - the brain states that communicate with the lower and psychic brain - this is known as the reptilian brain or cerebral cortex.
In their awesome Remote View program - John La Tourette and Dennis Higgins correctly describe the psychic portion of the brain as alpha, theta and delta. (recommend you buy/torrent/get hold of this).
Beta is normal waking consciousness - 20Hz
Alpha is psychic awareness - 10Hz
Theta is trance proper 7Hz
Delta is deep trance/OBE/sleep 0.5-4Hz
The point is - you need to drop your brain frequency state - or drop your 'consciouness' into a trance state. For the adept, these states become more a part of normal waking consciousness.
Now for the fun part, dropping into trance - my hints and tips and methods -
+ Meditate and practice often - this will help your brain entrain itself to these states, so you drop in easier.
+ Get hold of a brainwave entrainment program / binaural beats - these will help you shave off months of practice by helping your brain to a deep trance state - so that you know what it feels like and you can get back there easier next time. *Advanced->* You can also anchor this state with an NLP technique by using an 'anchor', like squeezing your left thumb, every time you go into state. Then when when you want to get back to that state, you simply fire off the anchor by squeezing the left thumb For more google 'anchoring NLP'.
+ Make a skrying mirror - preferably a black mirror - and stare into that, not expecting anything, for 10 - 30 minutes. This is a taoist and recently a Goetia method to get into trance (ala evocation).
+ The easiest and most 'boring' way to train at trance (and because of this I recommend it the most) is to count down from 100 to 0, and imagine yourself climbing down a ladder / or falling / or something like that, at every number down. The key here is to feel like falling (using whatever 'submodality' - or way to do that you want).
How to know what it feels like -
you will feel progressively heavier, and your brain slower and more focused but with clarity. Your body will vibrate, and the closer you get to delta, the stronger the vibrations will be.
The point of all this is that it really really helps you with psychic development. In short, trance is one of the biggest tools of th e magician or shaman, or even medium. Practicing this will enhance your ability to see, hear and feel energy, channel, communicate, with OBE's, and it will definitely help you as an advancing magician.
Good luck and light
Saint John
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