Trance-portation: Learning to Navigate the Inner World [Paperback]

Diana L. Paxson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2008

The ability to move from the ordinary into an altered state of consciousness is one of the most valuable skills in both magic and religion. From the ceremonial magician to the shaman, using trance work to explore inner realms is essential to the magical process of healing, transcendence, and wisdom desired throughout diverse occult and spiritual traditions. Trance-Portation offers a comprehensive and multi-spirited way to enter the inner realm.

Blending the modern world with the ancient arts, Trance-Portation's 1st three chapters, Travel Planning, Crossing the Threshold, and Getting Started, offer preparatory suggestions including meditations and relaxations, breathing, warding, shifting gears, and returning. Drawing on examples from varied traditions, from Western Mystery to Native American, Ancient Celtic to Eastern Mysticism, and peppered with folk lore and tales from popular science fiction stories, Trance-Portation explores spiritual journey work extensively, offering readers the chance to find their own ways into the inner realm, encounter their own guides and fellow travelers, and create divine relationships with the deities and gods and goddesses that they meet.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Trance-Portation belongs on every Pagan and occultist's bookshelf; it's destined to become a classic of the field. Diana Paxson's down-to-earth style speaks directly to real people with real problems--racing thoughts, distractibility, over-sensitivity--and lets them know that they, too, can achieve trance states that will enrich their spiritual lives." --Deborah Lipp, author of The Study of Witchcraft and The Way of Four

"In Trance-Portation, Diana Paxson has written a travel guide for trance and out of body experiences that will be a great help to anyone seeking to navigate the complex worlds that lie both within and beyond our internal landscapes." --Michelle Belanger, author of Psychic Vampire Codex and Psychic Dreamwalking

"Diana Paxson has penned another great work. If you were a newborn to the world of the spirits, you can take her hand and she will teach you how to walk the paths of other realms. You will feel totally taken care of, all mishaps have been exposed and diminished, and only the safest ways to trance travel are in this book. She is a virtuoso of the practical yet totally blended into the mystical. A rare, rare find." --Zsuzsanna Budapest, founder of Dianic Wicca and author of Holy Book of Women's Mysteries

"This book is beautifully written and filled with both wisdom and practical advice. It should interest all practitioners of the Craft and help anyone who is having difficulty with things such as astral projection or trance magick." --Eileen Holland, author of The Wicca Handbook

About the Author

Diana L. Paxson has been teaching classes and leading rituals on trance work for more than twenty years. She is the co-author, along with Marion Zimmer Bradley, of Priestess of Avalon and has continued the immensely popular Mists of Avalon series on her own. Visit her at greyhaven.net.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Weiser Books (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578634059
• ISBN-13: 978-1578634057
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #430,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was brought up in southern California, but came north to attend Mills College and never left. I got my M.A. in (medieval) Comparative Literature from the University of California in 1966, the same year I put on the first tournament of what was to become the Society for Creative Anachronism. Since 1971 I've lived at Greyhaven, a hundred-year old house in Berkeley, with successive generations of family, friends, cats and dogs.

It's a literary family, including my husband, Jon DeCles, and the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was my mentor as a writer as well as colleague in founding Darkmoon Circle. My first published novel was Mistress of the Jewels, which began the chronicles of Westria. After I had written several historical fantasies, Marion, whose health deteriorated after she wrote Mists of Avalon, asked me to help her with The Forest House, which is how I ended up writing the Avalon series.

Much of the spiritual experience in my novels comes out of my work in the pagan community. I have now begun to publish that material in a series of non-fiction books, the most recent being Trance-Portation. My most recent novel is Sword of Avalon, set at the end of the Bronze Age, which gave me an opportunity to explore the end of the Homeric Age and the techniques of bronze- and iron-forging.

For more about my work, see:

www.westria.org
www.avalonbooks.net
www.seidh.org

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-Rate Training Material, November 24, 2008

By 

S. parker "Ian Corrigan" (Madison, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Trance-portation: Learning to Navigate the Inner World (Paperback)

Diana Paxson seems to be working her way from being a writer of enjoyable historic and mythic fantasy to being a teacher of core skills in Pagan magic and spirituality.
Trance-Portations is a textbook for personal or group training in meditation, trance and vision. The exercises and sequence were developed by Paxson over some years of teaching, and this practical background shows clearly in the book. The methods given are only barely related to any specific spiritual path, but rather could be applied by nearly anyone. The book starts at the beginning, assuming the student does too, and explains concepts right alongside of immediate exercises and basic practices, moving from there toward the highest and strangest of trance experiences. She regularly nods to the various faiths her students might bring, but whenever Paxson gives specific examples, she draws on the Pagan, Heathen and magical community. Her own cosmology and mythic context is plainly the polytheism of modern Heathenry; this makes her book very comfortable for a variety of reconstructionist and Traditional Pagan systems.
Trance-Portations is an introduction, and most of the topics get a fairly quick survey discussion, though all with solid base and depth. Plainly Paxson has chosen to focus on the practical, and the exercises given are well-designed and well-scripted. A student who actually worked their way through its program would be very well-equipped for further trance-magic and spiritual work in almost any Pagan system. Very well done!

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring!, November 16, 2008

By 

Michele White "Willow Wolf" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trance-portation: Learning to Navigate the Inner World (Paperback)

Once again, Ms. Paxson has created a tome filled with information! In her own unique style she sets down a systematic manner of approaching tranceworking.

If one is seeking a purely scholarly study of the subject, this will not be the best choice. But if one is seeking a through and easily read manual on tranceworking in its many forms, you will not be disapointed.

I would recommend this book for any beginner or just the curious, regarding this spiritual practice.

Ms. Paxson is a dedicated and knowledgeable tranceworker.

For a more complex and historical exploration of Seidhr ~
"Voluspa: Seidhr as Wyrd Consciousness" by Yngona Desmond
is still my choice.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of Trance work, December 2, 2008

By 

Dian "Annyarthra" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trance-portation: Learning to Navigate the Inner World (Paperback)

Recently I was thinking that I wanted to get back into working with Trance and meditation to deepen my spiritual practice. How very fortuitious that this book was featured on Amazon. I found the book to be well written, thoughtful and very useful, regardless of whether you are an experienced tranceworker or just a beginner. I found the writing style to be easy to read and the information practical. I highly recommend this book and intend to use it for quite awhile.