Customer Reviews

Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences (A Midland Book)

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I was perplexed at the "Publishers Weekly" review of this
book, citing that "all of the descriptions sound the same".
Whoever wrote that must not have clearly read the book.
The experiences people have differ greatly with the TYPE of
posture, and this is clearly explained in this book, as well
as in a book by Belinda Gore ("Ecstatic Body Postures: An
Alternate Reality Workbook). I have personally attended a
seminar of this work, and continue to practice it, with
others, and our experiences are not the "same". They are
amazing, rich, deep, and healing - and different for different
people.
This particular book is a wonderful story of how anthropologist
Felicitas Goodman was led to even formulate her thesis in the
first place- by great trial and error, working with hundreds
of people all around the world - a work which has continued
for over twenty years. She describes in detail the experiences
of many people as they "journey" by assuming the postures, to
a specific drumming or rattling beat. She shares how the Cuyamungue Institute was founded over 25 years ago - a combination of practical hard work and magical, inspirational
experiences. She shares how, over time, certain postures revealed
themselves as "fitting" into various catagories- such as healing,
divining, metamorphosis, lower world journey, and so on. In addition to being a wonderful insight into shamanic types of
endeavor, this is a story of the life of a dedicated scholar, led by many insights and observations, to develop a body of work
which is a scientific research work in progress, as well as being a possible link to the ancient roots of humanity. I recommend it to anyone interested in spirituality,
the psyche, somatics, healing, and shamanism.

Although it is ten years since this book was written and reviewed, I recently came across it again in my library and desire to bring it to light once again. I have been practicing various techniques of metaphysics for forty years and it is interesting to me how this scientist experimenting with her students, could prove that many of the pictographs, petroglyphs and other ancient symbols were instructions on how to induce a self-trance by using certain body positions to effectuate various results. I think this confirms the statement in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun and I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to delve further into this subject matter. The book was fascinating to me.

I can't say this book was very exciting, but it certainly was thought provoking. Here's why: Anthropologists now say humans like us have been around for more than 100,000 years (probably much longer). But human history only goes back 5000 years or so. In those 5000 years we've gone from mud huts to intercontinental jet travel. What were our early ancestors doing for those other 95,000 (or more) years? Just sitting around in caves, looking into the campfire? For 95,000 years? And if they did have a culture, where are the artifacts? This book may hint at the answer.

On the walls of Egyptian tombs there are representations of men floating in the air at about a 50 degree angle--with erect penises. Similiar drawings (thousands of years older) are found in caves throughout Europe and southern Africa. This seems to have been a widespread "art style" that lasted thousands of years. The author tells of combining some of these postures with rhythmic sounds: chants, drum beats, and rattles. It seems as though different body postures determine what sort of "trip" one experiences upon entering an altered state of consciousness.

Is it possible that shamans, witch doctors, and medicine men were on to something? Maybe the reason that no sophisticated artificts from early peoples are to be found is that those early people took a different path than us. A path not towards technology, but one that lead to the developement of altered states of consciousness. Could it be that those cave drawings and the author's reconstructions are all that remain of an sophisticated prehistoric science?

Fantastic book!
Easy to read, clear, intriguing and mind expanding book on trance journeys and other ecstatic experiences.

First of all I'll state why I read this book. I practice the martial art called Aikido which brought me to get interested in the body energy (Ki/Chi). I also practice Chi-Gung and Tai-Chi. One of my Aikido fellows is a physical therapist and he frequently talks about native-american healers and non-ordinary state of reality. So in turn I became curious to know something about shamanism, even because I came to believe that all this "energy stuff" boils down to few principles regardless as to whether it is applied to combat or healing or whatever else.
I am in no way an expert in this specific field. This having said, I enjoyed reading this book even if English is not my first language. It is well written, and a part of it is very interesting. The author's path toward her meeting with the spirits is intriguing. Tension drops where the too many reports of trance experiences cease to be of general interest while eventually maintaining some relevance only to those who are deeply into this activities. The interpretation of the reports is down to a bare minimum.
On the other hand the author is rather self-involved and she fails to answer some questions someone like me would like to know the answer to. The healer/shaman needs to enter the otherworld to heal or to foresee the future or to fullfill an inner call, I understant that. But "WHY" would ordinary people want to enter a non-ordinary reality when they are not healers? Trancers melt into the ground, fly with big eagles depending on the postures. So what? Is this kind of trance different from smoking pot? Could trance ecstasy still be relevant in our society as the author seems to suggest? The author states that in our modern society we use high-tech surrogates for our innate need of trance. I can buy that but is it proved? Does it mean that posture-induced trance, as opposed to LSD-induced trance, is brain-friendly and approved by DEA? By the way, is trancing brain-friendly or can it fry someone's head? It eventually can as it is somehow connected to demonic possession. What is the real relationship between the use of allucinogenic substances (the mighty Sixties stuff) and shamanic extasy? The information contained in this book is very diluted and obliterated. The discovery that some postures can mediate ecstatic trance is extremely exciting but it doesn't take a whole book to tell that.
I am having the impression that Dr Goodman's main goal in writing this book it to prepare a fertile ground for her future grant applications. From a perspective of a grant applicant I appreciate the effort. From the perspective of a reader I would have appreciated a more concise and more complete book

I found this book to be one of the most helpful works to the study of shamanic realizations. Ms. Goodman has opened up our minds to astounding possibilities.