Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1990.
Description
""The book is clearly written for the general reader and includes many descriptions of trance experiences. It may serve as a good introduction to the nature and appeal of the shamanic revival in modern Western cultures."" -Theological Book Review""... a case study in experiential anthropology that offers a unique mix of autobiography, mythology, experiential research, and archaeological data to support a challenging thesis-that certain body postures may help induce specific trance states."" -Shaman's Drum""This is a spellbinding and exceptionally readable book by an extraordin
Media reviews
Dr. Goodman has spent the past twenty years researching trance experiences from a very unique perspective. She searched through the world's neolithic art and artifacts, looking for representations that might depict meditation postures. Then she and her group of researchers experimented with each
Goodman has found that each posture produces a predictable experience or journey, generally falling into one of ten categories. For example, she has discovered four postures that take the meditator on a spirit journey. The first posture she ever worked with was of this type, and was found in one o the famous Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, France. The second spirit journey posture hails from the nomadic reindeer herders of northern Europe, and the third from South America. The fourth artifact whose posture produces this kind of trance was found in a seventh-century grave site in Georgia.
Goodman describes the spirit journeys like this: "People fly away on birds' wings, peacock clouds spread their shimmering tail feathers, a woman with stars in her hair guards the entrance to the world below, and humans turned into albatrosses alight on the waves of the ocean." The experience produced by the Lascaux posture seems to raise the kundalini; people describe intense orgasmic energy surging up through their bodies before flying off into the wild blue yonde
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one, noting the kind of trance experiences each posture produced. She was able to identify thirty different postures in all, and has compiled her research in Where the Spirits Ride the Wind, published the summer of 1990. For any student of meditation or trance journeying, this book is a must!Goodman has found that each posture produces a predictable experience or journey, generally falling into one of ten categories. For example, she has discovered four postures that take the meditator on a spirit journey. The first posture she ever worked with was of this type, and was found in one o the famous Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, France. The second spirit journey posture hails from the nomadic reindeer herders of northern Europe, and the third from South America. The fourth artifact whose posture produces this kind of trance was found in a seventh-century grave site in Georgia.
Goodman describes the spirit journeys like this: "People fly away on birds' wings, peacock clouds spread their shimmering tail feathers, a woman with stars in her hair guards the entrance to the world below, and humans turned into albatrosses alight on the waves of the ocean." The experience produced by the Lascaux posture seems to raise the kundalini; people describe intense orgasmic energy surging up through their bodies before flying off into the wild blue yonde
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Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1990
Physical description
xii, 242 p.; 25 cm
ISBN
0253205662 / 9780253205667
Other editions
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