A guide to ecstatic trance for spiritual and emotional development, spirit journeying, and connection to the collective unconscious

• Describes more than 20 ecstatic trance postures for healing, divination, spirit journeys, shape-shifting, past-life recovery, and connecting to the Akashic field

• Explores the physiology and psychology of ecstatic trance journeying

• Provides guidance for those with little or no experience as well as methods to deepen practice

Over the millennia shamanic trance journeying has been used as a way of healing, of providing answers to questions, and of offering solutions to individual, family, and community problems. Though traditionally it was the shaman of the community who went on such journeys, the revolutionary work of the late anthropologist Felicitas Goodman shows that we all have these shamanic powers. Her research on the body postures found in ancient primitive art and in the practices of contemporary shamans offers each of us the ability to experience ecstatic trance journeys firsthand.

A student of Felicitas Goodman and Belinda Gore, psychologist Nicholas Brink examines more than 20 traditional trance postures for divination, decision making, letting go of guilt and grief, healing of illness and emotional pain, spirit journeys, shape-shifting, interacting with animal spirits and the dead, and discovering past lives. Exploring the physiology and psychology of ecstatic journeying, he offers guidance for those with little or no experience as well as methods for longtime practitioners to deepen their practice and reclaim the extrasensory power of our ancient ancestors. Offering solid theories of how ecstatic trance triggers healing and spiritual development, Brink explains how trance journeying allows us to tap in to the collective unconscious, or Universal Mind, and access the information matrix of the Akashic field.

Nicholas E. Brink, Ph.D., is a psychologist who has maintained a private clinical practice since 1977. He is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology, on the board of directors of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and a past president of the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery. A certified teacher of ecstatic trance with the Felicitas Goodman Institute, he lives in Coburn, Pennsylvania.

List of Postures

Foreword by Belinda Gore, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One
The Ecstatic Journey

1    Ecstatic Trance and the Modern Journeyer

2    The Unity of Ecstatic Experiences and Potential Influences

3    Initiating the Ecstatic Journey

Part Two
The Power of the Postures

4    The Purposes of Ecstatic Experiences

5    Healing Postures
Healing Physical, Mental, and Emotional Issues

6    Divination Postures
Determining the Nature of Healing and the Outcome of Events

7    Initiation Postures
Dying to Old Patterns, Rebirthing a New Self

8    Spirit Journeying and Metamorphosis Postures
Finding New Perspectives

9    Attaining Self-Actualization
Using Posture Sequences to Heal Dis-ease

10    A Cycle of Physical and Emotional Healing
A New Perspective on Cancer and Life

Part Three
Extrasensory Connectionsthrough Ecstatic Trance

11    Cultivating Parapsychological Abilities

12    Accessing the Universal Mind

Conclusion    Going Beyond

Appendix A    The Healing Powers of the Native American Medicine Wheel

Appendix B    Ten Days in June

Notes

Bibliography

Index