TRANCE and TRANSFORMATION

Below is an extract from website http://trance.edu with implications beyond what some cult writers feel relevant or even possible with regard to general cult phenomena:

What is trance; why it is important. Posted January 20th, 2008 by Dennis Wier in
* Questions, Experiences

What's so important about trance?

Maybe you are not clear on exactly what a trance is. What we mean is meditation, hypnosis, addictions, charisma, electronic and chemical means of inducing trance as well as brainwashing, mind control, cults, magic, music, ritual and dance, and advertising.
You might already have a good idea of what hypnosis is. But you probably don't realize all the ways that it is used on you without either your awareness or permission, a form of trance abuse. Increasing public awareness of trance abuse, and showing how to prevent it, is one of the main jobs of the Trance Research Foundation.
Our vision and commitment

The Trance Research Foundation has an ambitious vision because the problems are huge.

Realizing our vision will require the personal commitment of many people just like you. And it means a lot of work, expended over a long period of time. We know it will also require large financial investments from socially conscious benefactors. But the results will be
- a greater public awareness of how trance works
- a greater public immunity to trance abuse
- a measurable worldwide decrease in drug and alcohol abuse problems
- a more enlightened worldwide drug policy
- a greater number of people who practice meditation for personal development
- an increase in consciousness and planetary wisdom.
- And this will result in greater world peace for future generations.


What is important

Here are some of the areas we see as important:
- Trance - its use and misuse - continues to have important social and psychological effects worldwide.
- Understanding how trance works enables and empowers people to explore themselves and the world they live in.
- The lack of understanding of trance exposes people to trance abuse and can cause psychological pathologies.
- Many such pathologies can be prevented with knowledge.
- Until now there has not been a model which attempts to explain meditation, hypnosis, addiction, magic and charisma with one robust theory. We feel we can provide that now.
- To study important contemporary trances, to understand their structure, their creation, their effects, the mechanisms used to change them or to bring about their dissolution.
- To facilitate advanced psychological study through the open sharing of special known trance mechanisms.
- To provide consultation and practical training to psychologists and therapists.
- To publish in peer reviewed journals the results of research.
- To operate a virtual educational institution to make the results of trance research available as widely as possible.
- To make a strong presence in the media, including audio, video, internet.
- To promote education about trance by means of on-line courses, teacher training, having a presence and relationship in schools, organizing annual international conventions on trance.
- Staying in the news by means of publicity releases, involvment with international personalities.
- Clinical treatment programs for drug/alcohol abuse, prevention programs, individual trance analysis, workshops for medical professionals, workshops and social programs to promote the best practices of trance.


Our interests are in:

- Meditation: religious and nonreligious meditation techniques, their physiological and psychological effects. This includes shamanistic, occult, daydreaming, channeling and other practices which incorporate meditation.
- Hypnosis: advertising, sales, television, video games, virtual reality, and many other hypnotic trance phenomena.
- Addiction: drug, psychic, performance, belief and other repetitive and compulsive behaviors.
- Magic: ritual, devotional and religious magic from witchcraft to contemporary religions.
- Music: many traditional as well as contemporary musical genres including drum and bass, acid trance, goa trance, traditional voodoo, shamanistic, native and electronic forms induce trance.
- Drugs: recreational and traditional drugs create trances through the suppression or modification of cognitive functions.
- Electronics: ultrasound, microwave and electro-biologically based trance inductions have been successfully used in publicly little-known military and neurophysiological applications.
- Charisma: guru-worship, cults, political, religious and entertainment charisma.

===================================================





===================================================