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Trance Formation
The Spiritual and Religious Dimensions of Global Rave Culture
Rating :
rating
Author(s) :
Robin Sylvan
Pages :
212
Pub Date :
2005
Edition(s) at Erowid :
2005(pb,1st)
Publisher :
Routledge
ISBN :
0415970911
BACK COVER #
Trance Formation is an ethnographically rich look into the spiritual dimensions of rave culture froma theoretically informed religious studies perspective. Robin Sylvan takes the reader on a colorful journey from San Francisco to London, from Burning Man to the Love Parade, and reveals a synaesthetic spiritual world of sound, sight, motion, and deep trance. As religious studies converges on a new understanding of emerging forms of spirituality, Trance Formation will be welcomed by scholars and students, music-lovers and trance-dancers, spiritual seekers and fans of cutting edge culture, as well as the ravers about whom this book is written.

BLURBS #
"Millions of people on every continent of planet Earth, regularly coming together in ecstatic trance-dance celebrations held and energized by pulsing electronic beats, are having the deepest spiritual experience of their lives. In this thoroughly fascinating study, religious scholar Robin Sylvan makes a convincing case for regarding the global rave culture as an authentic expression of a unifying spiritual vision that integrates across all languages, religions and nationalities. Reading this book, as well as going to a rave, will leave you inspired and hopeful for our sadly fractured world."
-- Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., co-author of The Psychedelic Experience and author of The Unfolding Self

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) #
Robin Sylvan, Ph.D., is the founder and director of The Sacred Center, a spiritually-oriented educational organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has taught in both mainstream academic and alternative experiential contexts. He is the author of Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music, and has been a music aficionado and spiritual seeker for most of his life.