HEALTH / MEDITATION Specific body postures reappear in the art and artifacts of world cultures, even those widely separated by time and distance. What are these images of unusual postures telling us? Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman discovered that people who assume these postures while in trance report strikingly similar meditative experiences. The results from this research are astonishing, proving that certain body gestures and movements, when properly worked with, actually trigger us into accessing altered states of consciousness. With clear instructions and illustrations, Belinda Gore, one of Dr. Goodman's prominent students, reveals to us these shamanic postures and how to work with them. Ecstatic Body Postures is a "must read" for anyone interested in meditation, shamanic practice, yoga, and body work. "Felicitas D. Goodman has studied and worked with religious trance and trance postures for over twenty years. Written by one of her students, a trained psychotherapist, this book summarizes the results of hundreds of workshops and introduces the reader to the rich resources of information found in the alternative reality. Belinda Gore gives direct, hands-on advice on how to approach and how to interpret these experiences. I highly recommend this book to all who want to explore their inner reality." --Ruth-Inge Heinze, Ph.D., University of California/Berkeley, author of Shamans of the 20th Century and Trance and Healing in Southeast Asia Today "A scientific discovery with startling implications, opening the door to experiences that fascinate by their strangeness and wonder." --Felicitas D. Goodman, author of Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Spirit Journeys and Ecstatic Experiences"It's a stimulating, enriching and revelatory insight that illuminates both the hidden initiatory side to indigenous art traditions while charting a new body-grounded path into the mysteries." --Richard Leviton, senior writer, Yoga Journal BELINDA GORE has been teaching workshops on ecstatic trance for over eight years. She is vice-president of the Cuyamungue Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the principles of ecstatic trance and ritual body postures are studied and taught under the tutelage of renowned anthropologist Felicitas Goodman. A psychologist in private practice in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Gore earned her Ph. D. in counseling from Ohio State University.

Trance-inducing postures for shamanic journeying, initiation, healing, divination, and transformation of the soul
- Provides practices from Mayan, Egyptian, African, Native American, Sumerian, and other ancient and indigenous traditions
- Shows how these practices can detoxify the energy body
- Includes 60-minute CD of trance rhythms to accompany the shamanic journeying exercises
The human need for ecstasy--the ability to be free of the limitations of ordinary consciousness--is as imperative as the need for food. Renowned anthropologist Felicitas Goodman claimed that being deprived of ecstasy was the fundamental cause of all forms of addiction. Indigenous cultures and the civilizations of antiquity were aware of this and developed specific rituals to induce and channel trance energies to detoxify and nourish the subtle body in order to experience the ecstatic reality that gives life to matter.
The body postures seen in ancient art from Mayan, Egyptian, African, Native American, Sumerian, and other ancient and indigenous traditions are a doorway to inducing this kind of ecstatic trance. People who assume these postures in a ritual context are able to experience expanded and transformative states of consciousness.
Following up on the groundbreaking introduction of this practice in her first book, "Ecstatic Body Postures," Belinda Gore provides a new series of 20 sacred postures and exercises that allow for a deeper understanding and utilization of these shamanic practices. She shows how to use the energy awakened by these practices for healing, shapeshifting, initiations into the mysteries of death and rebirth, divination, spirit journeying, and restoring balance to the cosmic patterns disrupted by destructive human activity. To help reach these deep, ecstatic trance states, the author also provides a 60-minute CD of shamanic trance rhythms to accompany the journeys.