Trance [antikvár]

1SETTING THE SCENEWhat is trance?When Charles Tart was doing the research for his States of Consciousness in the 1960s, he hunted for a definition of trance; but 'for every definite characteristic mentioned by one authority,' he found, 'another would be the opposite.' As a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Tart was exploring the academic literature; I assumed that works aimed at the general public might be of more help. Not so; as if frightened off by the divisions in psychology, many of them have simply avoided the subject. Trance does not have an entry either in Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1971) orin the 1974 edition oi the. Encyclopaedia Britannica. The aim of the formidable-looking Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987), according to its Introduction, is to deal with as many aspects of mind as possible in ways which are 'interesting, useful and understandable not only to experts but to anybody interested in normal or abnormal behaviour'. Anybody interested in trance who turns to the Oxford Companion will be in for a disappointment; it does not qualify for an entry, and the occasional references to trance conditions are sparse and superficial.The contrast with attitudes at the beginning of the century is striking, as that fine old standby, the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, reveals. The entry was written by William McDougall, philosopher, anthropologist and psychologist, whose influential Body and Mind was published that year, and who throughout his life maintained an interest in trance conditions. He was far from sure exactly what conditions should qualify for inclusion; but among those he referred to as possibles were catalepsy, comas, sleep, somnambulism, mystical ecstasies, hallucinations, hypnosis, mediumship and dual personality. To judge from his other writings he would have added