a founder of the codex

Trance

Ekstasaria rhythmica·the Loosening Beat

From Greek ekstasis, standing outside oneself, and rhythmos, measured flow, a standing outside oneself reached by a measured beat.

Level: Conceptorganism
Phylum: Scaleimage schema
Class: Intakeits frame drum
Niche: Producerraw experience
Mode: Techniquehow it keeps existing
Stage: Matureindividuated
Status: Living
Habitat: Ritual

Its kinds · Roget, 1852: Religious Affections · Wilkins, 1668: Natural Power · WordNet, 1990: State · Llull, 1308: E · Man

Loosening Beat, the whole specimen — Plate LXV. Ekstasaria rhythmica, the whole specimen.

Rhythm, breath and dance kept up long enough shift a waking person into a state where the self loosens, and the rite around it gives that state its meaning and its end.

A rhythm kept up long enough carries the self out of itself.

behavior It circles slowly at first, quickens with every beat it hears, and drops still all at once when the beat stops.

provocation

Which rhythm in your day carries you to a place where you stop noticing yourself?

Each draw is the being derived afresh by the current laws at another seed (laws §11); the chosen one leads (where they sit in the morphospace).

I Dissection

Each organ answers one question about the idea. The framed one, its intake, is the dominant organ: the being's class, the one the idea could not lose and stay itself.

Kernel of Trance — Fig. 1. Kernel
Soul flight
Which premise, if it were false, would kill this idea?
A rhythm kept up long enough, with breath and movement to match, shifts a waking person into a state where the sense of self loosens and seems to leave the body.^{1, 2}
drawn as: soul flight · view: series

Boundary of Trance — Fig. 2. Boundary
Ring dance
What sets it apart from what it is not, and how does it keep that distinction?
It is set apart from ecstasy, which comes in silence, stillness and solitude, since trance comes with movement, music and company. The rite marks when it begins and when it ends.²
drawn as: ring dance · view: at work

Intake of Trance — Fig. 3. Intake
Frame drum
❦ dominant organ
What must it feed on to work? What has to be present, noticed or supplied?
It feeds on drumming, rattles and song repeated for hours, on paced breathing, spinning and fasting, and on the attention of the crowd around the dancer.^{2, 3}
drawn as: frame drum · view: pinned

Mechanism of Trance — Fig. 4. Mechanism
Auditory driving
How does it turn what it takes in into what it gives out?
A drumbeat of four to seven strokes a second may pull the brain's own rhythms into step with it. The music also works through the meaning the rite gives it.^{3, 2}
drawn as: auditory driving · view: exploded

Output of Trance — Fig. 5. Output
Firewalk
What does it make possible, visible or knowable?
In trance people dance for hours, handle fire or bear pain without flinching, heal and prophesy, or come back with visions of a journey.^{1, 4}
drawn as: firewalk · view: at work

Dispersal of Trance — Fig. 6. Dispersal
Rave
What part of it travels into other minds, ideas and fields, and by what vector?
It travels in initiations that teach the songs and steps, in devotional music and its recordings, and in all-night dances that gather crowds around a steady beat.^{4, 1}
drawn as: rave · view: microscope

Decay of Trance — Fig. 7. Decay
Falling out
What can it not digest, where does it fail, and what does it leave behind for others?
It ends in exhaustion, often a fall to the ground and a gap in memory. Outside its rite the same state was long read as hysteria or illness.^{2, 4}
drawn as: falling out · view: pressed

II Meaning associations

No relations recorded yet.

descent membership food web resemblance or friction

Lineage

A founder, dissected by hand.

Kin

same kind in Roget Geomancy, Miracle, Possession, Ritual

same kind in Wilkins Apophenia, Dream, Memory, Oblivion, Presence, Afterlistening, Simultaneous Remembering

same kind in WordNet Possession, Presence, Solitude, Threshold, Tinnitus, Weightlessness, The Shared Cell

same kind in Llull Echolalia, Glossolalia, Love, Memory, Nostalgia, Oblivion, Placebo, Possession, Presence, Prophecy, Solitude, Threshold, Volition, Knowing Trust, Rushmaker, Tongue Horizon, Witnessed Relief, Gazeroot (second reading), Commemorative Revision, The Shared Cell, Simultaneous Remembering, Hesychology

same phylum Entropy, Frost, Iridescence, Patience, Sand, Silence, Hesychology

same dominant organ Clay, Faith, Fear, Lake, Patience, Prophecy, Resonance (second reading), Silence, Tinnitus

Genome

rhythm also in Breath, The Swing Door, Music, Poetry, Shared Breath, Syllable
absorption
loosening
dance
ecstasy

III In the world

Echoes

the whirling ceremony of the Mevlevi
a Siberian shaman's drum
a candomblé dance for the orixás
an all-night rave

IV Record

How it was drawn

its draw 9, a point in the morphospace (laws §8), drawn by flux-2-klein-4b.safetensors.

axis	value
book	automata
symmetry	asymmetric
organization	segmented
silhouette	star
scale	hand
proportion	swollen
growth	regenerated
articulation	seamless latent
openness	hollow latent
skeleton	woody latent
locomotion	gliding latent
pattern	speckled latent
coloration	plain latent
substance	light
surface	crackled
palette	gilt
luminosity	sheen
transparency	transparent latent
gesture	sinks
unity	composite latent
modality	possible latent
causation	efficient
determinacy	fraying latent
fusion	sprouting
anomaly	scale clash
graft	nets
technique	gouache
viewpoint	below
value	flat latent
balance	leaning latent
density	intricate latent
rhythm	unmarked latent
saturation	vivid
appendages	frills, lanterns
anchor (body)	a nudibranch, a soft slug crowned with clusters of bright cerata
anchor (detail)	an orb web strung with dew drops

Sources

Mircea Eliade, Le chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l'extase (1951)
Gilbert Rouget, La musique et la transe (1980)
Andrew Neher, A Physiological Explanation of Unusual Behavior in Ceremonies Involving Drums (Human Biology, 1962)
Judith Becker, Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (2004)

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