Ritual Body Postures: Empirical Study of a Neurophysiological Unique Altered State of Consciousness

Abstract

This study examines ritual body postures (RBPs), a technique for the induction of a unique altered state of consciousness (ASC) characterized by the paradoxical arousal of a combined trophotropic and ergotropic trance. The objectives were (a) to test the specificity of RBPs, (b) to describe effects on daily life, and (c) to analyze experts and novices regarding the aforementioned objectives. The study was conducted over a ten-month period with 19 participants. Participant observation and open-ended interviews were conducted, and previous experiences with RBPs and ASCs were assessed. Experience-focused interviews were conducted with four novices and four experts. (a) No specificity of the RBPs was noted; (b) effects on daily life included higher awareness of the body, mind, and social interactions, above all a better understanding of the participant's biography, increased self-care and self-assertion, and higher levels of tolerance and acceptance; (c) novices described more tactile and nociceptive experiences, experts more visionary experiences. Considering effects on daily life, no differences were detected between novices and experts. ASC experiences while in RBPs serve the satisfaction of basic needs that are central to counseling and psychotherapy. Due to their unique paradoxical arousal, RBPs open up an independent research field for future studies on ASCs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank professor Rolf Verres for the opportunity to conduct this research in the Institute for Medical Psychology, Heidelberg University, Germany. Maria Balfer contributed to the analysis of the data from the interviews with her precise and critical reflections. Fletcher DuBois offered helpful critique in central aspects of our article. With meticulous corrections and suggestions for revision, Mary Beth Robinson and Hilary Niehues contributed greatly to the clarity and readability of our article. CH drafted the original manuscript, was responsible for redrafting and rewriting the article, contributed to the general research design, collected all empirical data and conducted both the quantitative and qualitative analyses. SR was in charge of the selection of the RBPs, the conduction of the group sessions and commented on the analysis procedures from her position as an expert in RBPs.

Notes

¹ww.cuyamungueinstitute.com.

²The invitation of the spirits practiced in our study can be obtained from the first author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christina Hunger

Christina Hunger is a research associate at the Institute of Medical Psychology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany, since 2010. She holds the 2010 Young Researchers Award of the European Conference of Religion, Spirituality and Health (ECRSH, Switzerland). Her main research interests include the efficacy and effectiveness of Systemic Therapy and systemic interventions in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) cross-cultural research on depression, religiousness and spirituality, and culture; research in the field of psychological and psychiatric anthropology; development and international validation of the Experience in Social Systems Questionnaire (EXIS), the Religious Coping Scale (RCOPE), the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) and the Relation with God Scale (RwG). She is a licensed systemic therapist (German Association for Systemic Therapy, Counseling and Family Therapy; Systemic Society Germany), trainer in Systemic Therapy (Systemic Society Germany, in training), psychological psychotherapist (German Association for Behavioral Therapy, in training), psychologist and psychological and psychiatric anthropologist. Sabine Rittner is a research associate at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University Hospital Heidelberg since 1993. She directed multiple interdisciplinary research projects (e.g. “Voice and Music in Psychotherapy” and “Sound and Trance in EEG-Brainmapping of Different Trance Induction methods in a Ritual Setting”). She is a well-known international keynote speaker and a lecturer for medical students. Her special focus is on working with altered states of consciousness, music and trance, with integrative, creative and body oriented psychotherapy. She has published internationally hundreds of articles in this field. She is a licensed psychotherapist and a certified music therapist (DMtG). She is also trained in trauma therapy, dance therapy, Gestalt therapy, Ericksonian hypnotherapy and Internal Family System (IFS by Richard Schwartz). For many years she collaborated closely with the American anthropologist Prof. Felicitas Goodman and gives trainings in her method of “Ritual Body Postures and Ecstatic Trance”®.