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Music and Altered States of Consciousness
by Donald Gerard, M.A.

Introduction

Throughout history and across cultural boundaries, music has been associated with and utilized to accompany and produce altered states of consciousness. Studies have shown that music can affect mood, health, physical performance, and a variety of other physical, physiological, emotional, and psychological states. Musical tones and frequency vibration resonate with bones, fluid, and viscera. It is certainly no wonder that music is found in many areas of human activity including spiritual and religious practice, entertainment, and work.

In this paper, I will investigate how music is used to induce or affect consciousness in a variety of cultures. Specifically, I will focus on various forms of shamanism, the Australian Aborigines, Native American sundance ceremonies, Sufi drumming and the Whirling Dervishes, and rave dancing.

Shamanism

Shamanism can be defined as the use of altered states of consciousness, at will, for the purpose of healing or for gaining power or knowledge. In its usual context, it relies upon a tribal setting, a shared system of beliefs, and an acknowledgment of a spirit world on the part of both the shaman and the patient.

Music is very important for inducing the altered state. One scholar suggests that music or “…sonic driving—drumming, rattling, chanting—enables people to reach an altered state of consciousness wherein they can have access to information that ordinarily wouldn't be available to them. This technique is the same world-wide, from the aborigines to the Siberians to pre-nineteenth century northern Europeans; every culture has some roots in shamanism. It's not something that requires a particular ethnicity to experience.”

In his essay on Improvised Music and Siberian Shamanism, Tim Hodgkinson states, “The way we understood it, shamanism was a specific set of beliefs and practices in which a person became a shaman, or when following an illness and psychological crisis, and then shamanised, communicating with the spirit world on behalf of other members of the community by partially re-enacting this crisis in a dramatic scene usually involving drumming and vocalisation. More than most religious ritual, shamanic seances had a powerful personal and improvisational dimension. Moreover, in order to re-enter the special psychological state involved, the shaman had to prepare by getting rid, so to speak, of his or her normal everyday persona.”

Although what could be considered shamanic practices are part of a variety of cultures throughout the world, there are some common themes and aspects that can be found in all shamanic practices. Drumming, dancing, and singing or chanting are among these common practices. And apparently, there are certain qualities that define shamanic music. As Hodgkinson relates:

“Before we went to Siberia we thought there [were defining qualities], and that it hinged on the question of tempo. Unique among all kinds of music we’d previously met with, shamanic music apparently varied constantly in tempo. This distinguished it from trance or possession music, which typically works up to climactic extremes of speed and volume, as well as from non-shamanic musics of peoples with shamanic cultures, which typically conform to the steady tempo pattern of almost all folk musics. We also noticed that the accents produced by a shaman playing the drum followed no clearly discernible pattern. We did have a conversation with a musicologist in Novosibirsk who tried to convince us that the shamans were deliberately playing in constantly varying meters of 13, 7 or 9 and so on. It seemed to us that this was most unlikely, and conversations with shamans later confirmed our view that accents are used freely during shamanic drumming.”

But cultural bias can sometimes lead to misinterpretation and misleading results. Hodgkinson continues:

“But why, then, did the music of the shamanic performances constantly vary in tempo? We set off into the field with an idea, but were forced to abandon it. We thought that the function of music during shamanising was largely to disorientate listeners and participants through constant fluctuations of tempo. This idea owed much to Robert Ornstein’s work in the 1960s on the experience of time. Ornstein had demonstrated the link between the experience of time-duration, and the way in which events are perceived, grouped, and stored as information. It seamed [sic] to us that where the grouping unit was constantly unstable—as with music of constantly varying tempo—the normal habitual modes of information-processing would become generally disturbed, and the subject would then become increasingly psychologically suggestible. Fluid tempo could then be hypothesised as the technique of the shaman for setting up the audience for successive psychological identifications with spirits encountered on the shamanic journey. After discussion with practitioners, however, it became clear to us that the primary reason for tempo fluctuation in shamanic seances was not to produce a deliberate effect on the audience. It transpired that shamanising involves the interaction between the drumming activity, producing a sensory input, and a sequence of psychological states in the mind of the shaman. These states are at least stimulated, if not regulated, by shifts in tempo and intensity of drumming. But the shaman is not using the drumming in order to reproduce the same psychological evolution in an audience. Consequently the description of shamanising as a performance – as in Western theater or music – is misleading. This non-performance aspect becomes even more marked when several people shamanise together, as sometimes happens. In these workouts, each person follows his or her own psychological evolution, and coordination of psychological states and, consequently, of drumming tempo is exceptional. There is clearly no sense of collective responsibility for a collectively produced ‘musical’ output.”

Clearly, there is a correlation between the act of drumming, the drum music, and the altered state of the shaman.

Investigations into music and consciousness have elicited interesting results. It is proposed that certain types of music are the result of creative processes, processes that quite often occurs in an altered state. Hodgkinson asks, “What significance, if any, should be attached to the subjective language of improvising musicians?” Hodgkinson’s answer confirms our understanding of the relationship between music and the mind. He states:

“…the language used by [improvisational] musicians is still strongly influenced by a … discourse in which ideas of spontaneity and magic are important. Thus performance is special: normal rational processes would interfere with it. The language of subjectivity used by musicians protects against such interference. But it can also be read as making explicit the parallel between improvised performance and certain typos of religious experience.”

Clearly, Hodgkinson implies a connection between improvisational music and a process other than that of “normal” rational consciousness. This connection can be seen over and over again in other music-related disciplines.

Music of the Australian Aborigines

Aboriginal people throughout most of Australia believe that in the beginning of time, the Dreamtime, there were no visible landmarks; the world was flat. According to their creation mythology, all the spirits of the earth were awakened when the Sun Mother, as instructed by the Father of All Spirits, went down to earth and walked the planet. As time progressed, creatures emerged from the ground and had the power to change at will from their animal to their human form.

These original ancestral beings created all the features of the landscape in the area in which their lives were spent, and also populated the entire region concerned. By their actions they laid down the rules of conduct for all their offspring.

Throughout their lives on earth the ancestral beings left inseminating powers in the soil; they also created, and taught to others, many songs including those recounting the history of their own lives, songs for healing the wounded and the sick, injuring the enemy, including rain, arresting the flood, or causing the wind to turn back.

This mythology is important in understanding the Aboriginal relationship with music. The aforementioned inseminating powers become most accessible to the present inhabitants of the area on those occasions when the spirit of a particular ancestor is drawn towards his own identification marks of the song, acts and designs which he originally created and which have been meticulously preserved ever since. The song associated with any one totemic "line" will have the one melodic form throughout. This means, in the case of very long "lines" of songs, where the ancestor is reputed to have crossed thousands of miles of territory, that the characteristic melodic form will be found in areas with different languages and musical techniques.

As such, the melodies, tunes, harmonies and rhythms of Aboriginal music include traditional ceremonial songs that were handed down from generation to generation. It is very important in Aboriginal thinking, to replicate the songs that had been first played and sung by the ancestors in the Dreamtime. When the traditional music and songs were used, living men considered themselves to be in the Dreamtime. Particularly during initiation ceremonies. Again, the Dreamtime is considered a different (altered) state of consciousness.

The Australian Aborigines used a limited variety of implements to make musical sounds. The didgeridoo is probably the best known, but others included rattles, clapping sticks and two boomerangs clapped together. Importantly, it is noted that playing the didgeridoo requires a unique circular breathing method and causes a slight oxygen deprivation which causes lightheadedness and an altered sense of surroundings.

Traditionally, an Aborigine would go into nature and listen intensely to animal sounds, not just voices but also the flapping of wings or the thump of feet on the ground. The Aborigine would also listen to the sounds of wind, thunder, trees creaking, and water running. The essences of all these sounds were played with as much accuracy as possible within the droning sound of the didgeridoo. For the Aborigine, the observation of nature immediately requires a state of empathy, which leads to am imitative expression."

Music song and dance was and is still today a very important part of Aboriginal life and customs. As such, the Aborigines have songs for every occasion, hunting songs, funeral songs, gossip songs and songs of ancestors, landscapes, animals, seasons, myths and Dreamtime legends.

The Native American Sun Dance

Sun Dance is a traditional Lakota ceremony that represents life and rebirth. It has been described as the most elaborate ritual of the Lakota people. It was once exclusivly Lakota, but has become a ceremony employed by many other American Indian tribes. Although each tribe has developed it's own variation of Sun Dance, only the Lakota Sun Dance will be described.

As described by William Slotzman (First Eagle/Lakota), “Sundance is a new years ceremony celebrated in the summer, usually on a full moon. The actual Sundance lasts 28 days, but the last four days are the ones in which the dancing and most of the ceremony take place. A person who is invited to Sundance (you must have an invitation) must spend a year in preparation. This year is spent in sweats, meditation, and perhaps vision quests. You never know what to expect on your first Sundance, and nothing but the experience gives you this knowledge.

“When the last four days of Sundance arrive, a dancer will go to where the ceremony is held. Once the sun rises on the first day, the day of the full moon, food and drink other than sage tea are relinquished until the ceremony is over. On each of the four final days, the day begins and ends with a sweat, or purification.”

Slotzman continues:

“The [last] three days are spent in dance, prayer, and meditiation. The men and women enter the circle each morning, and dance without food or water. The people dance in a clockwise motion, men on the inside, women on the outside. This goes on for the first two days, the dancers resting only when really necessary, and only are allowed to drink sage tea. On the third day, which is commonly piercing day, the heyoka (sacred clowns, backwards people, and very spiritual people) come out to dance and raise the spirits of the dancers. They dance counter clockwise and traditionally wear black and white. The heyoka often are dressed in ridiculous clothes, and spend much of their time trying to make the dancers laugh.”

The Sun Dance is significant insofar as during the ceremony, rhythmic drumming is used to alter the dancers’ states of consciousness, along with long periods of dancing. Many ceremonies take place in a dark lodge or at night, with flickering smoky fires.

The drum is important for other Native American ceremonies as well. As noted by authors Arnold Keyserling and R.C.L. in the School of Wisdom, “It is traditional to use a drum when calling out to the directions, so at this point begin beating on a hand held drum while you call out to each of the direction powers and ask them to be present with you. You should do this out loud using the words that have meaning for you for each direction. Before calling for a particular direction, start first by calling the Great Spirit, then invoke both the Infinite and the Eternal - the long forgotten mother of all space. Then begin the directions with the East, then the West, the South and the North. In each direction call out the key words that summarize the meaning of that direction and also imagine the entities that go with each direction: all forms of fire and revelation in the east; all gems and stones, all mountains, letting go and affirming for the West; all plants and trees, trust and innocence for the South; and for the North ask for all animals to be with you, imagine their presence, and affirm the power of Wisdom, the Polar Star. Then conclude with the Sacred Earth in the center and invite all other humans alive today on the Earth who are striving and working for the good of humanity and the earth to be with you in spirit in the middle of the circle, the intersection of the four directions. Conclude by giving thanks to the Earth and to the Great Spirit. In a circle of friends before concluding you may wish to begin holding hands again and to move together around the circle.”

Sufism and the Whirling Dervishes

Sufism is the mystical tradition of the spiritual belief system known as Islam. Founded in Baghdad in the 1100s, the Qadiriya is the oldest Sufi order in the world. From the order's beginning, worshipers have played drums and sung prayers to experience God's presence. Tabala Wolof, the ritual drum music of a West African Sufi order, evolved in the late 1700s, when the Qadiriya arrived in Senegal. In Senegal, converts from the Wolof people incorporated traditional Wolof rhythms into Qadiriya worship, to satisfy their own taste and to communicate Qadiriya messages in the Wolof language. Led by a bass drum during nighttime worship, the Qadiriya play interlocking rhythms on tuned drums to inspire ecstatic singing.

Another sect of the Sufi order is the Mevlevi sect. Founded by the great philosopher and writer Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi in the 13th century, the ritual of the Mevlevi sect, known as the sema, is a serious religious ritual performed by Muslim priests in a prayer trance to Allah. Mevlevi believed that during the sema the soul was released from earthly ties, and able to freely and jubilantly commune with the divine.

According to one Sufi scholar, “During the [sema] ceremony, the dervishes remove black cloaks to reveal the tennure (white religious robes with voluminous skirts). They turn independently, shoulder to shoulder, both around their own axis and around other dervishes, representing the earth revolving on its own axis while orbiting the sun or possibly God.

“The dervishes silently perform the sema, making small, controlled movements of hands, head and arms as they whirl. They are accompanied by music, often dominated by the haunting sound of the reed pipe or ‘ney’, as well as drums and chanting as the ritual gradually transforms itself into rapid, spinning ecstasy.”

In the Middle East it is believed that the dervish is in prayer and that his body becomes open to receive the energy of God. The Turkish Sultans often consulted the Dervishes in difficult times. Their spinning created a relaxing and hypnotic effect in which the Sultans could search for guidance.

Dervish literally means "doorway" and is thought to be an entrance from this material world to the spiritual, heavenly world. During this solemn religious ceremony it is believed that the power of the Heavens enters into the upward extended right palm and passes through the body and leaves the lower, turned-down left palm to then enter into the Earth. The dervish does not retain the power nor is he to direct it. He accepts that he is the true instrument of God and therefore he does not question the power that comes and leaves him.

The Whirling Dervishes played a vitally important part in the evolution of Ottoman high culture, and perhaps their greatest achievement was in the area of music. Since the dogmatists of Islam's orthodoxy opposed music, claiming it was harmful to the listener and detrimental to religious life, no sacred music or mosque music evolved except for the Mevlud, a poem in praise of the Prophet, chanted on high occasions or as a requiem. Rumi and his followers integrated music into their rituals as an article of faith. In his verses, Rumi emphasized that music uplifts our spirit to realms above, and we hear the tunes of the Gates of Paradise. The meeting places of the dervishes, consequently, became academies of art, music and dance.

Raving

To say the least, “raving” is a highly subjective experience. One person’s best rave is another person’s worst. Any attempt to analyze rave culture must recognize the highly personal factor of the experience. From the alt.rave FAQ:

"In general practice, a ‘rave’ often refers to a party, usually all night long, open to the general public, where loud techno music is…played and many people partake of a number of different chemicals, though the latter is far from necessary. The number of people at the event is unimportant…the cost of attendance is unimportant (though in practice, the higher the price, the more commercial the event, and the lower the quality). At a rave, the DJ is a shaman, a priest, a channeler of energy-they control the psychic voyages of the dancers through his [sic] choice in hard-to-find music and their skill in manipulating that music…A large part of the concept of raves is built upon sensory overload-a barrage of audio and very often visual stimuli are brought together to elevate people into an altered state of physical or psychological existence."

Rave culture can be traced back as far as you want to trace it. Some say that it can be traced back to Native American religious ceremonies, while others assert that it’s origins are in the sixties Be-Ins and Love Ins and Acid Tests. Still others find the origin of raves in the anarchist revolutions in Italy and France. Needless to say, this activity pulls energy from many different directions.

In his essay on Peace, Love, Dancing, and Drugs, Eric Stien chronicles the history of raving:

“While techno music later probably had its origins in Chicago and Detroit disco clubs and gay dance clubs, and also in progressive music from England such as Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, England and America traded musical influences back and forth during the late seventies-early eighties until techno finally started to be formed.

“The actual rave movement, however, combining this new music with dancing, occurred in England. At almost the exact same time, raves started popping up in Manchester and Ibiza, a noted English vacation spot, in late 1987 and early 1988. It was during this time that two unrelated groups began throwing all-night dance parties in England, Schoom and Genesis P. Orridge’s baby, Psychic TV. Schoom incorporated house music and ecstasy, whereas Psychic TV took a more hardcore edge. At this same time, the rave phenomenon was taking hold in Germany, most notably in Berlin. The popularity of raves grew in both countries, and soon the little all-night dance parties were drawing thousands of kids. They were also drawing DJs from the United States.

“In the early nineties, the rave scene began moving across the Atlantic to America, fueled by American DJs eager to take this incredible thing back home, and English DJs eager to expand their horizons. The first US raves were held in San Francisco, long noted for its liberal and psychedelic culture. From here, they moved to Los Angeles and the rave scene was born in California.”

The music at a rave is techno, a primarily electronically created music that generally has a high level of bass. It tends to be fast-paced, running from between about 115 Beats Per Minute (BPM) to 300 BPM, with the most common being about 120 BPM to 140 BPM. Incidentally, ravers prefer 120 BPM because it simulates the heartbeat as heard in the womb.

Normally at a rave, a DJ ‘spins’ to create the music that the ravers hear. The act of spinning is the art of mixing songs together using different pitches, different speeds, and an equalizer to create an ever-flowing, ever-changing wall of sound. In effect, artists record techno songs, which are then reinterpreted and mixed with other techno songs, creating a spontaneous new song.

Techno music has its origins in the ceremonial drumming that was central to many native cultures. Chicago DJs started mixing their dance music with a drum synthesizer and house was born.

On the development of techno, Stiens writes that “from house, came acid house, which involved adding the Roland 303, a synthesizer that was able to produce different layers and pitches. Then the music continued to evolve, into techno, both "Detroit" style and Hardcore. Detroit techno tended to be pounding; the soul of house music was eliminated. Hardcore is basically a really hard and really fast version of Detroit techno. From here, we get further permutations. Breakbeat uses hip-hop samples and reggae tunes. Jungle uses a lot of percussive bongo and drumming sounds, as well as bringing in chants. Darkside utilizes minor chordal progressions to create an ‘evil’ feeling.”

The essence of techno music is that it is in a constant state of flux which is the essence of rave music. Furthermore, dancing is but another reiteration of the music. The music that the DJ creates spontaneously is a text. The dancer then in turn re-interprets this text through movements of the body. The ‘reader’ therefore, whether in the role of dancer, DJ, or user of sampling technology contributes a mindset that is culturally specific and productive in itself.

Rave dancing can be highly stylistic, or extremely vulgar. The beat is the driving force. Whether one is doing highly choreographed dance moves or simply thrusting their body back and forth ceases to matter. It is losing oneself to the beat, becoming one with the music by letting the music control your movements.

Another component of the raving is drug use. And although it is possible to be a raver and live a drug-free lifestyle, one cannot separate the scene from the drug use. Raves are ways of changing the psychological state of a human being bringing them into a different plane of existence. This goes hand-in-hand with psychedelic drugs. Initially, acid and marijuana use were the only drugs seen at raves in America. However, Ecstasy soon became the raver drug of choice. This is because Ecstasy broke down barriers of communication, dissolved egos, enhanced sensations, and made the music physically pleasurable. Although, Ecstasy is still very popular today, within the last year alcohol and hard drugs such as ketamine, crystal meth, and heroin have moved into the scene.

The actual concept of raves is not new. At the base level, raves are very comparable to the ceremonies of many indigenous cultures where music is the key towards pulling oneself into a unique emotional and psychological state. Rave culture, then, can be described as a very spiritually aware culture that focuses on an altered state of mind that is caused by music and, in many cases, drugs. It is the rediscovery of music as a spiritual tool. Terrence McKenna is quoted in the song Re: Evolution as saying "the emphasis in [techno] music and rave culture on physiologically compatible rhythms…is the rediscovery of the art of natural magic with sound, that sound properly understood, especially percussive sound, can actually change neurological states in large groups of people that are getting together in the presence of this…music. [They] are creating a telepathic community-a bonding that hopefully will be strong enough then to carry out into mainstream society.”

The rave scene uses technological means to recreate ancient ceremonies in which dancing to music was used as a spiritual tool. It is a conjoining of ancient beliefs with the tools of today. This is the essence of the "vibe" so commonly talked about in circles of ravers. There is a tangible energy that goes along with dancing to extremely loud beats with hundreds of other people.

Raves are a shared experience. A sense of unity often develops among ravers in which personal creeds, race, gender, age, sexual preference and everything else that our society places so much emphasis on simply fades into the background. The rave culture is definitely a culture of paganism and, to an extent, hedonism. It is a religion based on shared experience. Individual religious beliefs are integrated into the larger, unified experience where Enlightenment, love, and kindness are common themes.

Additionally, Peace, love, unity, and respect (referred to as PLUR) are the four pillars of the rave scene. According to Stiens, “In many senses, PLUR is the dogma that ravers believe in. It is the belief that for one night, a community can be created that does not function for the same reasons that larger society does. It is the belief that peace and love are worth trying to bring back into a society that now seems so devoid of them.”

Another theme in the rave scene is suspension of reality. Apparently, the idea is that reality does not exist within the actual hours of the rave. Stien further posits:

“It is most definitely a culture of escape. It is an escape from mainstream society into a utopian world for a few hours. It is a creation of space where love and happiness exist beyond everything else, and is not bounded by the laws or rules or unhappiness found in everyday society... In relating this to earlier things I have mentioned, one needs only to look around to see this escape. The music is not ‘real’ in the sense that it exists only for that moment. There are no originals; everything heard is a hybrid of things that were already hybrids of other things. The clothes are not real; it is not often that we see an 18 year-old girl sucking on a pacifier in mainstream society. A rave is a phenomenon that does not exist within the rules of society; it is the creation of a separate space.”

Concerning rave spirituality, Stiens sums it up with the following comments:

“Rave spirituality, while taking many different forms (even dark forms sometimes) can be boiled down to PLUR. It is a general feeling of respect for the earth, respect for each other, and respect for oneself while being immersed in total bliss for one night. It is tapping into the communal vibe that is present. It is the creation of a temporary space where the only rule is love and the only preaching is loud music.”

Conclusion

Music and altered states of consciousness have been very closely related throughout the ages and cross all cultural boundaries In this writing, I’ve only touched on but a few areas where the use of musical instruments, dancing, and substances are used to produce altered states. Certainly, a more extensive investigation would show altering consciousness with music is a practice that pervades the entire panorama of human interaction.

References

Altered States: An Interview on Shamanisn with Leslie Gray by D. Patrick Miller http://www.woodfish.org/altered.html

Altered States Hypnosis and Healers by Dr. David W. Genuit http://earthkeeper.freeservers.com/altered%20genuit.htm

Essay on the Whirling Dervishes http://planetexplorer.online.discovery.com/ref/culture/cultdervish.html

On Peace, Love, Dancing, and Drugs: A sociological analysis of rave culture by Eric Stiens http://www.phantasmagoria.f2s.com/writings/raveindex.html

Improvised Music and Siberian Shamanism by Tim Hodgkinson http://users.unimi.it/~gpiana/dm1s01th.htm

How to Take Part in Lakota Ceremonies by William (First Eagle) Slotzman http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/ink/695/the-sundance-ceremony.htm

The Sundance Ceremony by Dustyn Medicine Wolf (Lakota) http://www.angelfire.com/co/MedicineWolf/lakota/sundance.html

The School of Wisdom - Chapter 8: The Unique Potentials of the Earth and the Ten Directions by Arnold Keyserling and R.C.L. http://www.chanceandchoice.com/ChanceandChoice/chapter8.html

Australian Aborigines History and Culture Research Project http://www.aaa.com.au/hrh/aboriginal/index.shtml