Trance In Meditation, Need some advice Options

Hello

I'm pretty new to Magick, and I have a few questions about trances in meditation. I've done a bit of reading on Magick and have actually decided to stop for a while and start practicing, as I wasn't doing so before. But, I've found remarkably little information about how to get into a trance through meditation. I'm introverted, so meditation is my preferred modus operandi, and also I haven't gotten any results from the classic sigil visualization at orgasm technique.

In Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics, he mentions that the practitioner can get into a trance by focusing his awareness into the center point of his body, aiming for an atomic point in space. In Alan Chapman's Advanced Magick for Beginners, I found a breathing exercise involving alternate nostril breathing. I have yet to try these two techniques, but I'm surprised that I haven't found more.

So, what techniques have you been using to achieve a trance in meditation? I would greatly appreciate your advice.

Thanks for the replies. I think I finally understand that a trance is equal to a hypnagogic state, as well as the difference between that and meditation.

With that said, you guys might want to check out something called brainwave entrainment. It's a technology that can be used to induce a specific frequency of brainwaves. Research has shown that when one is hypnotized, or in a trance state, the brainwaves oscillate within what is called the theta range, which simply means around 4 - 8 hertz (hertz meaning oscillations per second). In fact, the only success I've had with sigils thus far has been with the use of this technology. I would recommend Neuro Programmer 3 by Transparent. If you're interested, you can download a free trial to experiment with. The help documentation that comes with the program is thoroughly informative on its use.

To explain how I used it: I created a standard sigil on white paper using a black marker, and placed the paper on my computer screen. In a dark room, I listened to 6.5 hz for just under 30 minutes. At the 29 minute mark, a small countdown from 3 to 1 was used, and at 1 the screen lit up brightly for a few seconds. At this point I would open my eyes so that the sigil is cast. Once the session was over I discarded the sigil without looking at it. By the way, 6.5 hz has been shown in research to be a significant frequency for hypnosis.

Hope that helps someone.

Thanks for the replies. I think I finally understand that a trance is equal to a hypnagogic state, as well as the difference between that and meditation.

With that said, you guys might want to check out something called brainwave entrainment. It's a technology that can be used to induce a specific frequency of brainwaves. Research has shown that when one is hypnotized, or in a trance state, the brainwaves oscillate within what is called the theta range, which simply means around 4 - 8 hertz (hertz meaning oscillations per second). In fact, the only success I've had with sigils thus far has been with the use of this technology. I would recommend Neuro Programmer 3 by Transparent. If you're interested, you can download a free trial to experiment with. The help documentation that comes with the program is thoroughly informative on its use.

To explain how I used it: I created a standard sigil on white paper using a black marker, and placed the paper on my computer screen. In a dark room, I listened to 6.5 hz for just under 30 minutes. At the 29 minute mark, a small countdown from 3 to 1 was used, and at 1 the screen lit up brightly for a few seconds. At this point I would open my eyes so that the sigil is cast. Once the session was over I discarded the sigil without looking at it. By the way, 6.5 hz has been shown in research to be a significant frequency for hypnosis.

Hope that helps someone.

The hypnagogic state can take place in either Alpha or Theta, and for that matter even Delta with a great deal of training. Theta would be 4-7 hertz, 7-14 would be alpha, and there are even higher bands which are considered highly abnormal, but are associated with whole brain cooperation and thinking, and have been measured from veteran meditators, mostly monks, during 'loving kindness' meditations and other such types of unity states.

Brainwave entrainment happens more easily and more commonly than you might expect, actually. You can reach a deep delta state by listing intently to your own heart beat. The use of binaural beats, for instance, in one artificial method, but there are also isochronic tones and monaural beats, for instance, which amount to a 'tapping' kind of sound which doesn't have to be heard over headphones like binaural beats.

I incorporate binaural tones into my own meditation and self-hypnosis tracks, but there is a practical limit to the use of these kinds of technologies. If you are going to use them, I would suggest that you go in with the intention of paying special attention to how your mind and body feel while entrained to a particular wavelength, and then attempt to return to that state without them, perhaps alternating sessions with and without them. Additionally, although brainwave entrainment technologies can be helpful in assisting you in meditation, for instance, or trance work, there is a common misconception that if you listen to them, then you will go into that state. This is not precisely accurate.

If you let your mind continue to wander about, and cannot control your thoughts enough to focus, then you will not entrain. The entrainment tech is only a kind of strong suggestion, but your brain doesn't have to accept it if it is too distracted. They can also be hindered by having too much sugar or caffeine in the system as this will 'lock' your brain into beta.

A good way to understand these states is to understand the hallmarks that indicate what brain state you are in. Anytime that you are focusing on a task to the exclusion of all else, you are in alpha. You cannot focus on one task in Beta, because this is the state necessary for awareness of one's surroundings. There are few physical signs of alpha but normally your awareness of your body will be primarily limited to the parts you are using in your task. For instance during meditation you may become acutely aware of your face and head because this is the place that most people 'feel' their awareness.

In Theta things change a little, awareness of the body tends to recede and the body itself is felt in a kind of hazy generalized way, although in this state you can experience analogous sensations - for instance in hypnosis this is the state necessary to intense kinesthetic hallucinatory suggests; when you suggest to a person that their hand is getting hot, etc., you need to be in Theta for that kind of suggestion to really take because the 'body' that your mind is experiencing there is not actually your physical body, but the imago of the body that is in the brain.

Most people will be unconscious in Delta but it doesn't have to be so with training. If you train yourself to maintain awareness in low theta, then high delta, and decrement yourself overtime by fractions of hertz until you reach low delta you can remain aware even in a deep delta state, but you will be looking at the withdrawal of all senses and in a state of intense focus on a single ideal. Whereas in Beta you can maintain at the most nine 'parcels' of sensory information, in alpha perhaps five, in theta no more than about two or three, in delta maintaining even a single parcel of sensory information is nearly impossible, but that is the key to maintaining awareness in that state. It is purely self-awareness, not external at all, but that one parcel of information - the self - becomes magnified to an incredible degree and this is the level at which you can more or less rewrite your subconscious. Hence, much of the deep, deep, deep Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques that are often considered the most difficult and dangerous take place at this deep delta level.

Use the tech, but use it to learn. Also look into a program called gnaural to make your own tracks and learn about the Oster Curve, which is a data set describing the optimum base frequencies for the average brain configuration for each level of oscillation entrainment. Start with the average base frequencies described, and over time lower the base frequency by a bit at a time and your brain will, for lack of a better term, become more 'connected'; the neural pathways more dense as the brain works harder to entrain at the lower base frequencies. You cannot start off with much lower than average base frequencies and a lot of people working on their own make this mistake thinking that a lower frequency will be somehow more 'subliminal' - brainwave entrainment doesn't work like that. Virtually everyone new to the idea will need to start of with the average oster curve base frequency set, or, again, the entrainment just won't take.

Good luck!

peace