The Sonic Path to Trance and Possession: An In-Depth Exploration
When Everything Becomes Music
“Everything is music,” John Cage once declared, suggesting a profound idea: all sound, even silence, can be experienced musically. In Trance and Possession, this proposition takes on even greater significance. A creaking door, the blaring feedback of a speaker, or the subtle rush of wind can all act as sound events, stimuli intertwined with the experience of Trance.
This article follows a two-stage approach to examining these intricate relationships: first, it identifies coherent systems of Trance across cultures; second, it analyzes the dynamic links between music and Trance events, using the foundational theories of Jakobson (1963), Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Gilbert Rouget (1985).
Defining Trance and Ecstasy
Trance: Movement, Noise, Overstimulation
Trance, as described, is both a psychophysiological and cultural phenomenon, an altered state of consciousness shaped by innate human dispositions and cultural contexts. Unlike Ecstasy, which involves immobility and sensory deprivation (Eliade, 1948; Rouget, 1985), Trance is characterized by overstimulation through noise, movement, and collective social experience.
Ecstasy: Silence, Immobility, Hallucination
Ecstasy, on the other hand, is deeply tied to sensory deprivation: solitude, darkness, and silence lead to inward journeys marked by hallucinatory phenomena (Brosse, 1963). For instance, musical hallucinations in Bhakti Yoga represent this sensory inversion (Eliade, 1948).
Terminological Challenges
The ambiguity between “Trance” and “Ecstasy” across languages (Leiris, 1958; Bastide, 1972) highlights the necessity of distinguishing them. In English, Trance implies a sleeplike state; in French, it often aligns with the idea of Ecstasy. Nevertheless, in both traditions, Trance is directly linked with music and movement, while Ecstasy seeks the absence of sensory input.
Possession: Dynamics and Religious Function
Possession as Socialized Behavior
Possession, especially possession Trance, forms a critical axis of this study. Defined as a socio-religious phenomenon where a deity “possesses” a follower, it acts as a behavioral transformation reinforced and validated by cultural norms (Bastide, 1972).
Possession serves specific societal functions: protection, healing, or revelation. It represents a strategic alliance between humans and divinities, mediated by ritual, dance, and music.
The Role of Crisis
While music often accompanies Trance, it does not directly cause it. Possession crises, like those described among the Hausa or Wolofs (Zemplemi, 1966; Herskovits, 1938), can emerge independently of musical rituals. Music acts as a catalyst, not a root cause.
Music and Trance: When and How Music Works
Beyond Instruments: Sound Shaping
The musical instruments used in possession rites vary widely: drums in Haiti, fiddles among the Hausa, gamelans in Bali, and mouth organs in Laos. Despite the diversity, all share the ability to structure sound into rhythmic, dynamic, and emotional frameworks that facilitate Trance (Rouget, 1985).
The real trigger lies in rhythmic patterns, tempo accelerations, rhythmic breaks, and dynamic crescendos (Cossard, 1967; Métraux, 1958). Acceleration, as Bastide (1958) notes, “opens muscles, viscera, heads” to the divine.
The Double Effect: Message and Movement
Music is not merely heard; it is physically re-enacted through dance. Thus, the possessed both “receive” and “act out” the musical message, embodying the divine through movement. Dancing transforms passive listening into active ritual performance.
Musicians and Possessed: Roles and Relationships
Professional Musicians and Ritual Participants
Musicians in possession cults often stand apart: they are professionals tasked with maintaining ritual structure. Their critical detachment ensures continuous adaptation to ritual needs without succumbing to Trance themselves (Métraux, 1958).
Conversely, ritual participants, followers, neophytes, and zealots oscillate between being “musicians” (momentarily) and “possessed,” their musical contributions deeply entangled with their journey into Trance.
Instruments as Sacred Mediators
Drums, rattles, fiddles, and flutes often transcend their musical function to become sacred objects, “voices of the gods” (Verger, 1969). This symbolism magnifies musicians’ power over possession dynamics.
Dance: The Ultimate Expression
Dance in possession rituals oscillate between two poles: non-figurative (abstract, Trance-inducing) and figurative (mimetic, deity-identifying). It is a sacred theater where the body hosts the divine and publicly displays this embodiment (Schaeffner, 1965).
Dance serves dual functions: fostering internal transformation and affirming external identity within the community.
Challenging Theories: Drums, Hypnosis, and Genetic Memory
Debunking Percussion Mysticism
While Needham and others suggested that percussion instruments, particularly drums, trigger Trance through physiological “shock” (Needham), the evidence does not fully support this. Neher’s neurophysiological theory (1962) states that intermittent drum rhythms cause brain entrainment, leading to convulsions, but it fails empirical scrutiny.
As Rouget (1985) and Blacking have countered, Trance is not solely a physiological reaction but a complex cultural and emotional phenomenon.
From Hypnosis to Conditioned Reflex
Melville Herskovits (1938) suggested that Trance could emerge from conditioned reflexes, where cultural learning shapes an automatic response to specific musical stimuli. This aligns more closely with observed phenomena across cultures.
Genetic Memory: An Emerging Hypothesis
Intriguingly, genetic memory may also play a role. Doctor Daniel Mathurin’s theories linking DNA structures to ritual Vèvè drawings (Mathurin, 2003) suggest that ancestral memory embedded in genetic code might predispose individuals to specific Trance responses. Though speculative, emerging research in neurogenetics supports the plausibility of inherited “fixed action” behaviors (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990).
Music, Emotion, and Ritualized Transcendence
Ultimately, music triggers Trance not through its sonic properties alone but through its emotional, symbolic, and social power. It functions as both a cultural message and a physiological catalyst. Music ritualizes the transition to Trance, provides an emotional scaffold, and sustains the sacred play of possession.
As a ritual and cultural phenomenon, Trance remains one of humanity’s profound intersections of music, movement, and the sacred, a living testament to the power of sound to reshape consciousness and identity.
Editorial’s Note:
This article is adapted from Mushy Widmaier’s lecture at one of New York City’s universities and is available at the New York Public Library. Our exclusive subscription package at The Haitian Music Industry Magazine provides full access.
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About the Author:
Mushy Widmaier is a celebrated Haitian pianist, composer, sound engineer, and ethnomusicologist. As Senior Contributor to The Haitian Music Industry Magazine, he explores the profound intersections of sound, spirituality, and cultural heritage. Now serving as Operations Manager at WDNA 88.9FM in Miami, Widmaier brings decades of expertise as a performer, broadcast engineer, composer, arranger, and educator.
