Ecstatic Body Postures

HEALTH / MEDITATION Specific body postures reappear in the art and artifacts of world cultures, even those widely separated by time and distance. What are these images of unusual postures telling us? Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman discovered that people who assume these postures while in trance report strikingly similar meditative experiences. The results from this research are astonishing, proving that certain body gestures and movements, when properly worked with, actually trigger us into accessing altered states of consciousness. With clear instructions and illustrations, Belinda Gore, one of Dr. Goodman's prominent students, reveals to us these shamanic postures and how to work with them. Ecstatic Body Postures is a "must read" for anyone interested in meditation, shamanic practice, yoga, and body work. "Felicitas D. Goodman has studied and worked with religious trance and trance postures for over twenty years. Written by one of her students, a trained psychotherapist, this book summarizes the results of hundreds of workshops and introduces the reader to the rich resources of information found in the alternative reality. Belinda Gore gives direct, hands-on advice on how to approach and how to interpret these experiences. I highly recommend this book to all who want to explore their inner reality." --Ruth-Inge Heinze, Ph.D., University of California/Berkeley, author of Shamans of the 20th Century and Trance and Healing in Southeast Asia Today "A scientific discovery with startling implications, opening the door to experiences that fascinate by their strangeness and wonder." --Felicitas D. Goodman, author of Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Spirit Journeys and Ecstatic Experiences "It's a stimulating, enriching and revelatory insight that illuminates both the hidden initiatory side to indigenous art traditions while charting a new body-grounded path into the mysteries." --Richard Leviton, senior writer, Yoga Journal BELINDA GORE has been teaching workshops on ecstatic trance for over eight years. She is vice-president of the Cuyamungue Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the principles of ecstatic trance and ritual body postures are studied and taught under the tutelage of renowned anthropologist Felicitas Goodman. A psychologist in private practice in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Gore earned her Ph. D. in counseling from Ohio State University.