Trance-portation: Learning to Navigate the Inner World

By Diana L. Paxson

Book Overview

The ability to move from the ordinary into an altered state of consciousness is one of the most valuable skills in both magic and religion. From the ceremonial magician to the shaman, using trance... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578634059
• ISBN13: 9781578634057
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Great starter book

This is an excellent book for those who wish to begin using trance and journey techniques. The author does a thorough job of explaining the principles behind this type of spiritual work, but what makes this book such a good resource is the practical advice. The book touches on common problems people face, includes cautions and protection ideas, as well as how to connect to Otherwordly spirits and deities and what to expect.I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in beginning this type of work; this book will give the reader a firm foundation to work from.

A very thorough book.

This book very thoroughly talks you through trancing, problems you might encounter, solutions to those problems, comments that others trying the lessons have made.

A fine addition to any New Age library

Across all manner of spiritual tradition, the ability to move from an ordinary into an altered state of consciousness is one of the most valuable skills in magic and religion. Here fantasy writer Diana Paxson offers up a guideline to trance and out of body experiences, covering experimentation, memory, pathways to higher levels, and more. A fine addition to any New Age library.

First-Rate Training Material

Diana Paxson seems to be working her way from being a writer of enjoyable historic and mythic fantasy to being a teacher of core skills in Pagan magic and spirituality. Trance-Portations is a textbook for personal or group training in meditation, trance and vision. The exercises and sequence were developed by Paxson over some years of teaching, and this practical background shows clearly in the book. The methods given are only barely related to any specific spiritual path, but rather could be applied by nearly anyone. The book starts at the beginning, assuming the student does too, and explains concepts right alongside of immediate exercises and basic practices, moving from there toward the highest and strangest of trance experiences. She regularly nods to the various faiths her students might bring, but whenever Paxson gives specific examples, she draws on the Pagan, Heathen and magical community. Her own cosmology and mythic context is plainly the polytheism of modern Heathenry; this makes her book very comfortable for a variety of reconstructionist and Traditional Pagan systems. Trance-Portations is an introduction, and most of the topics get a fairly quick survey discussion, though all with solid base and depth. Plainly Paxson has chosen to focus on the practical, and the exercises given are well-designed and well-scripted. A student who actually worked their way through its program would be very well-equipped for further trance-magic and spiritual work in almost any Pagan system. Very well done!