Which technique do you find most effective for achieving trance or altered states of consciousness?

I do something like this… Tutorial: Trancework

But with some additions that incorporate a bit of qigong energy preparation into my rituals. The whole performance sees you go deeper into trance and cross into an altered state with each step.

  • I usually play Shamanic Journeying drums with no music to them - I like a CD I bought over 2 decades ago and still use it ripped to my phone and played on a Bluetooth boombox. (Spirit Passages by Evelyn Rysdyk & C. Allie Knowlton)

  • I start with lighting the coals and preparing the space and I do that already in a state of deepening calm.

  • Next I shake out my limbs and grounding (Qigong exercise for clearing unwanted energy, a cleansing technique) or doing the Tai Chi form once.

  • Then I draw an energy circle of protection and declare the circle open - this is prior to and in addition to waverer ritual requirement there is for a circle, but if I’m using the Universal Circle I trace the same circular lines it had with sword fingers. (You will find this technique for circle opening in E.A.'s book Ordo Ascensum Aetyrnalis).
    I may or may not call in the directions - it’s a mood - but I always face magnetic North (it’s a me thing).

  • Then I do the relaxation part (in the above tutorial) in lotus position. Instead of doing a countdown, I inhale energy from the Cosmos and run the microcosmic orbit 9 times

  • Then I breathe in energy and perform the Inner Smile (sending gratitude and happy energy to organs to rejuvenate and heal them),

… and with all that done I’m in a deeply relaxed state, mentally alert but calm and serene, and I can’t really feel my body, but I move to light candles, call entities, read incantations, add incense to the coals etc. Then I bring my awareness back into the task at hand.

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