Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 8:04 pm | Tags: deep, emotion, listeners, music, trancing
Product Description
“A fascinating thesis and a timely synthesis…. Becker urges the reader to view certain arcane cultural rituals as being in the mainstream of spiritual development and argues that the resulting trance-like states may relate to the basic fabric of emotions and consciousness, which are our ancestral, animalian heritage. This is both a risky and courageous undertaking that challenges both cultural and neuroscientific studies.” — Jaak Panksepp, author of Affective Neu… More >>
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
With plenty of examples from numerous cultures, Becker brings home the point that cultural expectations shape the spiritual experience, rather than the music itself. The music CD that comes with the book provides actual examples from various folk traditions. My only complaint was that I didn’t have the Wikipedia handy when I was reading the book, so I often did not know what part of the world the various tribes being discussed were from. If you don’t know the names of lots of tribal societies, have some kind of reference material available.
Rating: 5 / 5