Rave Culture and Religion

6

Entheogenic dance ecstasis: cross-cultural

contexts

1

Des Tramacchi

Participation in psychedelic dance parties can produce experiences with apparent
similarities to those accessed in various ecstatic and shamanic religious traditions,
especially those that utilize entheogens.^2 This chapter discusses some of the structural
nuclei of group-oriented entheogenic rituals, and explores broad parallels that exist
between community-focused entheogenic dance rituals in three separate cultures.
These shared structural elements are also core features of the nocturnal terpsichorean
excursions of the outdoor psychedelic dance cultures that flourish in northern New
South Wales and Southeast Queensland, Australia. It is my hope that this brief
cross-cultural tour of the use of entheogens in conjunction with collective dance is
broad enough in scope but nonetheless rich enough in detail to provide useful
perspectives on the function and meaning of the Western psychedelic dance rituals
known as ‘bush-parties’ or doofs.^3

Entheogenic rituals

The ceremonial use of entheogens as catalysts for achieving states of communal
ecstasis has a wide geographical spread. A broad survey of the world’s entheogenic
practices reveals that the majority of the more frequently used entheogenic
sacraments contain substances that are pharmacological equivalents of the Western
category of ‘psychedelics’ (Ott 1996; Schultes and Hofmann 1980). Entheogens are
used in a number of different ritual contexts, including healing, divination,
ensorcelment, rites de passage, and rituals of public celebration and social affirmation.
It is these socially affirming, collective rituals, as reconstructed from ethnography,
that are the focus of this chapter.
The principal ethnographic sources to be analysed are Stacy B.Schaefer’s
description of the ritual uses and meanings of peyote among the Mexican Huichol,
focusing on the annual ‘peyote pilgrimage’ (Schaefer 1996), supplemented with the
observations of Barbara Myerhoff’s (1974) description of the Huichol pilgrimage;
G.Reichel-Dolmatoff’s account of yajé (ayahuasca) sessions among the Barasana of
Colombia (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975); and James W.Fernandez’s monograph on the
ritual use of eboka by members of the Bwiti cult among the Fang and Metsogo of
Gabon, West Africa (Fernandez 1982). In selecting examples of rituals, I have been
influenced by two factors. First, size restrictions prohibit an exhaustive treatment.