at the heart of the West’s ecological vandalism. We are informed that Gurdjieff
draws attention to humanity’s forgotten obligation to perform our ecological function
in the web of life. That is, as opposed to serving the evolutionary process by
continuing to supply the planet, the moon and the solar system with ‘the particular
gradient of energy’ understood to be their due, human beings have largely become
parasitical energy consumers, despoilers of the planet, circumstances which have
resulted in the humanitarian disasters of the 20th century. As a possible mode of
‘intentional suffering and conscious labour’, Keehn argues that trance dance may be
a Gurdjieffian ‘path of return’, the kind of sacrificial ‘work’ thought necessary for
humans to regain consciousness. Perhaps a small-scale means of establishing a
necessary partnership or synergy with what Gurdjieff’s student J.G.Bennett (in
Twist 2002: unpaginated) calls the ‘invisible world’, it is inferred that such activity
may be a means of serving the future through meaningful human reciprocation with
the planet. According to Keehn, paralleling that found at Grateful Dead concerts
and Rainbow Gatherings, ‘a melding of group feeling and energy into an ecstatic,
orgasmic release’ is experienced at trance parties ‘that feels nothing less than
spiritual or religious’ (Keehn 2001). Performed ‘by the right people in the right way
with the right intentions’, trance dance:
is capable of producing that same energy Gurdjieff believed Mother Nature
needs from us...[and] the use of psychedelics in conjunction with intensive
dancing to certain rhythms, by a new breed of individuals, may be a way to
fill our cosmic obligation without the life-long spiritual training otherwise
required.
(Keehn 2001)More than self-salvation, or simply implying the salvation of community—as in the
ecstatic plight of the underground gay community discussed in Chapter 1 —
Keehn’s trance-dance sacrifice is a ‘cosmic obligation’, a possible means of ensuring
the survival of humanity in the planetary system. A possible answer to modern
distancing from natural world rhythms, trance approximates an obligatory rite,
something of a dutiful performance, for re-enchantment-seeking youth. As Kathleen
Williamson indicates, such dance holds significant grounding potential: ‘our
experiences with sound, psychedelics and the dance ritual are the stirrings of
communicating via the ebb and flow of the earth’s rhythms and letting it seep into
our collective emotions’ (Williamson 1998). Such ‘communication’ is possible at
events that are not only ‘immediate’ in Bey/Wilson’s sense of convivial paroxysms,
but potentiate familiarity with non-human otherness. In these experimental zones,
encountering native biota and participation in natural cycles through the
technologically mediated dance contextualize the dissolution of human/nature
boundaries.
The immediate events implied had evolved in San Francisco from the early
1990s. At the time it was reported that ‘futuristic nomads are taking music out of
the clubs and back to the earth. Sitting around campfires, sharing nocturnal tales,
222 GRAHAM ST JOHN