countercultural forms of resistance and the capturing modes of mass societies from
which they (unsuccessfully) flee.
Freaks are not tourists. While tourists consume exotic places for short periods and
within tightly structured labor/leisure life-cycles, alternative subjects assume remote
places as “homes” for extended periods and within a holistic “style of life” that seeks
to combine labor, travel, leisure, and spirituality. Moreover, although scorning the
“commodification of experience” by conventional tourists (MacCannell 1989),
freaks do not find anything special about most traditional cultures they engage with.
They thus emulate the skeptical, romantic, and elitist gaze of the “post-tourist”
(Urry 1990). For all their material and cultural particularities, it is wrong to conflate
them with tourists. In Deleuzian terms, tourists belong to the striatic space of
dwellers, while freaks live by the lines of flight of nomads.
Within this culture of nomadism, Goa is not only a center for the
territorialization of global countercultures but also a corridor linking other main
nodes in India, particularly Manali and Poona. In northern India, Manali and the
villages of Parvati Valley accommodate the trance scene in the Himalayan mountains.
Here, multinational freaks are outnumbered in a party population that is 90 percent
Israeli. Considering the popularity of Goa trance music in Israel, most of this party
crowd is formed not by nomadic freaks but rather by Israeli travelers and “part-
time” freaks, i.e. subjects who consume alternative fashion, albeit devoid of the
meanings that motivate countercultural resistance. In any case, these giant
mountains provide a magnificent scenario for techno trance gatherings, a sublime
experience of digital paganism at a 4,000-meter altitude: high-tech tribal music and
young bodies, dancing and wandering within green forests of pine and grass, lit
bonfires, the refreshing breeze of snowy peaks, and an absolute blue sky—a veritable
experience of the Nietzschean “superhuman.”
Located between Goa and Manali, Poona is a gentrified city near Mumbai
hosting the world famous Osho Commune International. This paradise-like
“meditation resort” provides a total environment for those seeking self-
transformation and spiritual growth. The Osho movement is a good case for
exploring the relations between New Age and Techno. Music, therapy, celebration,
and meditation pervade daily life in the “Osho ashram.” In the huge camp-like
Buddha Hall, hundreds of practitioners (about 80 percent Westerners) do one-hour
“dynamic meditations,” which begin with cathartic stages of chaotic dance and
gibberish, moving towards introspective stages of silent stillness and relaxation.
Moreover, the commune’s “Multiversity” offers a wide range of group workshops
centering on creative and cathartic expression. During three-day “encounter
groups,” potent music is employed by therapists as transformative catalysts.
Notably, predominant musical styles are techno, house, trance, ambient, and New
Age music, played at specific moments throughout the workshop. Besides the
Buddha Hall and Multiversity activities, once a week the ashram administration
“allows” short-duration dance parties where DJs play house music, exotic world-
beats and a bit of trance. Nonetheless, too emotionally derailing trance music is
240 GLOBAL NOMADS IN IBIZA AND GOA