example, in the longing for earlier youth subcultural moments (hippy, punk, etc.) or
earlier rave moments and locations (like the simulated Ibiza or Goa parties), raving
is often promoted and perceived as a means of remembering a generalized heritage.
The root source may be a long-lost vocabulary that has been stored in our bodies for
millennia. According to Cinnamon Twist, summoning ‘strange gestures,
nonsensical mudras, twistings, kicks’, these events may function to open humanity
up to the ‘bio-records of thousands of years of tribal and sacred dances, and untold
aeons of primal animalic motion’ (1999:108). Reading French raves, Gaillot
remarks on how they draw participants back to
ancestral practices and customs, opening up a space to resonate with the echo
of the bacchanalia and orgiastic delirium that have populated the margins of
our history.... Dionysia of modern times [raves]...may in this sense be as old
as man himself.
(Gaillot 1999:23)While any rock concert, disco or club scene might be identified amongst such
perennialism, anathematic to a space of wanton consumption and debauched
revelry, narratives articulate the intentional reclaiming of pre-modern and non-
Western ritual for its perceived efficacy. And in the process of reclaiming functional
ritual, we observe the reclamation of putative traditions.
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth founder Genesis P-Orridge claimed that acid
house was ‘going back to the roots of why music was invented: to reach ecstasy and
visionary states, in a communal tribal celebration’ (in Rietveld 1998a: 190). Such
claims became the particular trademark of trance, or psychedelic trance, narratives,
as evidenced by Goa trance veteran Goa Gil—whose goal was to redefine ‘ancient
tribal ritual for the 21st century’ (in Cole and Hannan 1997:5; and see Davis,
Chapter 13)—or Ray Castle, who advocates the ‘tribadelic...sound sorcery’ of
‘theosophical trance’ (ENRG 2001:168). Chris Decker, who founded both London
club and trance label Return to the Source (RTTS) and Earthdance is responsible for
a much-sampled passage:
The all night dance ritual is a memory that runs deep within us all; a memory
that takes us back to a time when people had respect for our great mother
earth and each other. Dancing was our rite of passage, our shamanic journey
into altered states of reality where we embodied the Great Spirit and the
magic of life.... At Return to the Source, it is our vision to bring back the
dance ritual. A ritual is a sacred act with focused intention. We aim to create a
modern day positive space, created with love where we can join as one tribe to
journey deep into trance, just as our ancestors did.^7And this pagan sentiment was built under the roof of house—believed to be the
principle conduit from Africa to rave. It has been suggested that venues like the
Paradise Garage (New York) and the Warehouse (Chicago) occasioned the ‘rebirth’
LIBERATION AND THE RAVE IMAGINARY 25