Rave Culture and Religion

perverse nature of psychedelic sociality. Sam Keen has suggested that ‘LSD, DMT,
and mescaline’ may give rise to a ‘Dionysian consciousness...based upon a body ego
of the polymorphously perverse body’, in which the self is transformed into a
focused awareness of sensations (1969:182). Collective consciousness may be
especially enhanced at parties where MDMA is a conspicuous element. During the
plateau of MDMA effects interpersonal differences appear to evaporate, producing a
condition of almost total identification of self with other. Participants in public
MDMA agapae may form ‘puppy-piles’—protracted and unconditional collective
embraces.
Dynamics of play and creativity are a prominent catalyst of social relations at
both doofs and raves. Activities from which people can derive acute pleasure via a
sensory modality are popular. In the mornings people may stroll about viewing the
environment, art and one another, listening to the music or blowing bubbles. In the
liminal arena of doofs, world elements are appropriated and juxtaposed in
carnivalesque ways which serve to disrupt categories—not unlike the ‘amazements’
of Metsogo Bwiti. The ‘amazements’ of doofs include people in ‘freaky’ costumes,
skilful acrobatic displays and fire-twirling,^15 kaleidoscopic lightshows and
elaborately constructed soundscapes and art spaces.

Conclusion

Psychedelic parties, like their non-Western counterparts, incorporate multiple
trance techniques. Both rave and doof rituals can be seen as different but analogous
kinds of ‘social machines’ which draw power from various Dionysian ‘engines’,
including an ecstatic dance-delirium (Jordan 1995), ritual costume, substance-
induced ‘ergotrophic stimulation’ (Fischer 1971) and rhythm-induced ‘tuning in’
(d’Aquili and Laughlin 1975). Psychedelic dance parties share many elements with
other entheogenic dance rituals. These similarities are not superficial; rather they are
functionally analogous; in all these instances social energy generated through ecstatic
dance is harnessed and directed by ritual virtuosos in accord with the collective
desires of the group to enhance the possibility of producing a definite product:
spontaneous communitas.

Notes

1 This chapter draws in part on an honours thesis I wrote under the supervision of

Associate Professor Richard Hutch of the Department of Studies in Religion,

University of Queensland, whose ongoing advice and interest I gratefully

acknowledge.

2 Jonathon Ott has recommended the term ‘entheogen’ to supplant the pejorative term

hallucinogen and the ethnocentric neologism psychedelic when discussing shamanistic

substances, and provided the following definition:

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