ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on trance states, channeling and the presence of the ancestors within the living as key aspects of the New Age. It explores Jerzy Grotowski’s interest in trance states, and contextualizes a relationship between New Age channeling and his work. New Religious Movement scholar J. Gordon Melton describes trance channeling as being the most influential element in popularizing the New Age movement. As part of Grotowski’s Theatre of Sources work, Haitian and Balinese trance states were explored in relation to their ecstatic phenomena and as a means of explaining the state a performer could be in. The Spiritualist movement and spiritualistic mediumship, with its emphasis on communication with the departed dead, are important precedents for the New Age. Grotowski’s work displays a complex relationship between trans-cultural studies and trans-generational work, taking on a more radical depth as it engages with the physical body.
