cover image Trance Zero

Trance Zero

Adam Crabtree, Crabtree. St. Martin's Press, $23.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-312-24425-5

Crabtree's thesis--that trances are an integral part of daily existence--is startling, yet his definition of a trance is so broad that his theory is unfocused. He posits that there are relational trances (i.e., being absorbed in one's feelings and thoughts about another person), situational trances (resulting from immersion in an activity) and inner-mind trances (meditation, daydreaming, hypnosis or simply being ""lost in thought""). Finally, in group-mind trances, one is swept up in the emotions of one's family, workplace, church or other social group. Crabtree, a psychotherapist, is a former Roman Catholic priest and Benedictine monk who holds a graduate degree in philosophy. He also ran a therapeutic community in the 1960s and '70s. This eclectic experience makes for some fresh observations on the psychodynamics of cults, the benefits and potential pitfalls of recovering repressed memories and the damage families inflict on individual members. He does, however, come off as a latter-day Wilhelm Reich when he dismantles what he calls ""The Little-People/Big-People Delusion,"" our tendency to worship authority or status figures. His claim that Western culture keeps us all in a trance-like, conformist state is reminiscent of Gurdjieff. His theory shades off into vague mysticism when he sets the individual's goal as ""Trance Zero,"" a Zen-like state of contextually appropriate absorption that allows us to make contact with the ""Ultimate Self,"" our inner pathway to the divine. However, his highly personal but somewhat derivative system of looking at ordinary experience may find a readership of adventurous spiritual seekers. Agent, Frances Hanna, Acacia House Publishing Services, Ltd. (Sept.)