Common steps and sub-activities

Chanting, mantra and prayer

This technique uses sound accompanied by words that are repeated. The sound can be a single note – a single tone designed to come close to what is called your ‘resonant frequency’ the frequency that induces a trance.

The words are a single word or a phrase that is repeated over and over again. Ideally, the phrase should have no intrinsic meaning to you, it is simply better as a series of words you can repeat or which are repeated.

The key is the repetition and in a sense the monotony of the sound and the words.

You can do the chanting of the words at that note, or you can listen to a CD or similar of someone else doing it [through headphones because then the resonating works better]. The single short phrase must be repeated, no songs here, so you either need to find a CD that does this for you, or construct your own by having a short track repeat. With something like an I-Pod, this is relatively easy.

Note that the technique does have a duel action, The single note induces a trance state by resonating at your body’s ‘resonant frequency’. Even if no resonance is found, the monotony of the tone helps to still the reasoning function.

The words or single phrase repeated over and over again, serve to still the mind by giving it nothing on which to reason or learn. This means that you have to concentrate on the words, however repetitious and monotonous they are – but look for no meaning. This is why it is better to have relatively meaningless phrases, because the overactive mind will seek to find a meaning in most things and thus even in the most innocuous phrase conjure up a whole raft of images and thoughts.

For example: ‘No bread because it is Tuesday’ might make you think of Tuesdays and what it is like at work on Tuesdays and the times you have taken sandwiches to work and which Tuesdays you have not taken sandwiches to work….

The key to success is to concentrate on the words and nothing else. Do not reason, do not use your memory to conjure up images. Blank out and let the words put you in a trance.

If you want to use an existing chant you have plenty of choice. Chanting as a technique designed to achieve this aim is found worldwide - African and Native American cultures; Europe and the near East, for example the Byzantine chant, Jewish liturgical music; India and the Far East.

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Chanting, mantra and prayer

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