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Invisible input - healing
Invisible input - inspiration

Background

Raghs (also spelled as Raqs) is the Arabic word for dance, and is also the word in Azerbaijani for dance (Reqs). The Kurdish word for dance is Halperke, and the Lurs from Lorestan use the word Bākhten (or Bāzee) for dance.  It is fairly clear that dancing was, at one time, a major method of both healing and attaining spiritual experience in general.

Wikipedia
The earliest researched Persian dance is a dance worshiping Mithra in which a bull was sacrificed. … This dance was to promote vigor in life.[sic] ……

In other words dancing was used as part of the sexual techniques.  Belly dancing , for example, is a known and workable method [see the description].  But there were other dances and it seems that some of the knowledge was transferred to the Sufis.  Hence, the old Zoroastrian dance may have been somewhat similar to the Sufi sama

Wikipedia
Ritual or spiritual dances, are often Sufi are known as sama and also a type of zikr (religious chant). There are various types of dancing in a trance for healing practices in Iran and surrounding areas. One healing ritual that involves trance, music, and movement is called le’b guati of the Baluchis of Eastern Iran, which is performed to rid a possessed person of the possessing spirit and appears to be in a similar state as an exorcism. There is a term in Balochi "gowati" for psychologically ill patients (possessed by wind) who have recovered through music healing, music as medicine. The southern coastal regions of Iran such as Qeshm Island have a similar possession by wind ceremony and it is thought that it may be influenced or originated in Africa, particularly the Abyssinian or Ethiopian region.

The word sama, from the Arabic root meaning “to listen,” refers to the spiritual practice of listening to music and achieving unity with the Divine, it is spelled sema in Turkish.

Within the Zoroastrian community, small though it is, particularly at festive occasions like weddings and Noruz celebrations, improvisational dancing ‘letting oneself go’ is the more used form of dancing, with each dancer interpreting the music in their own special way.  But this is generally only outside Iran and the other Islamic countries.  Within Iran, it appears that only some remote tribes still dance, for example, the Basseri dance is a traditional dance performed by the Basseri tribe who live in the Fars province.  ‘The dancers wear their traditional and colourful clothes’. They are largely nomadic.

Wikipedia

Ancient Persia was occupied by foreign powers, first Greeks, then Arabs, and then Mongols …. Throughout these changes a slow disappearance of heritage dance traditions occurred. ….After the fall of Persian Empire, when the country was torn into pieces, Iranian women and young girls were enslaved by the new conquerors, often forced into sexual slavery and required to perform erotic dance for new rulers. Religious prohibition of dancing in Iran came with the spread of Islam….. after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 dancing was no longer allowed due to its frequent mixing of the sexes. The Islamic Revolution of 1979, was the end of a successful era for dancing and the art of ballet in Iran. The Iranian national ballet company was dissolved and its members emigrated to different countries.  According to the principles of the “cultural revolution” in Iran, dancing was considered to be perverse, a great sin, immoral and corrupting. As a result, many of the talented Persian dancers moved to the West and spread out mainly in Europe and the United States and new generation of Iranian dancers and ballet artists have grown up in the Diaspora.

The source of the experience

Concepts

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Activities

Overloads

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References