Enchantment

Last night I went to a beautiful concert that consisted mainly of sacred chants. The event was very much participatory — the audience was encouraged to join in.

It was one of those deeply emotional experiences where you feel transported out of yourself. By the time we got to the closing number, with everybody in the audience standing up, linking hands and swaying slowly from side to side while we lost ourselves in the music, the experience was completely heavenly.

And yet part of me resisted. Even though I knew that these were kind folk, who believed in peace and gentleness of people toward each other, a corner of my mind held back.

And that’s because on some level I just don’t trust the transcendent experience of losing oneself in a group, even when I believe in the underlying cause that brought everyone together. There is always a part of my mind that wants to stay awake, so that I can make sure that I have not lost my judgement.

I had something like this experience at the end of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in 2008. Don’t get me wrong — I was very happy that he won the election. Yet at the end of his speech, when he led everyone in a chant, I felt myself pulling away.

The mental state of being lost in a group transcendent experience might be one of the most pleasurable of human emotions. Yet when we are in this state, when we give ourselves over completely to the group identity, we are unable to ask hard questions about what it is, exactly, that we are saying.

Maybe I am just being too cautious in my resistance to enchantment. But then, there is something to be said for erring on the side of caution.

2 thoughts on “Enchantment”

  1. Maybe allow yourself a maximum time limit for transcendence?

    “I will give myself over to this group until the timer on my phone buzzes me back” kind of thing…

  2. Sally may be onto something. Deciding to do something that is against a personal preference in order to satisfy a shared goal can be a sign of having more self-authority, not less. This only works if the decision is made actively and authentically and then committed to fully. Of course most of the time we run on auto-pilot, fake it, and then grumble about the results. That’s probably why people need chanting in the first place.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *