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Mobile Consciousness, Flexible Culture: Notes on the Rise and Fall of Goa Trance by Luther C. Elliott

 

I won't upload it because it's a 16MB phd dissertation and not worth reading anyways. Anyways, I read the first 40 pages, skimmed over them at least, and I learned not one thing. This is a great nauseating postmodern work, all the sentences are worded so as to be practically meaningless, just hot air expressed in extravagent language. I think I figured out after 40 pages that the author doesn't like goa trance... that's about all. :unsure:

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Best I ever found was a set of articles put together by Graham St John in my Uni library. Very much doubt it's available properly as pdf etc online...

 

clicky

 

I used it in my university dissertation quite extensively but it took some time to break down what they were saying. There's a chapter if I remember by Erik Davis on Goa trance (going back some time now, could be very far from the mark).

 

Other than that there's stuff on Maffesoli's neo-tribalism

 

like this one <-- just an abstract, basically just an example of the many, many attempts to stick Maffeseoli's spin on the classic subculture idea.

 

To find anything interesting academically on psy/goa though you really do have to dig through the crap. Mostly you'll just run into papers on drug abuse minimisation strategies etc.

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I have read "Trance and visibility at dawn: racial dynamics in Goa’s rave scene" and found some parts to be interesting, but most is a little too scientific for an regular read (even though i have read shitloads of scientific books).

 

What it is basically saying is that the highest people in the psychedelic hierarchy are selfcentered people that only mingle with a nonpsy crowd if they benefit from it (when in goa). Which i agree with most of the time. They (we) are from the open minded bunch of people we want to believe we are.

 

"Mobile Consciousness, Flexible Culture: Notes on the Rise and Fall of Goa Trance by Luther C. Elliott"

Sounds interesting but if you say it isnt i ll take your word for it.

 

Still have another dissertation on the bookshelf somewhere about psychedelic trance but never got into it yet. I must also say that I would have some difficulty figuring out what would be interesting about it from a scientific point of view. It is just another subgenre of music with an affiliated lifestyle. There are more of those to be found.

 

Yard Hippie: What was your dissertation about?

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...

Yard Hippie: What was your dissertation about?

 

My dissertation was an excuse to 'interview' a few friends over their views on psytrance parties, drugs and some sort of airy fairy connections with spirituality. I found nothing scientifically sound, invented a lot of the final phrases I quoted and found absolutely nothing of interest :)

 

I can't even remember what my hypothesis was...

 

As for it being 'just another subculture', well that's true sure but if you're going to study subcultures then you need to pick one first and I found the psy scene to be particularly interesting. I mean it's a group of generally young people that on the surface travel to old mills/secluded fields/converted churches etc to dance all night taking various mind altering substances under the watchful eyes of Ganesh, Shiva and whoever else the organisers choose to pin up. To me that was absolutely fascinating, especially in a country where religion and spirituality are receeding further and further into the background every day. It's just that as soon as you start to look properly it becomes very hard to decide anything substantial because for the most part it is all totally superficial *shrugs*.

 

I had a lot of fun though and for some reason the lecturers loved it B)

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  • 2 weeks later...

now there's a whole journal dedicated to this; its not strictly psy/goa but there are several articles that seem to be about that scene. haven't read any of them yet...

 

http://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/journal/index

 

edit: the journal is edited by the abovementioned graham st. john as it turns out...

 

snicker
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  • 4 weeks later...

Mobile Consciousness, Flexible Culture: Notes on the Rise and Fall of Goa Trance by Luther C. Elliott

 

I won't upload it because it's a 16MB phd dissertation and not worth reading anyways. Anyways, I read the first 40 pages, skimmed over them at least, and I learned not one thing. This is a great nauseating postmodern work, all the sentences are worded so as to be practically meaningless, just hot air expressed in extravagent language. I think I figured out after 40 pages that the author doesn't like goa trance... that's about all. :unsure:

 

Would you pleeeease upload this?

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