Rave as Ritual: The Intersection of Collective Movement and Entheogens

Modern culture desperately lacks regular ritual, especially dance/movement ritual. This is why electronic music and rave culture have been steadily growing – bursting into form – for the past several decades. The modern rave is a return to the primal, and ultimately is a neo-tribal ritual that speaks to some of our deepest unconscious desires. Psychedelics, MDMA and ketamine are embedded into underground music culture, and at large raving as a modern return to ritual holds a potential key for understanding social bonding, collective processing of trauma, expanded states of awareness within collective bodies. In line with this, the body, seen holistically, is not just physical. It’s a synthesis of three bodies: the physical, emotional, and energetic. Movement – and dance especially – allows for the literal “shaking off” of stored, unprocessed emotion, which can be even more potent when experienced in a group setting. In psychedelic spaces, this trinity of the body is more available and viscerally expressed, and it is the work of psychedelic facilitators to attune to the bodily patterns that subtly and overtly express unprocessed trauma. Understanding the burgeoning underground culture of raving and electronic music offers a potent peek into the power of the body and collective healing at the intersection of dance, music, and psychedelics.