red thread

The dance? Of course, how could I have forgotten those nights in New Orleans dancing the Habanera with you, Josephine, when we fled after the fall of the Paris Commune? Ah Josephine, comment se peut-il que je n’aie pas pu me souvenir de toi? But Josphine was just your nom du guerre. So many nights looking at that mischievous smile and the amused twinkle in your eyes and yet, did I know you at all? Who are you?

How is it that I am here now in this apartment? My fingers ache from the arthritis. Iterum oblīvīscī nōlō tē. I must continue translating the book. I must lose myself again in the words. Why should I accept this reality?

Je me souviens de nos soirées passées together in the drawing room of the Comte de Saint-Germain. How he used to play on the violin while we talked of the rituals in his Triangular manuscript. You wanted to go to Brazil and perform the ritual during the eclipse.

Je me souvien you wanted to go to Salvador to learn from the Candomblé. We went to the terreiro to watch the ritual during the eclipse. You felt nauseous and they guided you into the dance. I remember how you danced as you became possessed by the orixá. They took you away and you returned dressed in the colors of Ogum. You would not speak.

What knowledge did you gain? I can not recall. You changed after that. The sparkle left your eyes, you grew distant, and left. Where are you now Josephine?

Iterum oblīvīscī nōlō tē. I must keep translating. Why do the words slide off the page? I do not want to accept this reality where I am old and I can not remember. I want our reality. Il faut que je te retrouve Josephine.

I love the way you framed this — especially the generator analogy.

I think energy in collective movement absolutely can be tapped, but not necessarily in some occult “harvesting” sense. More like amplification. When bodies synchronize, heart rates align, breathing patterns match, micro-movements echo — you create a temporary shared nervous system.

And shared systems are powerful.

As for whether participants need to know what they’re dancing for… I’m not sure awareness is always required for meaning. Ritual has historically functioned both consciously and unconsciously. People often participate before they intellectually understand.

But intent still matters — even if it’s not articulated.

The Tango works because both partners agree (explicitly or not) to surrender to the same tension. A mosh pit works because everyone consents to chaos within a rhythm. There’s trust embedded there, even if it looks wild.

The part of your question that lingers with me is:

“Would they know they’d been used?”

If someone external were directing energy without participants’ consent, I think the body would feel it eventually. Blissful exhaustion feels different from being drained. One nourishes. The other hollows.

Dance, at its best, is creation — not extraction.

I agree fully. From the intention of the small group to the living ebb and flow of a large crowd are one of the few common threads amongst almost all of human history. The connection between the participants is palpable, and the atmosphere intensifies as you. The Tango is very focused and both partners are deeply connected in intent, even the audience are silent and reverent of the intimacy. The Mosh pit is pandemonium driven by rhythm and instinct, drawing in onlookers to join in the wild expression of life.

The thought that's been dancing in my head (ha!) is: What if that energy could be/is tapped? Do all participants need to know what their dancing for, or is the act enough for them? Does a warm generator know what outlet its plugged into? Does the water main know the pipes it feeds? Does the intent of the Dancer matter if they're being directed by another party? Would they know they'd been used other than feeling blissfully exhausted from leaving it all on the dance floor?

I actually think you’re touching on something important.

The ritual doesn’t just “belong” to the dancer. It spreads andbecomes shared memory.

That doesn’t eliminate the performer’s agency, but it does mean that isn’t contained within one body. It lives between bodies as others witness it or participate in it.

Maybe dance isn’t about projection or authorship — maybe it is a form of creation. A temporary network formed from breath, muscle, and attention for a purpose.

Distributed ritual doesn’t erase identity. It multiplies it.

The use of dance in ritual is a common thread amongst Human spirituality. Some used dance to commune with natural forces, others to venerate those more supernatural. While the prevalence of intentional ritual dancing has dwindled in recent history, might the rise of popular or group dances be used to harness the same power? Let us examine the history of dance, and its theoretical application towards the more esoteric outcomes.

History of Sacred Dance:
To avoid plagiarism, and to keep this article to a somewhat reasonable length, I suggest you peruse [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_dance]This Article[/url]
To list a few examples of Historical Sacred Dances:
[list]
[*]Egyptian dance personifying Hathor
[*]The Whirling Dervish of Sufism
[*]The Hula of Hawaii
[*]The Eagle, Hoop, or Grass dances of the Native American Tribes.
[/list]

[quote]"Lewis Farnell, an anthropologist, observed that sacred dance has an "extraordinary uniformity" among indigenous peoples all over the world, something that he found so striking that it suggested either "belief in an ultimately identical tradition, or, perhaps more reasonably, the psychologic theory that ... [humans] at the same stage of development respond with the same ... religious act to the same stimuli" from the environment."[/quote]

Somatic Components:
There are tangible effects and purposes somatic elements in rituals. A specific gesture, a repeated movement, the perfect angle of ones hand. Some rituals are so particular in their requirements even the slightest misstep (literally) can prove disastrous. If we extrapolate/esoterise the above theory and what we know regarding somatic elements, regardless of their intended purpose, the actual dance of the "ritual" appear produces some form of energy from/within the human body. The ritual directs or binds said power to its intended purposes.

Freeform Dance:
Many sacred dance styles are freeform including Shamanistic Ecstatic Dance and multiple instances described in the Hebrew Bible. The participants are free to let the music guide them toward the intended purpose without the need to follow specific steps. The effects of these rituals are believed to have a wide range of influence. Internal and external to the participants, immediate and for extended time frames. The shared intent of the performance is what shaped its purpose, allowing for more fine-tuned application of the generated energies by the participants. This form does not lend itself to covert intent or unintentional participation of the performer as the meaning of the dance to the dancer is what drives its expression. A group or "coven" of practitioners may be able to use this form to great effect. Keep that in mind the next time you see a flash mob or interpretive dance troupe. There may even be solo practitioners at the local Rave or club really making the night "Magical"!

Guided Dance:
A more hands-on shaping of ritual somatic expression may be evident in the form of Caller led dances. Square, Contra, Irish Set, Circle, and various other folk dances consist of predetermined actions performed at the direction of a "Caller". For our purposes, the Caller is likely the practitioner actively guiding the somatic ritual. Like a conductor, the caller orchestrates a symphony of energy, guiding and shaping it to their intent. Here is where we can lead into unwitting participation by the performers. Only the caller need know what form or purpose the ritual takes, surreptitiously syphoning the generated energies from the participants to their goals.

Popular Rote dance:
There is an equally diverse and extensive history of rote dance styles. The Waltz, the Charleston, the various hops or slides, and who can forget the truly devious Macarena. All manner of prescribed movements to be followed to the letter and in number. Their embodiments are also numerous. The Duality of the Waltz with the lead and follow. The homogony of the slide or macarena. The Chaos of the Harlem Shake. The physical power of the "Gangnam Style" can be seen [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr3HTkkpvtU]Here[/url].
Is it possible some of these trends and fads are "artificial"? The Dance itself designed by a very clever practitioner weaving a distributed ritual. Even perhaps adding a small compulsion into the form to pull in as many as possible? (How else do you explain the Macarena!) What sort of power do you suppose a few thousand people performing the same somatic actions in unison set to the same verbal/audible elements would generate? What sort of ritual could you fuel?

The price of Failure:
Of course, any development of a new ritual comes with the risk of adverse or runaway effects. If designed poorly, it could result in something akin to the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518]Dancing Plague of 1518[/url].

In 1518 a woman by the name of Frau Troffea started to dance outside of her home in Strasbourg in what is now France. Some who witnessed her began to mimic her movements and within the day upwards of thirty victims were involved. Dancing constantly, some were so gripped by the event only death could stop them includeing heart attacks and stroke. A total of ~400 people were swept up into this catastrophic overrun that lasted for nearly three months. Some theorize that the method used to free these people of their compulsion was to syphon the energy using the Sacred St. Vitus rituals. St. Vitus is believed to punish sinners by compelling them to dance uncontrollably, so by harnessing the victims in the vestments of St. Vitus' ritual, the runaway energy of the failed ritual was syphoned off and the victims were freed of their compulsion and "Forgiven by Vitus".

In Conclusion:
Humans are social beings and dance brings us close to eachother in a unique way. It is a powerful expression of beautiful beings. My aim with this article is not to cast dacing in a devious light, but to expand our perception of what is possible. What truths can we find in the use of dance as a somatic expression? What possible purposes could such extensive and expansive siphons be put towards? What horrors could concentrating that much energy cause? It is only with eyes and minds open that we may proceed.

Thank you for your time.