Spinning/Whirling Dervishes

[SlavaOn]

Do whirling dervishes sweat, when performing their whirly dance? I found the answer in "NY times" article from 1987:

Around and around the whirlers turned, their skirts flared and their arms never touching as they moved over the floor. Sweat poured in streams from their faces.

I was thinking that, having been clad in cotton from top to bottom and performing these dances "for hours at a time", in non air conditioned halls, in summer sweltering heat, they must be drenched in sweat. But, could it be one of the required factors of that ecstatic dance and not an un-welcome side effect?

If that is the case, there will be two factors in play - rotating/swirling/spiraling around a vertical axis of the body + opening sweat glands and exuding sweat (water) from them. We know that both of these actions are beneficial on their own. Sweating cleans the body from toxins and reduces kidney's workload; if I remember correctly, the Cs give instructions on proper rotation technique.

I wanted to find out what is the desired goal of this whirling dance and different sources tell different stories:
- The physiological goal of the whirling is for the dervish to “empty” himself of all distractions. from WHIRLING DERVISHES - ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS - Sleep and Health Journal Chicago
-The procedure is part of a Muslim ceremony called the dhikr, the purpose of which is to glorify God and seek spiritual perfection. from Islamic arts - Dervish dancing
- Sufi whirling may increase body–mind focus, self-regulation, positive-affect, unity, and wholeness experience. from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0197455621000769 and it also acknowledged that "Sufi whirling, which has been minimally studied to date"
- It is a customary meditation practice performed within the sema, or worship ceremony, through which dervishes (also called semazens, from Persian سماعزن) aim to reach the source of all perfection, or dharma. from Wikipedia, which also mentions in "Physiology" section: Training for whirling targets the inner ear, which is responsible for balance functions in humans.

What is interesting, none of them mentions sweat and one source, that I came across, describes the trajectory of the dancer: "As planets and stars circle the sun, the dervishes turn counterclockwise, both around themselves and around the halka (circle)" which could be seen as a spiral from the top .

The invention of this dance is attributed to Jelaliddin Rumi (1207-1273), known to his followers as Mevlana, 'our master':

Rumi, who lived in Turkey from 1207 to 1273 A.D., initiated the whirling rite that the Sufis of the Mevlevi order still practice.
It is said that Rumi once wandered over to a market in Konya, and heard the beating of a hammersmith. Within, he thought he heard the words “La ilaha illa-llah“, one of the most important Sures in the Quran. Deeply moved, he spread out his arms and started whirling.

Now, I would like to make analogy between whirling dancers and fluted columns - so often found in pre-historic public spaces. I was inspired by Cs description of a communication device and created a set of them myself: Fluted columns
Although, to move in a spiraling motion and be surrounded by spiral-shaped object is not the same, the invisible forces (fields, etc) could be stirred (activated/amplified) in a similar fashion. If Sufis were able to commune with their Gods, we could be able to communicated with 4D denizens.
So far, I am unable to say that my transceiver works or not. Apparently, it may be flawed in some ways and I am not following an operator's manual.

This is why I would like to test the above assumption that a profuse sweating can be an important factor. I already have a traditional steam sauna built right next to the transceiver.

 

[Benjamin]

I responded to this post by Jess who seems to have experienced something, at least similar, to what I have experienced, 'irregularly', for many years. It has also happened to me while I practised EE or even just sitting at the computer reading. However, I find that response now to be a little lacking and in need of updating.

I can't really remember the order of events because a bunch of things happened fairly close together.

It really started with my participation in the 'Hum' thread last year. There came a point (in October, based on the posts and my memory) where it seemed I was posting ideas that may have been related to a different question that I was not even aware was a question, maybe. To set the scene further, round this time (but before, I think) I was also reading about the spinning 33x/3x a day for 99x. Now, I can't remember the exact date, but at some point around Nov. 17 (based on posts), I remember that during POTS one evening (which I recite 4x every night before going to bed), that I 'relaxed' and let myself start to whirl. As I've mentioned, I was quite accustomed to this happening since this had happened many times to me and many of my previous friends during our chi kung group meetings so I didn't think much of it, as usual, but this time I just let it run. I rotated/spun/whirred, seated on the edge of my bed, for a long time but eventually it slowed down until, finally, I came to a complete stop in a 'reclined' position with my feet off the ground. Pretty quickly, I righted myself to a seated position because my abs just can't hold myself in that position for too long. I then lay down and went to sleep.

I made a 'breakthrough', of sorts, the next day. I was out for a walk and smoke and it was in my head that the 'Sufi spinning' I had seen many times was what spinning was supposed to be and the way they did it was how it was to be done. It never occurred to me that what I was doing all along might be a version of it: seated spinning with the rotation at the waist. At this point I saw this spinning very differently and paid much more attention to it.

Around this time I was also looking at posts about spinning, Leedskallnin, singing and rocks/crystals and reviewing the energy image drawn by the C's published in one of the Wave books. Please note that the 'hum' was constant before and during this time.

I started to practice it nightly. I would sit and recite POTS and the spin would start (the spin starts on its own, but I've noticed the prayer seems to maybe assist it and/or perhaps 'flavour' the spin). I can't remember how many sessions it took but it wasn't very many before:

I just want to bring attention to this point because I have also felt this but, in me, it was located in the right hemisphere of my brain. I mentioned in my reply to MRSinTexas's introduction post that I was experimenting because something interesting happened unintentionally. I noted that this pressure might be related somehow to the hum because I was able to end the pressure and that ended the hum.

Just some thoughts, but I have during my initial, unintended experiment, 'transformed' the pressure/hum into a 'clearness' accompanied by a pleasant feeling in my right hemisphere which lasted for most of a day. Along with this, I noticed that all negative thoughts were also gone. This was achieved after daily practices of 'spinning' before bed along with breathing and 'singing' work.

I posted this on Nov. 29 but the actual event was on Nov. 17. After this point, the 'hum' disappeared completely (it did return in a reduced way after a period of not spinning, as a test, but went away again when I resumed spinning).

Since then I've been spinning irregularly, but every time I spin, I have a great sleep and wake up with pretty good, fairly long-lasting energy. Interestingly, this spinning has indirectly affected my mom. Upon seeing her for the first time in the morning, on two occasions that I can recall, she has acted in a sudden grouchy manor and another time, the exact opposite, becoming very giggly. I wonder if she was grounding my energy?

Each of my sessions lasts about 30-40 minutes. I've tried counting the number of rotations, but it is very difficult to be accurate because, when do I start counting? It's not me that decides to start spinning. There's a warm-up period to 'get in the groove'. Literally! Whereas a Sufi would be akin to the spindle in the centre, I feel like the needle on a record. I am not spinning myself. I am 'following' the path of some kind of something (a gravity wave?). It has a magnetic property to it. When I'm 'in the groove' I can 'nudge' myself out of it and will be immediately pulled back to it like a rubber band. It's like I'm riding the leading edge of something.

When it comes to counting, I've counted as high as 108 rotations with it ending shortly after that. But I have no idea as to how many I'm actually doing. I'm pretty sure I'm over 90 on most sessions. I just stopped bothering to count (it's tough to do actually) and just let the energy spin me as many times as it wants.

I also seem to rotate at a certain comfortable speed but there have been a few times when I spin so fast that it's really difficult to follow (and I mean it! It's almost violent, but this was only one time.). There have also been times when the energy is slow. However, I generally find that speed is not important. Being 'in the groove' is. If I force myself out of the groove and go a different speed, it's less effective.

There are annoyances with this style. My feet leave the ground, acting as a counter-weight, for when I lean back during that part of the rotation. However, there has been one time for sure, possibly two, when, during the practice when my feet are in the air, a sudden electrical 'shock' occurred around the area just below my feet. It's subtle, but at the same time it's unmistakable. If my feet never left the ground, I might not have noticed this.

I feel, what I call, 'thumps'. These are sometimes in specific places inside my body and sometimes outside. It feels like a subtle, sudden dull thud. Some kind of adjustments?

I do get warm on most occasions, not to the point of sweating, but there is heat. In order to make this rotation work, I have to place my hands in a 'prayer position' in front of my chest. My hands do get quite moist between them.

Clockwise vs. counterclockwise. The vast majority have been counterclockwise but there have been a very few times when the energy spins clockwise. One time when the energy spun cw, it completely cleared the sinuses on my right side. There have been a few times when the energy would start me spinning cw, put on the breaks soon after, and spin me ccw for the rest of the session. There was once (or twice?) when I did a complete session cw then it switched and did a complete session ccw. That was a long one.

You know that feeling of being dizzy? I do feel it but it's not as pronounced and I've never actually suffered 'dizziness' from this style (my eyes are closed though. I should try it with my eyes open and see what happens.).

Towards the end, I can feel the energy change as it slows down and I spin slower, and slower and slower, staying in the groove. At the end, it's at a crawling pace until finally, as I mentioned, I end up in a 'reclined' position, leaning back, knees bent with my feet in the air as if I'm sitting in a reclining chair. There is a sudden rush of energy and that is the end of the session.

I've added a practice of 3-stage breathing to this. It's not optimal and a bit tough to do but I do it anyway. But when doing an EE practice, I don't follow the spin even if it starts. I keep the two practices separate and do the spinning after (mostly because I'm sitting on my bed when I do it so I go to sleep right after).

This style of rotation I started calling 'pendulum spinning/whirling' even though it's technically upside down.

In my second quote above, I put 'spinning' in quotes because it's not quite spinning in the usual sense. I also put 'singing' in quotes because it plays a very small role that I'm still experimenting with. I have noticed that this 'leading edge' that I follow during these spinning sessions can also be followed during singing. In the past (group chi kung practice with sounds) I've noticed that when I produce a tone, I can feel that sometimes the tone 'wants' to go higher. So I follow the tone until it stops at a certain frequency. I keep singing that frequency until the tone 'wants' to move again and I adjust accordingly whether higher or lower. This type of 'singing' along with 'spinning' is hard for me to do. I don't do it very often at all. But sometimes when I'm stationary in the 'reclined' position, I'll produce a tone which makes my feet, chest, hands, etc. vibrate, and continue to vibrate so long as I produce the tone.


Here are two well known excerpts from the sessions in regards to Leedskallnin and gravity:

From Session 15, June 1996:

Q: (L) Do thoughts produce gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Does sound produce gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can sound manipulate gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can it be done with the human voice?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can it be done tonally or by power through thought?

A: Both.

Q: (L) Then, is there also specific sound configurations involved?

A: Gravity is manipulated by sound when thought manipulated by gravity chooses to produce sound which manipulates gravity.

Q: (L) Now, did the fellow who built the Coral Castle spin in his airplane seat while thinking his manipulations into place?

A: No. He spun when gravity chose to manipulate him to spin in order to manipulate gravity.

Q: (L) Does gravity have consciousness?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Is it ever possible for the individual to do the choosing, or is it gravity that IS him that chose?

A: The gravity that was inside him was all the gravity in existence.

From Session 22, April 1995:

Q: (L) I want my husband to get me a bucket seat and suspend it from the tree so that I spin in it. If I do this, will I develop strange abilities?

A: Yes, dizziness.

Q: (L) Did the guy who built the Coral Castle sit in his airplane seat suspended from the ceiling and spin in it?

A: Open.

Q: (L) Was the airplane seat suspended from the ceiling in his room part of how he did his work?

A: If you spin, it must be a precise method, not just spinning randomly.

Q: (L) Did he discover a precise method for spinning to do such things?

A: Open.

Q: (T) So many turns and precise direction? (L) Can we follow up on this? Is there something on this moving things with sound that you can tell us? (J) What about a precise method for spinning?

A: Suggest experimentation.

 

[Ennio]

The following documentary: The Primordial Dance of Sufism is a biography on the life and music of Rahmi Oruç Güvenç - a musician, teacher and healer who worked to bring Sufi music and the practice of whirling into greater awareness over the last several decades.

The Sema-Tradition – the Whirling Dance of the Sufis has a tradition of more than a thousand years and goes back to the great mystic Hz. Mevlana Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. During his lifetime, Rahmi Oruç Güvenç made an effort to revive the original form of the Whirling-Dance, as it was practiced during Mevlana’s lifetime, thus releasing this Wisdom-Tradition to sink into oblivion.

Güvenç passed away in 2017 but his story is told in this independently produced labor of love by one of his former students. I was happy to do the voice-over for it (given the wonderful subject matter) so had just a little bit to do with it (and thanks again, Revolucionar and Ajay with your help btw!).

Here is Part I (of 2). Enjoy!

When Part 2 is completed I'll post it here.

 

[whitecoast]

This is an interesting paper that looks at the effects of whirling dervish spinning (WDS) on the brain. The sample size is just ten people per group, with an average of 10.5 years of whirling experience.

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Abstract:

Although minutes of a spinning episode may induce vertigo in the healthy human, as a result of a possible perceptional plasticity, Sufi Whirling Dervishes (SWDs) can spin continuously for an hour without a vertigo perception.This unique long term vestibular system stimulation presents a potential human model to clarify the cortical networks underlying the resistance against vertigo. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate the potential structural cortical plasticity in SWDs. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 10 SWDs and 10 controls were obtained, using a 3T scanner. Cortical thickness in the whole cortex was calculated. Results demonstrated significantly thinner cortical areas for SWD subjects compared with the control group in the hubs of the default mode network (DMN), as well as in the motion perception and discrimination areas including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the right lingual gyrus and the left visual area 5 (V5)/middle temporal (MT) and the left fusiform gyrus. In conclusion, this is the first report that warrants the potential relationship of the motion/body perception related cortical networks and the prolonged term of whirling ability without vertigo or dizziness.

It's interesting because of how the DMN is associated with self-reflection, rumination, and thinking about ourselves. That seems superficially good, like people are less likely to suffer from rumination in response to stress, or have more intellectualized emotional reactions based on ego and personal history.

What I liked less was the thinning of part of the prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning, reasoning with working memory, and directing our attention. On the other hand, reduced volume doesn't mean the parts are indiscriminately destroying tissue, but rather there could be a pruning or optimization process going on.

Limitations of the study, FWIW:

The current study used a cross-sectional design and it is performed on a small group of SWDs. As a result of the cross-sectional character of the study, the results are correlational and an absolute relationship between the cortical thinning and whirling experience can not be suggested. In addition, it may also be argued that individuals who have such cortical properties are more likely becoming a Sufi whirling Dervish. On the other hand, it is worth to note that there are numerous factors to consider that relate the outcomes of the present study to whirling experience. This is a cross-sectional study in a very unique (and rare) group who had traditional training for whirling (approximately 1 year in most of the cases) and each of them reported that they were falling down when they try to whirl in the first months of the whirling training sessions. This indicates that they did not have a unique previous ability that was superior to the predisposition of the control group. After the long-term training, they gained an ability to whirl without vertigo. The present cross-sectional study focused on experienced Sufis that passed through the same traditional whirling training that enabled them to whirl for an hour without falling. In this context, the detected structural differences are more likely to be specific to motion perception and body perception networks. As the analyses were performed without visual input, the outcomes of these areas are free of bias. Analyses within the article were almost not separated but discussed in the context of relevant networks. The structural cortical plasticity that was demonstrated in SWDs were distributed over the body/motion perception areas, therefore the discussion was focused on the possible relationships of the structural plasticity of the body/motion perception areas and their potential role to alter vertigo perception. In sum, we only explained the results on the basis of the previous work which was the most fitting way for the data obtained in this cross-sectional article. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the role of these areas in vertigo perception.

 

[Tuulikki]

I am hoping that spinning in moderation does not have any negative effects on the brain. I am spinning once or twice a day and do 33 revolutions. I am pretty sure that is the number recommended by the C's. I think everything in moderation is an old fashioned but good maximum for most things. It sounds like the dervishes are whirling for much longer periods. I don't usually get dizzy.

 

[whitecoast]

I am hoping that spinning in moderation does not have any negative effects on the brain. I am spinning once or twice a day and do 33 revolutions. I am pretty sure that is the number recommended by the C's. I think everything in moderation is an old fashioned but good maximum for most things. It sounds like the dervishes are whirling for much longer periods. I don't usually get dizzy.

From wikipedia:

Guinness World Records for "most Sufi whirls in one hour" were awarded in London in 2012, to Shafik Ibrahim Abd El Hamed in the male category with 2,905 rotations, and Tara Lee Oakley in the female category with 2,191.<a href="Sufi whirling - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a> These records were surpassed in Zurich in 2015 by Nicole McLaren, with 3,552 rotations.<a href="Sufi whirling - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a>

The longest continuous whirling performance has been recorded at more than four hours.[<em><a href="Wikipedia:Citation needed - Wikipedia" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed"><span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (March 2016)">citation needed</span></a></em>] The record for the most people simultaneously whirling is 755, set in Taiwan in 2011.<a href="Sufi whirling - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>18<span>]</span></a>

The 33 spins recommended as the maximum by the Cs falls a fair league short of 2191, so I think you are safe. I think most dervishes spin for 10 to 15 minutes straight.