TECHNOSHAMANS

The rise of “acid-house” rave parties, “techno” electronic music with repetitive and monotonous beats, and the use of the drug ecstasy (MDMA) in the late 1980s and early 1990s have given rise to the termtechno-shamans, referring to participants in “dance culture” who use the drug and/or the aural driving of therhythmicmusic to enteraltered states of consciousness. MDMA stimulates heightened sensory perception, excitement, and endurance, allowing “ravers” to dance for prolonged periods. The internet had an increasingly prominent role, as ravers used this medium for dialogue, to establish virtual communities beyond the rave, and to disseminate information about dance venues. A government crackdown on rave culture and other alternative movements in Great Britain, with the Criminal Justice Act (1988) in particular, took pure (as opposed to club) “rave” underground; yet it has also had a major influence on popular music of the 1990s and to the present.

See alsoCyberia; Psychonauts.