Anthropology of Conference Report

Our reports on highlights of our time presenting at the Anthropology of Consciousness Conference in St. Louis, where we witnessed the Eclipse in totality, and visited Cahokia Mounds, the monumental ceremonial site of the ancient Mississippian Mound Builder culture.

Our community has been asking, and we have stories and photos to share of our weeklong trip. We were there at the invitation of the Anthropology of Consciousness Conference to present on and take the anthropologists through a Ritual Posture journey. This was in follow up to publishing in their journal, and a few pointed out that CI’s founder Felicitas Goodman had some years ago, given talks on Ritual Postures, and they were familiar with this work. We quickly knew we were among our ‘tribe’, and they all had wonderful trance experiences.

The conference theme was “Into Darkness, Into Light” in celebration of the total Eclipse. St Louis is on the edge of the path of totality, so they arranged a bus to take us all to the middle of the path.

On the afternoon of the last day, a group of us headed out to nearby Cahokia, with one of North America’s largest earthen step pyramids. . it reminded me of Teotihuacan, given the wide flat land, dotted with mounds.