On Trance, Transparency, and the Invisible Web
As i sat today in the gentle womb of summer, a meadow breathing around me, where the grass swayed like murmuring organs and butterflies inscribed slow, radiant loops in the air. With my friend we explored on the various states of trance. Not the good trance, but one, which makes us forget origin. A trance of not being present, not being alive, being a mechanistic self. The fragrance of the earth lifted through our skin as we talked. The silence of the soil spoke louder than our words. And suddenly, we were remembering.
The trance we name is not exotic. It is not the hypnotic spectacle of a stage magician. It is far more subtle, and far more dangerous. It is the trance of civilization, the trance of “progress,” the trance of selfhood. It is the greenwashed virtue that smiles politely while Origin is bled dry beneath its sandals. It is the spiritual ego that performs awakening without ever remembering its roots. It is the theory of integrality without the experience of being torn open and re-membered by it.
Stephen Wolinsky called this trance the False Self—a puppet of conditioning, stitched together by shame, fear, ancestral echoes, and survival reflex. He called it autonomous. It does not ask your permission to act. It is the actor. It speaks in the voice of “I must succeed,” “I must be seen,” “I must be good.” It sings softly, I am awake, while it tucks you further into sleep. His work was radical in its simplicity: not to transcend, but to dissolve. Not to affirm the trance-self with better beliefs, but to step into its performance fully—then step out, as you might from a costume. In that gesture, he found liberation.
Jean Gebser, speaking across the decades from another continent of mind, knew this trance too—though he called it by other names. His trance was the Mental Structure gone blind to its own origin, hypertrophied into a perspectival cage. His diagnosis was not merely personal but civilizational. He saw humanity caught in the shimmering web of its own creations—time measured, space dissected, soul severed. And he whispered—not of a new utopia—but of a mutation, a rupture, a flowering into the Integral where Origin shines through again:
He named this diaphany.
Not as a new vision and not as seeing. But as shining-through of truth through form. The invisible trembling behind the visible. The other side of the leaf, seen with the organ of Origin. Gebser was not a thinker of stages. He was a poet of mutation. And so his words carry weight that only poetry can bear:
“And so the walls will transform
as an inner window opens behind the soul;
whether bed or grave… it means the same thing:
Deep sleep could well be high waking…”
Wolinsky dismantles the trance from within the self. Gebser transfigures it from beyond time. But both uncover the same hidden altar: the body of Origin, buried under ideas and ideals, waiting to awaken not through thought—but through memory.
Here is the root: the Invisible Web.
It is not a metaphor. It is a felt structure, a tissue of living memory. It lives in your bones, in your tongue, in the smell of wet soil, in the rhythm of walking barefoot. It pulses in dreamtime, in ritual, in song. It is not behind us, but beneath us. It is the total memory of mankind, still humming under every keystroke and slogan. And to awaken to it is not to become something more—but to become something more true.
You remember not as thought, but as vibration. You remember as limbic tremble. You remember as silence that suddenly knows the name of your ancestors. And then—trance melts. The constructed self disrobes. The light passes through the stone.
Gebser wrote:
“To the extent that origin is present, the world is present;
to the extent that we are present, origin is present in us.”
(The Ever-Present Origin)
Presence is not cultivated it is unburied. It is what remains when trance is named, held, and let go. Presence is the re-emergence of all structures—archaic, magical, mythical, mental—not as cages, but as notes in a singing whole.
And so: you awaken. Not once, but repeatedly, like a tide returning. The memory of the tribe that sang to trees. The rhythm of myth that held stars in its pulse. The mental fire that made language sacred. All of it becomes you again, if you dare to include it, if you dare to crack.
Let there be no misunderstanding: the Integral is not an achievement. It is a mutation through breakdown. It is not the next step—it is the vanishing of steps. It is a hole in time through which eternity reenters. It is the sacrifice of performance for presence. It is the collapse of coherence into translucence.
And now, here, as you read, the meadow returns in form of the butterflies and your breath. Or make it your skin listening. The conversation across time—Gebser, Wolinsky, yourself: here is no path out of trance but through your very breath, right now, you need not “get better”: You must only remember.
Not as a nostalgia but as Origin made flesh again. How? By accessing these parts of your brain which lead you through the mutation to the point of remembering. Gebser does acknowledge that transitions which he called mutations between different structures of consciousness can be deeply challenging, disorienting, and sometimes even traumatic. These shifts often come with a sense of breakdown or loss of old ways of seeing and being, which can definitely feel painful psychologically or existentially.
But it’s not physical pain like a wound—rather, it’s more like the discomfort or suffering involved in profound personal or collective transformation. The “pain” is in the letting go of what is familiar, the uncertainty of the new, and the inner upheaval as consciousness restructures itself.
So: yes, in a metaphorical and psychological sense, mutation can hurt or feel painful. But it’s part of the creative process of evolving into a new, more integrated way of being.
I write this not only as a writer and editor, not only as the co-founder of Achronon Magazin and former head of media for the Integral Academy in Germany, but as someone who has spent years in devotion to what is not said, but felt—what is not explained, but remembered.
Gebser’s work has never, for me, been a matter of theory. It has always pulsed from the body as memory. I know that what we call “integral” is not a stage we think into—it is a womb we fall back into, a transparency that burns the ego, a mutation that ruptures safety and gives us back our wholeness.
To be Integral is not to preach unity. It is to suffer the fragmentation until it reveals its hidden song. It is to include memory—of the archaic, the mystical, the magical—without shame. It is to know that our futures are made only of what we dare to feel from our deepest pasts.
Today, in that field with my friend, as grass swayed and butterflies hummed with gold, we touched the still point beneath language. And it is from there that I write now, inviting you not to “understand” this work—but to let it pierce you. Let it remind your skin. Let it speak through your venes.
The trance of modern life is not merely unhealthy—it is a murder of memory. And this essay, these voices, this moment, is our small act of resurrection.
Let it burn. Let it sing.
Let the invisible web awaken in you.
-Thankyou, for listening
About the author: CORDULA FREI
is a distinguished author, editor, and curator with a profound dedication to integrative practices, deep ecology, and transformative narratives. As head of media for Integral Perspectives magazine, she has been instrumental in shaping content that explores holistic viewpoints. She co-created Achronon magazine, a platform challenging conventional timelines and narratives, and served as editor for Info 3 magazine, bridging spirituality, culture, and contemporary issues. At Germany’s first regenerative society, Hofgut Leo in Gresgen, she curated cultural initiatives and oversees organizational aspects, promoting sustainable and regenerative practices.
Her longstanding collaboration with Tom Amarque is rooted in a vibrant friendship and a shared passion for critical thinking, questioning societal mainstreams, and shaping transformative narratives. As the author of Soulskin, she explores the initiation journey of the feminine psyche as a deep psychological pilgrimage into personal transformation and with her collegue Andrew Sweeny, after meeting up in a cave in Paris reading Rilke at a poets slam, she is heartfully anticipating their joint venture of the Storytellers Writing Classes coming up for Parallax Academia.
Her life is deeply connected to deep ecology, living among horses and dogs, traveling through vast wilderness to engage in regenerative dialogue with nature. Through her work, Cordula Frei holds the Podcast Serie: “Roots of Enlivenment“ at Parallax Media with a invitation to inspire and lead in the realms of integrative thought, ecological awareness, and cultural transformation.
Write her at cordula@parallax-media.eu
If you feel called to walk this path beside me, meet me in my Parallax classes or support through a paid Substack membership — a gesture of reciprocity and devotion that helps keep this soul work alive.
No words needed for these words...