Trance-sufferer; description and definition

It happens that I receive letters from people containing multi-page descriptions of trances of suffering experienced in every possible way. Usually, no one wants to go with this to God. As a solution to all troubles, God is usually in last place Link. 

It is worth popularizing the definition of a person known as a “Trance-sufferer.” I encountered this phenomenon during a certain spiritual development training. It concerned a fairly large group that was simultaneously suffering from all possible kinds of problems.

A contrasting example might be someone who is only ill but is wealthy. In common perception, even if such a person is dying of cancer, they will be seen simply as someone who is sick. A trance-sufferer, however, will be ill in poverty, so as not to have money for treatment, for doctors, or for any kind of help. In this way, they demonstrate helplessness and powerlessness as a result of the circumstances. It resembles somewhat the story of Job, whom God somehow singled out and tormented severely, causing him to live in trances of suffering. If He tormented Job so persistently, many think it is better not to show oneself to God with ordinary suffering, lest He add something more.

A true trance-sufferer may additionally burden themselves with a bailiff or with fraudsters who rob them.

A trance-sufferer may also add addictions that they cannot cope with, for example alcoholism. They then explain it, for instance, by saying that they are drinking to numb sorrow and suffering.

A trance-sufferer may also add a life of loneliness or divorces.

The cause can be found in several intentions of the Soul itself, among others:

1. Destroying others and karmic self-destruction, aimed at showing suffering to other Souls as a form of compensation for them. The karma of a wrongdoer who now presents themselves as a failure whose world is collapsing.
2. Karma of Buddhism, particularly Tibet, where contradictory ideas are promoted, including the stimulation of desire for one’s own suffering. In Tibet, ideas of the Soul’s enlightenment are promoted, but at the same time the vows of the Medicine Buddha and Amitabha vows prevent the end of the Soul’s incarnations.

Trance-sufferers are promoted by Christianity as pleasing to God. They are then also pleasing to Jesus.

This entry has 9 comments

• Małgorzata Krata writes:
07/04/2017 at 23:48 (Edit)
A trance-sufferer is a broad phenomenon, because one can suffer in virtually any possible way. With such attitudes, one can also attract to oneself and surround oneself with other trance-sufferers, who may willingly overwhelm us with their own stories and problems. At the level of Souls, it may look more or less like this: other souls recognize, based on energetic patterns, who they are dealing with. Thus, if patterns of martyrdom are visible in someone, they are treated as someone who wants, likes, or has vowed to experience it. Such a person, whose Soul still has these patterns, may therefore be effectively pulled down by others and maintained in a state of trance-suffering as someone who will, for example, co-suffer, attune to others’ suffering, and to whom suffering can be delivered in various ways. A trance-sufferer can easily be sent to war, to a brothel, made into a slave, an ascetic, a beggar, or inspired toward a life and actions that will bring illness, problems, and other forms of suffering of body and spirit in various ways. Trance-suffering also involves creating for oneself and others, and maintaining in life, multiple forms of unfulfillment and blockages to experiencing happiness. It seems that few would consciously admit that they want to suffer and do not want to be happy; many instead blame bad luck, misfortune, and a difficult life.

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• s_majda writes:
12/04/2017 at 23:24 (Edit)
Nearby lived a certain Baradat, whom Theodoret praised for inventing “new forms of exercising his endurance.” Baradat built on a slope above his hermitage “a kind of small wooden box that did not match the size of his body, and he lived in it, never able to straighten up, because the box was lower than his body height. The box was not made of fitted boards but resembled a cage, so that through numerous openings, like windows, much light entered inside. Therefore, the box did not protect him from storms nor from the scorching sun.” Baradat decided that his new practice would consist of standing all the time…… It was trivial compared to Talejaros, a hero of Theodoret, who built a cage and suspended it in the air. “Sitting in it, or rather hanging, he spent ten years this way. And since he is tall, even in a sitting position he cannot straighten his neck, but always sits bent, with his face touching his knees.” Fragment from p. 201 of the book “From the Holy Mountain.”

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• s_majda writes:
13/04/2017 at 23:17 (Edit)
There exist trances that sustain other trances — so that they never end. Trances that resist change, etc.

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• s_majda writes:
14/04/2017 at 23:35 (Edit)
Praise of trance-sufferers is worth reading at the source that promoted it:
“7 Who then could justly fail to admire those who passed through life amid countless hardships, subdued their bodies with toil and physical suffering, knew no laughter, but spent all their days in lamentation and weeping, who regarded abstaining from food as a sybaritic feast, laborious vigils as the sweetest sleep, the hard ground as a soft bed, time spent in prayer and psalm singing as immeasurable and endless pleasure — those people who acquired every kind of virtue? Or rather, who could praise them as they deserve?” Link

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• s_majda writes:
29/04/2017 at 17:16 (Edit)
The goal of all ascetic practices described by Theodoret was to achieve such a state in which the neutralized body would no longer hinder closeness to God. A soul freed from the burden of matter would then be able, even before union with God (which was believed to occur after death, although some views allowed for it already in this life), to devote itself to uninterrupted contemplation of heavenly reality. This state was called apatheia. It meant a condition in which the soul became free from all impulses, insensitive not only to things, people, and events, but even to thoughts about them.
More or less open criticism of Syrian excesses can be found in the works of St. Basil, who went so far as to forbid monks under his rule from all individual ascetic practices. His claim that no part of the human body is evil by nature and therefore does not require destruction is very meaningful in light of Syrian practices.

Before reaching this “blessed state,” monks had to fight a heavy battle with their bodies and with Satan, who used them. The body and its needs had to be pushed so far into the background that they would not hinder the soul’s path to God. This could not be achieved without struggle, without great physical and psychological suffering. The greater the restrictions a monk imposed on himself, and the harder they were to endure, the closer he believed he was to the goal: the mystical vision of God. Treating the body as an obstacle led ascetics toward self-torment — behavior that endangered both health and life. The hierarchical Church condemned such behavior, while monks quietly admired it. Link

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• s_majda writes:
30/04/2017 at 10:23 (Edit)
In the article “Kundalini; intentions to pray through” Link
there are several warnings for trance-sufferers. These suggestions may have resulted from conclusions drawn after activating kundalini — namely, that the next stage must involve processing karmic entanglements.
44. Our/others’ belief that kundalini transformation is not easy, because not only the nervous system changes, but the whole body, and that various techniques, including meditation, deepen suffering, etc.
45. Our/others’ belief, following yogis, that pain is a blessing and should be accepted with joy during kundalini transformation, etc.
There is also a Christian thread:
48. Our/others’ belief that opening kundalini must be experienced alone, in a moment called Gethsemane, etc.

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• s_majda writes:
03/05/2017 at 22:28 (Edit)
Christian martyrs, like ancient heroes, were meant to be examples through their endurance of suffering and martyrdom. Pilgrimages to martyr shrines resembled ancient hero cults, where believers sought healing, protection, and divine favor. Theodoret defended this practice, presenting it as morally superior to pagan celebrations.

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• s_majda writes:
07/05/2017 at 20:34 (Edit)
On earth, the “madness of saints” is often linked with suffering. Padre Pio, for example, was believed to take on the sins of others, suffering for them. Such figures may initially provoke resistance but later become models for imitation. Link 

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• s_majda writes:
06/06/2017 at 15:35 (Edit)
Małgorzata Krata: In this volume there is a book titled “Exhortation to Martyrdom”… but the price…
Sławomir Majda: Exactly — that’s for wealthy trance-sufferers.
Agata Pająk: “Exhortation to martyrdom”… Unfortunately, the soul did not manifest the means for it. I am searching for fragments, but it’s not easy.
Sławomir Majda: Martyrdom for free is also not easy to obtain.

Opublikowano: 21/04/2026
Autor: Sławomir Majda
Kateogrie: Suffering of Body and Soul - Transfigurers of Suffering. Liberating Prayers.

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