“At turns provocative, entertaining, and hilarious, much of it is intended to be read out loud to a lover or a friend. It thus literally performs its thesis: that trance states and their illusions are the generators and very nature of human relationships (particularly erotic and therapeutic ones), political phenomena (like colonialism), religious phenomena (like repetitive ritual, enchanting mythology, and charismatic authority), and, most of all, those magical practices we call reading and writing.”

Jeffrey Kripal | Chronicle of Higher Education

“The wisdom of India, wittily reimagined.”

Fortean Times

“A semi-autobiographical travelogue and work of hypnotically inspired history and fiction. Lee Siegel uses a great deal of . . . hypnotic patter, spellbinding storytelling, and weaving of tales within tales to craft an enjoyable book. . . . At its most adventuresome level, Trance-Migrations is a modern take on worlds-within-worlds mysticism that reads like one long nested loop induction.”
 

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

“Anyone who has fallen under the spell of a master storyteller, hypnotist, Indian Yogi or shaman, illusionist, or con artist, will have experienced a little of the force of Lee Siegel’s Trance-Migrations: a book in which Siegel simultaneously plays all of these roles. Part memoir, part exploration of hypnotism and storytelling—by turns erotic, comic, and poignant—Trance-Migrations seduces readers into losing themselves within it, to reflect upon the power of stories to make dreams reality, be they in a fable of ancient India, a Hollywood movie, our own bed at night, or on a therapist’s couch. We awake from his spell to a deeper understanding of the power of suggestion and how it can create whole civilizations as well as individual lives: an achievement, and a book, that seems impossible until it is experienced.”

Steve Tomasula, author of Once Human: Stories

“Whether or not you fall into a trance while reading this book, the intellectual delight that comes from allowing yourself to surrender to it is reward enough. As in all of his work, Siegel challenges us to examine the infinite aspects of subjective reality more deeply than we could alone. He does so with wit, scholarship, passionate engagement, and, most of all, humor.”

Sheri Holman, author of Witches on the Road Tonight

“Professional Indologist and amateur magician Siegel spins a spiral disc of fascinating histories, captivating memoir, and mesmeric metafictions. Never has the phrase ‘hypnotic prose’ been so literal. When I woke from reading, I had an overwhelming compulsion to praise this book.”

Eliot Weinberger