Goa India, beaches of Goa, 1960's hippies and expats

GOA is one of the smallest Indian states and is situated on the west coast of India. It is bordered by Maharashtra on the north side, Karnataka on the south and east side, and the beauty of the Arabian Sea adorns it's western flank with beaches that would one day become the birthplace of the psy trance.

The cultural atmosphere of GOA, India is said to expose a Portuguese accent which is the remnant of a lengthy domination of the people of Portugal within this land. For a long time this area of India was home to Muslims and Hindus. However in the sixteenth century the Portuguese under the authority the Vatican conquered, populated, and applied their rule of law and their culture to the land. Portugal lost this title to the English for a few very brief periods.

In 1961 the Indian Army regained the territory and GOA was once again annexed to India. Initially it was one of three terrritories dubbed the Indian Union and included Daman, Diu, and GOA. In 1987 it was given full status and individuality as the 25th state of India.

From 1510 to 1960 the Portuguese managed to convert many of the Indian population to Christianity through either conviction or forceful inquisition. These inquisitions were meant in part to regain the loyalty of those who would revert to and practice in secrecy their ancestral Hindu or Islam religion.

History being what it is, the Portuguese cultural heritage remains a part of GOA. It is seen in the many churches, monasteries, and in art and cuisine. This part of India is revered for it's architecture which also preserves the Portugal Catholic heritage and the diversity of cultural backgrounds.

In the early 1960's the world was undergoing some massive changes and some reports even claim that humanity was a stone's throw away from the apocalyptic scenarios that in those days only the newly developed nuclear and atomic technology could bring about.

The Cold War between the new post WW II economic, technological, and military superpowers known as the United States of America and the Soviet Union, was at the forefront of the political arena and it was the cause of a global dis-ease that was about to give rise to a new revolutionary movement led by "hippies" and the beaches of Goa would go on to play a role in that revolution.

These new revolutionaries were of course quickly labeled as marginal misfits by those in authority. They were youths mostly who were on a spiritual quest for truth and peace in a world which they deemed as having gone mad.

In Goa some of these hippies would find the spiritual nutrition they were seeking, through the new age meditation schools and through other means of bringing about an altered state of mind. The Indian attraction may have certainly been the laws, or the lack of laws governing the use of mind altering substances. In this distant land which had once been found and conquered by the Portuguese while sailing on the Arabian Sea, the hippies were free to use hashish which is a derivative of the marijuana or cannabis plant.

The THC or tetrahydrocannabinol in the marijuana plant is a psychoactive substance. It's synthetic version is traded in the pharmaceutical industry under the name of Dronabinol or under the registered trademark of Marinol.

Hashish, on the other hand, is a product of cannabis and is said to have the same psychoactive effects which may vary depending on the underlying genetic origin of the cannabis specimen. A piece of hashish is compressed therefore it's chemical composites are concentrated. Though most hippies enjoy smoking this substance it can also be eaten but the results may be somewhat delayed due to the time it gets to enter the bloodstream.

So here we have a bunch of peace seeking newcomers to Goa who will become known as the beach party hippies of the psychoactive trance - aka the Goa Trance.

Today's Goa trance is often assimilated to a techno music induced state of mind. This genre of music however is not the same sounds of 60's music that the ex patriots who partied all day and night on the beaches and in the jungles of Goa were listening to.

The Grateful Dead are making a move in the music world in an era when hippies and other citizens of the time are walking on the streets of many major cities with sandwich boards reading messages such as WAR IS NOT THE SOLUTION and WORLD PEACE NOT WORLD WAR.

The Grateful Dead or "the Dead" which they were dubbed by the cult roadie followers, themselves called "Deadheads", was led by Jerry Garcia and they had a self indentifying style which emcompassed several of the then known music genres. The psychedelic rock scene found its way into "the deads" performances and Garcia and his entourage of musicians found themselves playing on the American West Coast and later on tours and then at Woodstock, to fans who had discovered LSD.

This psychedelic rock is described as music that expands your consciousness or your awareness. (The hx of psychedelic rock).

Mix the frequencies that emanate from the various instruments, which by this time are beginning to merge with electronics, with the inner body frequencies that are affected by hallucinogenic drug and one has a very potent cocktail. Throw into this mix some fluorescent lights or some abstract art and the concoction of waves that stimulate the mind and body have the ability to produce a trance. The trance is trippie and brings about voyages into peaceful dreamstates where pink elephants and hyperdimensional realities coexist. However a trip gone bad can bring about a frenzied state and the peaceful dream becomes a living nightmare where the gates of Hades release energies from the void of spacetime into the travellers being.

Call it a state of mind where delusion takes over illusion, where peace and chaos collide.

One wonders if such an horrific state of mind or a peaceful state of mind can be experienced if the hallucinogen is removed from the equation.

Ask Alice about the 60's pop culture and she'll tell you that all things are real in wonderland.

But in the 60's the expats are bringing "the dead" and others with them to the beaches along the Arabian Sea and their trippie fields of dream become the subject of a Goa trance where perhaps Sultan princes, brave and handsome, rise above linear time to conquer Shiva's door and to fall into a kamasutra discipline with cosmic or interplanetary feminine energies.