Trance (Hope Abbott) is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by the Marvel Comics. A mutant, Hope attended the Xavier Institute before its closing. She retained her powers after M-Day and is a member of the X-Men's training squad.

Fictional character biography

Hope was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. When Hope's powers manifested, it appeared as if a ghost had come out of her body, giving her father a heart attack. She was then sent to the Xavier Institute by her parents believing that she would be "cured."

While at the Institute, Hope was put in the Paragons Squad under the watch of Wolfsbane. Hope then took on the codename Trance. When it was outted that Wolfsbane and a student (Elixir) had been in a relationship, Wolfsbane decided to leave. Magma then took over as the squad's advisor.

When the events of Decimation transpired, she was one of only 27 students to keep her powers. Greatly weakened by the losses, Emma Frost placed all of the remaining students into an all-out brawl to determine who would become the team of X-Men in-training. Hope did not make the team yet, like all of the other students who retained their powers, still resides at the Institute.

Trance denotes any state of awareness or consciousness other than normal waking consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.

The term trance may be associated with hypnosis, meditation, magic, flow, and prayer. It may also be related to the earlier generic term, altered states of consciousness, which is no longer used in "consciousness studies" discourse.

Etymology

Trance in its modern meaning comes from an earlier meaning of "a dazed, half-conscious or insensible condition or state of fear", via the Old French transe "fear of evil", from the Latin transīre "to cross", "pass over". This definition is now obsolete.

Working models

Wier, in his 1995 book, Trance: from magic to technology, defines a simple trance (p. 58) as a state of mind being caused by cognitive loops where a cognitive object (thoughts, images, sounds, intentional actions) repeats long enough to result in various sets of disabled cognitive functions. Wier represents all trances (which include sleep and watching television) as taking place on a dissociated trance plane where at least some cognitive functions such as volition are disabled; as is seen in what is typically termed a 'hypnotic trance'. With this definition, meditation, hypnosis, addictions and charisma are seen as being trance states. In Wier's 2007 book, The Way of Trance, he elaborates on these forms, adds ecstasy as an additional form and discusses the ethical implications of his model, including magic and government use which he terms "trance abuse".

Trance is an album by American jazz pianist and composer Steve Kuhn recorded in 1974 and released on the ECM label.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating "This is jazz that touches on fusion, modal, and the new spirit of the music as ECM came into the 1970s as a player. There is restlessness and calm, tempestuousness and serenity, conflict and resolution, and -- above all -- creativity and vision".

Track listing

Personnel

References

Standing Stone is Paul McCartney's second full-length release of original classical music (coming after 1991's Liverpool Oratorio) and was issued shortly after Flaming Pie's release in 1997. The world premiere performance was held at The Royal Albert Hall on 14 October 1997.

History

Following up on 1991's Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, the Standing Stone project was composed out of a long poem McCartney authored and was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Lawrence Foster at EMI's Abbey Road Studios. Unlike Liverpool Oratorio, this new project is not an operatic performance of a story, but an instrumental one, though it employs the use of a choir.

The cover for the album is actually one of the many photos taken by Linda McCartney during late 1969/early 1970 that would initially be seen on the inside gatefold cover of Paul's first album McCartney. Incidentally, this project was her husband's last release before Linda died of breast cancer on 17 April 1998, having been diagnosed almost three years earlier.