ECSTASY. – A psychological state of man “beside himself” (ἐκστασις, from ἐξιστήμι). The term may be applied both in a good and in a bad sense to the state of mind of any man put “outside himself”; there is an e. in some way whenever the attention, or the faculty of mental presence to the real data of common experience, is radically suspended by a predominant diversion; this diversion may be of a spiritual or of a sensible order; the escape from the normal psychic environment may be an elevation, a descent, or a distraction, and the psychic infirmity of the subject may contribute to such an eclipse as much as, or more than, the inner vividness of the representation. Among the heterogeneous phenomena thus classed as “e.” may be mentioned the contemplation of the philosopher, the delirium of the maniac, and the stupor induced by terror, depending on the viewpoint of the classifier. St. Augustine himself notes the analogy between e. and wonder. To call a phenomenon “ecstasy” is to indicate it by a concomitance of vital exhaustion.
In the traditional sense of the term, i.e., mystical e., it is a particular phenomenon of spiritual life, proper to the period called “spiritual betrothal,” that is, the initiation into perfect divine union or “spiritual marriage.”
The phenomenon is essentially constituted by an intermittent experimental knowledge of the divine mystery of Revelation; the reality of a notion of faith is here disclosed in its own divine light; the revealed datum loses something of its normally hermetic obscurity, that which even the deepest theological rational understanding of the mysteries leaves intact.
The soul, as St. Teresa explains, is placed in the presence of the divine Majesty, and the truth of which it receives a partial evidence is imprinted upon it in an indelible manner: “to such a point that if the corresponding article of faith were to fail, the soul would continue to be sufficiently certain of the corresponding truth in itself.”
This celestial perception does not directly bear upon the essence of God Himself, except perhaps in quite exceptional cases, such as that of Moses or St. Paul. In e., God reveals only certain rays of His greatness and divinity; but these rays, St. John of the Cross adds, are “so sublime, are communicated with such force that they cause the soul to be ravished with rapture and e.”
St. Augustine had already noted how the momentary enjoyment of the “radiant” divine operation, whereby God communicates to the soul the understanding of His inalienable properties and excellences, has the effect of a meeting of what the Psalms call “the eyes” of God (Psalm 32:16). In short, as St. Teresa says, God allows the soul to see a small part of the kingdom it has won for itself, and which is none other than Himself. In such moments the timid nature of man becomes familiar with God, in view of consummated intimacy.
But the celestial intellectual communication ordinarily entails, by reaction, a biological dislocation in the individual, because direct intelligible perception, or vision “of the divine light,” is normally incompatible with the continuation of earthly life: impossible, therefore, in an unglorified body. “No man can see My face and live,” says the Lord (Ex. 33:20).
The celestial experience of the ecstatic is but a shadow, less than a particle, of the beatific vision; nonetheless, it involves a temporary relaxation of psychic, indeed biological, functions, proportionate to the dazzling brilliance of the communication, a radical escape of human attention, dazzled by the splendor of the divine.
The soul in e., though awake as never before “to the things of God,” is properly “almost dead” (St. Teresa); and when e. is vehement, it has the clear impression of “wishing to depart from the flesh” (St. John of the Cross), of being swept away impetuously like “straw before the wind,” like “a little boat on a raging sea,” like “a charge of gunpowder” (St. Teresa).
The circulation of the blood and respiration become imperceptible, the body grows cold and becomes absolutely insensitive; at times it acquires a set of glorious properties, lightness, luminosity, etc. Moreover, this disintegration of being, while naturally frightening, is also supernaturally delightful and conformed to the desire of love. The result of e. may be philosophically painful; but the spiritual effect is an incomparably more radical detachment from earthly satisfactions, disposing the soul to receive the supreme union.
Although the divine knowledge proper to spiritual marriage—the direct perception of the substance of God Himself—is intrinsically superior to the perception of His rays, inasmuch as it is directed to its object, nonetheless it does not of itself involve the suspension of the faculties, because it is not of a speculative intellectual order but of a substantial affective order, as St. John of the Cross explains—a contact of love rather than a distinct vision; it is therefore capable of persisting amid outward activity.
In short, mystical e. may be defined as a transitory suspension of earthly experience under the actual effect of a positive intellectual perception of love manifested with celestial clarity (cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 175).
There are degrees of e., from simple e. (excessus mentis), such as the almost natural dazzlement of the famous ecstasy of Ostia (Confessions, Book IX, ch. 10) without notable physical swooning, to purely passive, impetuous ecstasies of proper rapture and of the flight of the spirit or actual spiritual transportation, of which St. Paul is the classic example (2 Cor. 12:2-4; cf. St. Augustine, Epistle 147, no. 31).
It is necessary to distinguish from properly so-called mystical e., a normal phase in the development of contemplation, an occasional e. which is not due to a formally celestial knowledge but to a profound recollection, whereby God withdraws the soul momentarily from external experience in order to concentrate it upon a communication expressed in imaginative terms: “mentis alienatio a sensibus corporis, ut spiritus hominis divino Spiritu assumptus, capiendis atque intuendis imaginibus vocat” (St. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum, Book II, q. 1, no. 1). Holy Scripture and hagiography provide numerous examples of this abstraction or occasional e. (Acts 10:9-17; 22:17-21, etc.); cf. St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XII, nos. 53 ff.
It is evident that besides authentic raptures, there flourishes a crop of apparent, illusory, pretended ecstasies—fraudulent, slow deceptions. The masters of mysticism are not so naive as to ignore states of mental disintegration arising from the infirmity of the subject, from the natural exuberance of fantasy, from melancholy; and psychiatry would do well to learn from them a more subtle discernment of what is genuine e. and what is fictitious in the mental domain. The difficulties encountered in seeking to make this distinction do not justify the simplistic position of positivism (cf. P. Janet, De l'angoisse à l'extase, Paris 1926-28).
One word, finally, on affective e., a universal property of love, admirably described by St. Francis de Sales in the Traité de l'amour de Dieu, and explained by St. Thomas in the third book of his commentary on the Sentences (dist. 27) by the concept of “affective transformation.” Everything reduces to the capital observation that the soul lives in what it loves more than in what it animates, tending to leave the latter for the former; so that what we love replaces in us ourselves as the intimate and ultimate principle of all our inclinations.
ECSTASY IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. — The phenomenon of ecstasy, taken in its most universal and primary sense, is also found among primitive peoples and in more advanced pagan religions. Generally, a decisive factor in an individual’s attainment of ecstasy is the violence he exerts upon himself; this “violence” consists in physical practices (such as the use of alcoholic beverages, flagellation, fasting, enforced wakefulness, and the like) which break down the individual’s physical resistance and bring him to the brink or beyond the edge of consciousness. In addition to this common “physical” element—which is normally the only one in primitive religions—in more advanced religions it is accompanied, or rather supplemented, by a “spiritual” element consisting in the repetition of sacred words, formulas, prayers, meditation on a particular religious object, and so forth.
I. ECSTASY IN ETHNOLOGY
Ecstasy is widespread among primitive peoples, though ethnologists are not wont to call it—improperly—by the name of “trance.”Primitive peoples have a realistic conception of ecstasy, regarding it as a real change of state; this conception is very similar to their understanding of dreams. Indeed, whatever the ecstatic individual sees in ecstasy is believed by the community to have, or to be certain to have, a counterpart in reality: if the ecstatic has seen that a hunter will die the next day during the hunt, the community has no doubt that this must come to pass, and on this basis will act accordingly. Primitive peoples therefore do not employ ecstasy as an end in itself—whether for spiritual enjoyment or as a disinterested contemporary experience, as occurs in higher religions—but always as a means. In most cases, the individual who has attained ecstasy emerges from this state (which to us is abnormal) to prophesy the future: the outcome of a hunt, an imminent clash with hostile tribes, or even to uncover a fact unknown to the community. In short, among primitives ecstasy normally has a divinatory purpose.
Yet not everyone can attain the ecstatic state: almost always it is the prerogative of sorcerers and shamans, that is, the religious leaders of the tribe. As already noted, to reach ecstasy the individual must in some way exert violence upon himself, weakening his physical and psychic strength. Thus, in addition to the use of alcoholic beverages (kava among the Polynesians; kaffir beer among the Astati; opium among the Chinese; tobacco among the North American Indians; betel nuts among the peoples of southern Asia, Indonesia, the Pacific islands, and the eastern coast of Africa), we must also record the practice of dance, whether frenzied or slow, which leads the individual to complete exhaustion. A notable example is the so-called “ghost-dance religion” among various North American Indian tribes, in which numerous encampments would gather to perform lengthy circular dances until many exhausted dancers fell into ecstasy.
II. ECSTASY IN ANTIQUITY
The same realistic conception of ecstasy found among primitives was also held in ancient Greece: thus Aristotle regarded it as a change of state (*physikēs akroaseōs*, *Met.* 1b, 16), and other authors (Plato, *Ion* 534B; Proclus, *In Plat. remp.* II, p. 108, 23, etc.) spoke of the soul as actually leaving the body during ecstasy (a conception similar to their understanding of dreams: cf., e.g., Xenophon, *Cyrop.* VIII, 7, 21; Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.* IV, 22), while Plato explicitly stated that the ecstatic assumes the customs and occupations of the god insofar as man can participate in the divine (*Phaedr.* 253A).Ecstasy was very common in the mystery cults (where dance held great importance: cf. Lucian, *De salt.* 14-22).
Euripides offers an excellent description of the maenads at the religious festivals of Dionysus, who, foaming at the mouth and with wild eyes, fell into a state of unconsciousness and insensibility, during which they suffered no burns even when exposed to flames, nor did their wounds bleed (*Bacchae* 757; 1721 ff.).
The practice of making predictions in a state of ecstasy was also widespread among many ancient peoples: among the Hittites (where the inspired seer revealed the causes of plagues), the barbarian Albani (Caucasus), in Cappadocia (the priests of Ma-Bellona), and in Asia Minor, where the Galli (priests and attendants in honor of the Great Mother) indulged in frenzied and tumultuous dances, became possessed by the goddess, bit themselves until they bled, and cut their bodies with swords.
Cesare D'Onofrio