Religious ecstasy

History

Ancient

Yoga provides techniques to attain a state of ecstasy called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various stages of ecstasy, the highest being nirvikalpa samādhi. Bhakti Yoga in particular places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice.

In Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are eight states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are rupa or, materially-oriented. The next four are arupa, or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation. In the Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and not all individuals can accomplish it at all.

Ancient Greece

Ecstasy in ancient Greece, notably in the Dionysian Mysteries, is characterized by ecstatic dance and god-like abilities and removed the inhibition and social constraints of dividing social elements such as gender and wealth. Unlike other mystery religions of the time, Dionysiac rites required no formal initiation and were accessible to all women, regardless of wealth or citizenship. Women were able to express themselves beyond domestic roles and engage in acts typically reserved for men, such as hunting and warfare.

All rites and rituals occurred outdoors, with women even sleeping outdoors under pine trees in the mountains. Despite being wild in nature, the rituals followed a deliberate structure. The Maenads (female followers of Dionysus) gathered at appointed times, arranged themselves in ranks, and sang sacred songs in a coordinated fashion. Typical attire, depicted on amphoras and other artistic mediums, includes women in long garbs, dancing barefoot with ivy wreaths on their heads. Their ritual cry was a communal call marking moments of spiritual climax.

Ecstasy was induced during rites through methods like music, primarily flute and drum, community dancing, and head-tossing. Their altered state of consciousness often involved vivid psychological experiences, such as hallucinations—seeing visions of Dionysos in the form of fire or a bull, or hearing his voice without seeing him. These experiences were not metaphorical but considered real manifestations of divine contact. In their ecstatic state, the Maenads were said to feed wild animals—such as fawns and wolf cubs—with their own milk. Using their thyrsoi (a staff or wand, typically made from a giant fennel stalk), they could produce wine, water, and honey from the earth or rock. Acts of extraordinary strength, such as tearing bulls apart and uprooting entire pine trees without tools, were viewed as signs of divine possession.

Euripides' The Bacchae, known for its depiction of ecstasy in this manner, describes the Maenads as being able to do superhuman things, such as carry open flames and walk barefoot in the snow without being physically hurt in any way. Dionysus blesses the Maenads with ecstasy and these god-like abilities to exact his revenge on Pentheus, allowing them to chase Pentheus' men away and remain unharmed against their iron javelins. Even Agave, Pentheus' own mother, is so compelled and entranced by the Dionysian ecstasy that she leads his defeat and presents his severed head back in Thebes, so deep in her hallucination that she believes it to be a lion head, and is confused when she is met with horror at the sight of the decapitated king.

Modern

Modern meditator experiences in the Thai Forest Tradition, as well as other Theravadan traditions, demonstrate that this effort and rarity is necessary only to become completely immersed in the absorptions and experience no other sensations. It is possible to experience the absorptions in a less intense state with much less practice.

In the Christian tradition, ecstasy is usually associated with communion and oneness with God. However, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them. Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states, such as "being slain in the Spirit", and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit. The firewalkers of Greece dance themselves into a state of ecstasy at the annual Anastenaria, when they believe themselves under the influence of Constantine the Great.

Historically, large groups of individuals have experienced religious ecstasies during periods of Christian revivals, to the point of causing controversy as to the origin and nature of these experiences. In response to claims that all emotional expressions of religious ecstasy were attacks on order and theological soundness from the Devil, Jonathan Edwards published his influential Religious Affections. Here, he argues, religious ecstasy could come from oneself, the Devil, or God, and it was only by observing its fruit, or changes in inner thought and behaviour, that one could determine if the religious ecstasy had come from God.

In modern Pentecostal, Charismatic and Spirit-filled Christianity, numerous examples of religious ecstasy have transpired, similar to historic revivals. These occurrences have changed significantly since the time of the Toronto Blessing and several other North American so-called revivals and outpourings from the mid-1990s. From that time, religious ecstasy in these movements has been characterized by increasingly unusual behaviors that are understood by adherents to be the anointing of the Holy Spirit and evidence of God's "doing a new work". One of the most controversial and strange examples is that of spiritual birthing —a practice during which women, and at times even men, claim to be having actual contractions of the womb while they moan and retch as though experiencing childbirth. It is said to be a prophetic action bringing spiritual blessings from God into the world. Many believe spiritual birthing to be highly demonic and more occult-like than Christian. Religious ecstasy in these Christian movements has also been witnessed in the form of squealing, shrieking, inability to stand or sit, uttering apocalyptic prophecies, holy laughter, crying, and barking. Some people have made dramatic claims of sighting "gold dust", "angel feathers", "holy clouds", or the spontaneous appearance of precious gem stones during ecstatic worship events.

In hagiographies (writings about Christian saints), many instances are recorded in which saints are granted ecstasies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, religious ecstasy (called "supernatural ecstasy") includes two elements: one, interior and invisible, in which the mind rivets its attention on a religious subject, and another, corporeal and visible, in which the activity of the senses is suspended, reducing the effect of external sensations upon the subject and rendering him or her resistant to awakening. The witnesses of a Marian apparition often describe experiencing these elements of ecstasy. The term "transverberation" has been used to describe a form of religious ecstasy that feels as if one has been spiritually pierced.

Modern witchcraft traditions may define themselves as "ecstatic traditions", and focus on reaching ecstatic states in their rituals. The Reclaiming Tradition and the Feri Tradition are two modern ecstatic witchcraft examples.

According to the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known in Sufism as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy:

[M]asts are desperately in love with God – or consumed by their love for God. Masts do not suffer from what may be called a disease. They are in a state of mental disorder because their minds are overcome by such intense spiritual energies that are far too much for them, forcing them to lose contact with the world, shed normal human habits and customs, and civilized society and live in a state of spiritual splendor but physical squalor. They are overcome by an agonizing love for God and are drowned in their ecstasy. Only the divine love embodied in a Perfect Master can reach them.