The Ecstatic

All documented religions have some element of the ecstatic, of congregants or clergy pursuing an elevated state outside of quotidian experience: not only the Dionysian cults of antiquity, but Haitian voodoo priestesses, Native American shamans, Kabbalists, Sufi mystics, or the more recent Charismatic movement, an offshoot of Pentecostalism. In the mystical tradition of Christianity, ecstasy is very tightly bound to the Holy Spirit and means the suppression or liberation of one’s senses that occurs in the presence of holiness or divinity. The paradoxical nature of the mystical experience is the Holy Spirit’s simultaneous enhancing and weakening of human faculties, and the ecstasy stems from this paradoxical abracadabra. The hope or notion is that a temporary ecstasy—there is no other kind—can create a permanent solidity of spirit capable of a heightened nexus to God.