Religious Ecstasy - Examples

Examples

Athletes may follow rituals in preparing for contests, which are dismissed as superstition, but this sports psychology device may help them to attain advantage in an ecstasy-like state.

Yoga provides techniques to attain an ecstasy state called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various ecstasy stages, the highest is called Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Bhakti-yoga, especially, places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice.

In Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are 8 states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are called Rupa or, materially oriented. The next four are called Arupa or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation. In Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and that not all individuals are able to accomplish it at all.

Modern mediator experiences in the Thai Forest Tradition, as well as other Theravadin traditions, demonstrates 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 Dionysian Mysteries the initiates used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state.

Sufism (the mystical Islam branch) has theoretical and metaphoric texts regarding ecstasy as a state of connection with Allah. Sufis practice rituals (dhikr, sema) using body movement and music to achieve the state. Zila Khan also practices this through Music Therapy and her performances.

In the monotheistic 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 (called e.g. "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 Saint Constantine.

In hagiography (writings on the subject of 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 experience these elements of ecstasy.

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.

As described by the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: "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."