Human Quest for Rapture and Ecstasy

The drive to seek rapture, trance, and ecstasy—states of standing outside oneself—is a universal human psychological need. This drive may stem from human self-consciousness and the unique awareness of mortality. Drawing on empirical facts about the developmental origins of self-consciousness, the argument suggests that the universal proclivity toward altered states, whether through drugs, practice, or recreation, arises from an ultimate desire to escape the default rational self-consciousness and the scandal of death—an inescapable, known, yet inconceivable reality.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A universal aspect of human psychology is the quest and cultivation of rapture states, the need to stand outside oneself (ecstasy). The question is what may drive the human need to abandon and transcend a default mode of survival to cultivate altered states of consciousness? The idea is to approach this basic question in light of what arguably sets us apart in nature: human self-consciousness and the fact that like no other animals we know that we are going to die. Empirical facts on the nature and developmental origins of human self-consciousness are used to shed a new light on the universal human proclivity toward trance and transcendence, with or without drugs, in practice or in recreation. Such proclivity would rest on the same ultimate drive to escape the default state of rational self-consciousness and the scandal of death: our inescapable, known, yet inconceivable reality.