Ecstasy and mysticism

Abstract

Phenomena such as ecstasy and mysticism display both psychological and physical features. The purpose of this paper is finding and understanding the structures in human consciousness which characterise the experience of certain kinds of ecstasy. The context in which this task is performed is an outline of fundamental changes in consciousness brought about by those methods of meditation which, under optimal conditions, give rise to mystical experience.. What makes ecstasy ecstasy or mysticism mysticism is their psychologically describable features and not the physical ones. How does one go about an experimental investigation of phenomena whose main features are to be found in subjective experience? How can one find intersubjective criteria? A useful approach in obtaining an answer to these questions is shown by the experiences afforded us through the so called "meditation". By drawing a map of the changes in a person's self-experience that can be effected by a body-centered technique of meditation, the structures of consciousness that are characteristic of ecstatic and mystical experiences can be identified. This method can be considered as a phenomenological investigation of consciousness-related phenomena. Absolute ecstasy means the experience of a state of consciousness which, it is claimed, is able to cause experience of a synthesis of a transcendent and a non-transcendent dimension of reality. It is easy to realise that a necessary condition for an understanding of statements claiming experience of a synthesis between transcendence and immanence is the psychological understanding of the state of consciousness in which the claimed experience of the synthesis was made. It is only in the context of a psychological understanding of the state of consciousness which is called absolute nothingness that the mystics' claims of a synthesis or an integrated unity of empirical reality and what transcends it becomes meaningful.