Bloomsbury Handbook of Religious Ecstasy

Why do people seek a connection to something beyond the social dimensions of the world? Ecstatic experiences are often labelled religious spiritual mystical or even sacred. However ecstasy is not just extraordinary; for many people throughout the world it is an ordinary part of daily life. <br/><br/>The Handbook highlights the diverse individuals who have experienced ecstasy in the past and present from ordinary people to mystics pastors healers spirit mediums and urban/neo/therapeutic shamans. Chapters show that ecstasy may be experienced during trance possession prayer and even through the use of drugs such as soma peyote ayahuasca ibogaine mushrooms LSD and other substances.<br/><br/>While institutional expressions of religion may be on the decline experiences of religious ecstasy and interactions among living people and gods saints angels and demons individually and collectively are happening everywhere - occurring at home online in the community and through prayer dance song possession and the ingestion of drugs. Ecstatic religious experience as this handbook shows provides meaning belonging and for some profit in the late capitalist marketplace.