Talk:Religious ecstasy

message: st ffrancis of itay--Juliagmandela12 (talk) 18:13, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You mistake me. I don't point dispute that people experience religious ecstacy, but dispute that it is anything but entirely psychological in origin. This article seems to blur the line between the existence of a psychological condition known as religious ecstacy and the existence of a truly divinely-inspired religious ecstacy. It should be made clear that the first is a psychological reaction to hyper-suggestability and 'wanting it' and the second has no basis in fact. JF Mephisto 18:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: All the more because it doesn't even cite a single source. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 08:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Just alike followers of many religions believe their understanding of the Divine to be the only truth and label different beliefs as "idolatry", "heresy" etc., they may also believe that the true religious ecstasy occurs only inside their religion and label similar phenomena outside their religion as "intoxication", "hysteria", "suggestion" etc. A neutral version of the sentence under discussion could be: "Some religious people hold the view that true religious ecstasy cannot be induced by natural means (i.e. by human activities) but occurs only in context of their religion as a gift from the supernatural being whom they worship." But probably such outside, relativistic and confession-invariant description will not satisfy most of those believers.
In 1925, James Leuba, an author far from cultural relativism, wrote: "Among most uncivilized populations, as among civilized peoples, certain ecstatic conditions are regarded as divine possession or as union with the Divine. These states are induced by means of drugs, by physical excitement, or by psychical means. But, however produced and at whatever level of culture they may be found, they possess certain common features which suggest even to the superficial observer some profound connection. Always described as delightful beyond expression, these ecstatic experiences end commonly in mental quiescence or even in total unconsciousness. Common features should not, however, lead to a disregard of dissemblances. The presence, for instance, of an ethical purpose places some of these states in a separate and higher class." (James H. Leuba, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism. p.8. Routledge, UK, 1999). As we can see, the difference is not in the ecstatic state itself, but in its interpretation and its placement into system of social values. In the same book, same page Leuba prepares his readers "... to recognize a continuity of impulse, of purpose, of form and of result between the ecstatic intoxication of the savage and the absorption in God of the Christian mystic." --Hele 7 13:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The list of all religious people who have seen visions (or at least claimed to have) would be quite long.--Will3935 00:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Visions and ecstasy are not the same. --Hele 7 23:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

message: Mephisto, "delusion and superstition" and "a psychological reaction to hyper-suggestability" are just labels that cannot explain the phenomenon of ecstasy. We can label every human experience as a "psychological" or "psychosomatic" reaction or condition, but these labels do not tell us how and why these experiences occur.
:There is no "phenomenon" of religious ecstasy in a supernatural sense, and psychology can very adequately explain why experiences like this occur. There is no scientific evidence that there is anything other at work than euphoria brought on by suggestability, the desire to have it and being in the company of others experiencing the same mood. There are many reasons why these experiences occur and have been explored extensively by psychologists - to say otherwise is blatant dishonesty (look up  "The Nature, Causes and Types of Ecstasy" by Dominic Beer in Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology - Volume 7, Number 4, December 2000, pp. 311-315 published by Johns Hopkins University Press). These "experiences" are thought by psychologists, from what I can establish, to be brought on by a desire to have them. Just talking about it in some bland, confused way as though it was a divinely inspired phenomenon ignores the fact that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for that, and ample evidence to its contrary. As it stands, this article is filled with mushy-headed nonsense that implies in several places the existence of a real supernatural phenomenon, and you can either go fix it yourself in a rational and sensible way or I'm going to take an axe to it and reduce it to the two or three paragraph's worth which is remotely acceptable in an encyclopaedia. Your choice, I'll wait a week. JF Mephisto 15:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might I ask which two or three paragraphs you would spare from your mighty chopper? - Pthag 17:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redux 

message: This part doesn't make sense: "Religious ecstasy can be distinguished from spirit possession and hypnosis in that ecstasy is not accompanied by a loss of interior consciousness or will on the part of the subject experiencing it." There is no loss of "interior consciousness" and "will" in hypnosis. In fact, modern discussion about hypnosis today tends to center on the idea that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, i.e. that all hypnosis occurs with the continuing consent of the subject. Accordingly, this section needs a rewrite. There are distinctions between hypnosis and religious ecstasy, obviously (the religious part being the obvious one), but as it stands the distinction in this article is inaccurate. -- Hux 05:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for interesting point. Probably the part you mentioned originates from the Catholic Encyclopedia. I must admit that I am not fully satisfied with this part for another reason: loss of conscious will in intense religious ecstasy is mentioned in several well-recognized first-hand descriptions. Nevertheless, as an amateur in the area I did not take the courage to change this part. If you feel better please fix it. About hypnosis, I think that we should use the current prevailing educated standpoint, not the most disputed new idea. Also, relation between religious ecstasy and spirit possession is probably a bit more complicated. "Spirit possession" seems to be an interpretation used in certain cultures for a subset of religious ecstasy.  Hele 7 22:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comparison with hypnosis

message: I have removed the reference to Kalchuri, Meher Prabhu. For discussion, see RS/N and this Talk page. Simon Kidd (talk) 08:13, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of devotee-published sources 

message: Do parts of this article rather blur the distinction?
The Spanish mystics especially denote ecstatic visions contrasted to imaginative visions; the special characteristic of an ecstatic vision being the displacement of the point of view. 'Ecstasy' from the Greek ekstasis meaning to stand outside.  Oliver Low (talk) 12:41, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ecstasy or Euphoria? 

message: Most of a paragraph is a quote from.a person who, according to Wikipedia, thought he was an avatar of god. Not a learned person in the matter at hand. Can we delete this paragraph?
As described by the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known in Sufism as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: "[M]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." Drobbler (talk) 22:23, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliable source cited 

message: As far as I can tell, none of the references for Range Christian Fellowship are reliable secondary sources (i.e. RS).  The primary reference  Small, for example, is a self published book by the wife of the founding pastor.  I tried searching for RS myself, but could find nothing.  Hence, despite all of the work that went into this description, I deleted it as not being notable per Wikipedia standards.  If others disagree, please comment below. Nowa (talk) 14:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of information on Range Christian Fellowship