Talk:Ecstasy (emotion)

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The article is composed by amateurs and needs review by some psychologists. I think that ecstasy is better classified as a state of consciousness, not as an emotion. To add some science references would help a lot. See also the article about Religious ecstasy, maybe these articles should be merged. Hele 7 07:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Comment 1

Street name for MDMA, a widely used, only illegal for 20 years, street drug.

[edit] Reference to religions and shamans.

There is an article in wikipedia on religious ecstasy, the reference to which is given at the beginning of this article. if there is no objection in 15 days, I'll move the reference to shamans, Buddhism and Christianity to that page.

Your proposition seems reasonable, but then there won't be much left on this page. Someone familiar with the subject needs to add examples of non-religious ecstasy. BrainyBroad 23:06, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Above portions moved. September 17, 2005

"Examples of non-religious ecstasy" can be triggered by beauty of nature or art, by all creative activities, sports, music, sex, drugs... A movement called "scientific pantheism" recommends meditation-like methods for achieving ecstatic states which they interpret as "experiences of unity between self and cosmos, between mind and body, between consciousness and matter" [1]. They involve no supernaturalia in explaining those experiences.

Sometimes a similar experience can just happen without any special circumstances, efforts or methods. In these cases people interpret it afterwards according to their culture and beliefs (eg. as a revelation from God, a trip to world of spirits or a psychotic episode).

Unfortunately I have found no good descriptions, "diagnostic criteria", theories etc. about ecstasy from the viewpoint of contemporary psychology and medicine. If they exist, they should be summarized in the article. --Hele 7 12:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additions 1.Sept.2006

If some more experienced Wiki editor finds some useful information from this discussion page or elsewhere, please include it into article in proper form. If nobody reacts before 31 Aug. 2006, a wiki newbie with English as her third language will try to do this. --Hele 7 14:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I wrote something, but the style is too pseudoscientific. It should be more clear and simple, I will try to improve it in near future. References to M. Laski will be updated next week when some books reach the local library. Corrections, additions and especially reliable sources are very welcome. A characteristic example: www.sciencedirect.com found 532 articles with "ecstasy" in title, abstract or keywords. Among these only 5 had something to say about the topic of the article, 3 were purely symbolic uses of the word, all others about the drug MDMA. Miserable. Hele 7 11:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] other pages to be referenced from there

I am not currently in mood to solve this, so, for future reference:

If disambiguation page will be made, the link to it should also be updated at Ecstasy (drug). Samohyl Jan 22:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


"Ecstatic experiences are typically momentary and ecstasies //typo in source, probably it should read: ecstatics// often stress the extreme brevity of these experiences. Very occasionally an ecstasy is said to last longer—up to, say, half an hour or so. But however long an ecstasy may be said to last, we never find that a succession of often widely different events and moods is felt to take place. Ecstasies may involve a single change of feeling from dread to delight, never the reverse; they may begin with feelings of withdrawal which change to feelings of intensity; most often only a single if progressively deepening tone of feeling is involved. For the duration of the ecstasy the ecstatic is out of touch with normal life and is capable neither of communication with other people nor of undertaking normal actions." "Ecstasy almost always takes place after contact with something regarded as beautiful or valuable or both." "Ecstatics often claim to see bright light, whether as a flash or as sustained brightness, during their experience; and they often claim that afterwards everything seems brighter, as if they were looking at the world with a newly cleansed vision." From website [2] quoting book "Ecstasy in Secular and Religious Experiences", Marghanita Laski, 1990 Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher. ISBN: 0-87477-574-4. Hele 7 22:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Previous versions combined with a reference. A separate meaning moved here for a while.

Thanks to recent contributors. I tried to combine previous versions and quotes from M.Laski. Also I moved here the following paragraph from the previous version:

"It is used in philosophy usually to mean outside-of-itself. One's consiousness, for example, is not self-enclosed, one can be conscious of others that conceptually fall well outside of one's self-consciouness. In a sense, consciousness is usually, "outside of itself," in that its object is not itself. Another example this use is, that one can be "outside of oneself" in the sense that one is deeply focused on the past or future (ie, outside of the present)."

The reason to move it here for a while: this particular meaning of the word is not widely used (as seen from Google search) and it is different from other contributions to the article. If such usage of the term "ecstasy" in philosophy is an established practice, then it does not belong to "Ecstasy (emotion)" and needs a separate link from disambiguation page. Please continue working on the article. Hele 7 18:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


I created instead a page ecstasy(Philosophy) though the emotion is also connected with this philosophic usage. Other than giving a dictionary definition of ecstasy or a google result (as suggested above), the encyclopedic article tries to summarise its usage by various scholars in the area. One thing I have a problem with in the ecstasy(Emotion) page is repeated references to being in a "trance", transported and closed off to others, this is perhaps related to some religious form of ecstasy, religious ecstasy has its own page. --Lucaas 01:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


Well done. I linked your new page from the disambiguation page Ecstasy, please look if the summary is correct.

Yes, the word is used in philosophy often in its near-to-usual meaning (e.g. by Plotinus and neoplatonics), so I rearranged the paragraphs accordingly to achieve some continuity.

About being in trance, closed off to others - I think this is true for any intense ecstasy, religious or not. "Religious ecstasy" is not a different meaning of the word, but a subset of the phenomenon described under Ecstasy (emotion) and the subset is separated in basis of context and interpretation of the experience. Religious context and interpretation are not necessary for being closed to sensory input due to ecstasy and religious ecstasy is often interpreted as being open to God.

Also, I am not completely happy with title of the article Ecstasy (emotion) - probably "Ecstasy (state of consciousness)" would be better? Hele 7 12:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] German version - could somebody translate?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekstase - thanks for the link. It seems to have some interesting material for including here, unfortunately my German is too poor to translate it and the babelfish gives nonsense. Could somebody help? Hele 7 17:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing citations

The article was tagged as missing citations or footnotes. There are some citations, footnotes are under the text and the weblinks work. I copied some sentences from the sources directly into text as quotes. Please indicate which parts of the text need more exact references. Also please help with formatting the quotes and references, I am not a frequent editor. About category - yes, ecstasy is different from most emotions (maybe "a state of consciousness?"), but the category "religion" is certainly not better for it. It feels like categorizing "thinking" under "crossword". Hele 7 01:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, sourced additions to "Studies by modern psychology" are greatly welcome. Hele 7 02:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Citations should be in-line and have page or, at least, chapter numbers. DCDuring 01:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who says that ecstasy is an emotion ?

I don't believe it. Yes, it's a mental state. An emotion? Is an orgasm an emotion? Is hunger an emotion? Is nausea an emotion? Whose got some citations? I'm going to propose that it be moved to a different name and removed from the "emotion" catagory. DCDuring 01:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It's that darn Emotion footer. (There is also one that goes along the side that has a somewhat different selection.) Anyone can stick it on a page and add their "emotion" to it. --Mattisse 01:38, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Look at the comments under Ratings above. The rater agrees with you. --Mattisse 01:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I removed the "emotions" sidebar which at least in Mozilla obstructed text too badly. Probably this article should be merged with article Religious ecstasy under name "Ecstasy (state of mind)" or something alike. Hele 7 17:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is less an emotion, and more a state of mine, a state of pure bliss, happiness, and relaxation Suppakid (talk) 20:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)