English

Alternative forms

• ecstasis

Noun

ekstasis ‎(plural ekstases)

1. (mysticism, philosophy) The state of being beside oneself or rapt out of oneself.
   • [1914], 1995, Holden E Sampson, The True Mystic

     In Psychics the strange phenomenon of “Katalepsis” experienced by developed “trance-mediumship” bears so close a resemblance, physically, to Ekstasis, that the two are often taken for one and the same thing.

   • 1918, Holden Edward Sampson, Theou Sophia

     In no wise is it possible for the State of Ekstasis to be attained by Mankind except as the prelude to Initiation in the Divine Mysteries. When the Initiations have been fully accomplished, to the Seventh Golden Gate, there is no further need for the Processes requisite to induce the State of Ekstasis.

   • 1956, Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Hazel E. Barnes tr.

     We find ourselves then in the presence of two human ekstases: the ekstasis which throws us into being-in-itself and the ekstasis which engages us in non-being.

   • 1984, Martin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Michael Heim tr.

     Conversely, expecting is, as we say, ecstatic. The ecstasy mentioned here, stepping out itself (ἔκστασις) is to some extent a raptus [rapture]. [...] And we therefore call these three basic phenomena the ecstases of temporality.

   • 1994, Jacques Derrida, Politiques de lamitié (The Politics of Friendship), George Collins, trans. Verso, 2005. p.73.

     This is a double but infinite responsibility, infinitely redoubled, split in two (dé-doublée), shared and parcelled out; an infinitely divided responsibility, dissemintated, if you will, for one person, for only one---all alone (this is the condition of responsibility)---and a bottomless double responsibility that implicitly describes an intertwining of temporal ekstases; a friendship to come of time with itself where we meet again the interlacing of the sameand the altogether other ('Grundlick-Anderes') which orientates us in this labyrinth.

   • 2002, Angela Dalle Vacche, “Unexplored Connections in a New Territory,” in The Visual Turn, Angela Dalle Vacche ed.

     Eisenstein’s discussion of Serov’s portrait associates ekstasis with an “expulsion of meaning.” By contrast, the filmmaker’s handling of Vasily Surikov’s large canvas, La Bojara Morozova (1887), is an example of ekstasis as expressive conversion from the visual to the acoustic.

Related terms

• ecstasy
• ecstatic