The Treachery of the Ecstatic

I’ve experienced a sense of awe while walking in old growth forests and entering Gothic Cathedrals. That feeling is such a wonderful thing: otherworldly, spiritual, emotionally up-lifting.    
    In sharp contrast, my media diet of late has revealed something entirely different about the human capacity to experience awe. My listening has included a true crime documentary, a Canadian podcast about charismatic Christianity and news reports from the United States. Each demonstrated that ecstatic spiritual experience can also lead into pure treachery and trauma.
    The crime documentary is called Twisted Yoga. It documents a European network of Yoga studios/retreats which sexually exploit young women. The studios seduce the women with what appears to be deeply spiritual Yoga, one leading to transcendent spiritual experience through teaching and disciplined practice. Attractive women are approached to go further, travel to a place where they live together. They are deepened into an increasingly sensual yoga and taught the theoretical framework which underlies the specific practices. The process grooms and propels these women along a path toward tantric (sexual) initiation provided by the cult’s guru. The sexual satisfaction, power and control by the guru seems to have been the purpose all along. Some of these women are then passed on into a money-making sex industry.
    This documentary is deeply disturbing. You may not want to watch it.
    Over the last few months I’ve been listening to a podcast called Heaven Bent, which I do highly recommend. It documents abuse and fraud within the charismatic movement of evangelical Christian religion. The spiritual practices of this movement involve ecstatic worship including nonsensical babbling and loss of physical control, experiences which are supposedly spiritual gifts from God to true believers. The movement attracts young people, some of whom end up profoundly damaged, including being sexually abused by some of the powerful leaders. 
    News reports early in the United States military excursion into Iran contextualized the actions of the United States as a step toward bringing on Armageddon, the fulfillment of prophecy about the end of the world popular in certain pockets the Christian religion. As a child and adolescent my religious affiliation strongly focused on this doctrine of the End Times with its drama of world disruptive events. Its anticipation was filled with visions of the awe-invoking, transcendent events. Now those beliefs are being used to justify killing people and crippling another country. According to these reports, the USA Chain of Command motivated the US troops to their deadly task by perpetuating their leaders’ religious beliefs, most likely with great fervour of meaning and importance. The Secretary of War in the United States, Pete Hegseth, prays and quotes Biblical Scriptures in his news conferences as he visibly appears to relish the destruction he is inflicting. 
    
How can intense spiritually-induced emotion lead to killing innocent people and abusing and exploiting vulnerable others? How has transcendent and awe-invoking spirituality become so evil?

As a former psychologist I remain curious about the human condition. For some reason, our minds have the capacity to experience awe with its sense of transcendence and ecstasy. Our brains provide the neurological structures for this to occur. Why?
    Over the history of humanity shared ecstatic experiences likely had the role of bonding together groups of people to common purpose. The Shaman would maintain the coherence of the tribe with intensely evocative rituals. The three modern examples I’ve given also describe the ecstatic in the context of tribe, tight knit groups of individuals sharing beliefs and intense emotional experience which provides a sense of purpose and common motivation. These modern examples illustrate how destructive leaders can create ecstatic contexts to self-gratify at the expense of others, either sexually or in their intoxication with power. They do so by contextualizing their behaviour within a supposed spiritual or holy cause. 
    This got me thinking of the appendix, a body part that can run amok and threaten one’s life, a body part we can survive without if it has to be removed. So I looked it up. The current understanding of the role of the appendix is to store healthy bacteria and contribute to immune functioning. As much as it provides a perilous risk if it becomes infected it also can promote health. Perhaps we can think of the role of ecstatic experience is to provide life with a dose of the divine to keep us healthy as individuals, a reminder there is more to life than just our day-to-day existence. 
    I’m a believer in the benefits of Yoga for physical and mental resiliency, for a deepening of one’s embodied sense of self. Teaching within the Christian faith can motivate us toward making our world a more loving place. However, we must remain vigilant that spiritual practices emphasizing the ecstatic can also be vectors for other dangerous motives and outcomes. 
        
My life work has been in the business of emotion. 
    In the past I did so when practicing as a psychologist. In psychotherapy I helped clients identify and modulate their subjective emotional experience so it could provide a sense of meaning without becoming disorienting, harmful or impeding adaptive functioning. 
    Now in this creative time of my life, I consider my musical compositions to be “what emotion sounds like”. My writing intends for the reader to experience a range of emotions as they identify with characters navigating the circumstances of plot. 
    In these endeavours I’ve sought balance. The subjectiveness of emotion needs to be balanced with contextual realities appreciated through critical thought. At the core of our motivation must be the wellbeing of others as well as the fulfillment of self. In neither, the therapeutic nor the creative, should self-gratification and control over others be the motive. 
    In treasuring the wellbeing of others, I’ve experienced another sense of the divine, one rooted in respect and compassion. It doesn’t involve ecstatic experience, nor does it harm to others through self-gratification and imposing personal power. The divine is simply present, subtly present, when we act motivated by love and grace, when we celebrate others rather than oppress or use them for our own purposes.