Entering the Stream
Immersion in the Ecstatic Experience
Mitakuye oyasin
A welcome to you which strikes at the very core of the ecstatic experience...
This site is designed to facilitate knowledge of the elements of the ecstatic experience through intellectual discourse. Put in another way, it is an attempt to generate awareness of the ecstatic by means of reason, and rational pursuit.
The fundamental assumption of this site is that reason cannot give us the ecstatic, but that reason grants us access to the ecstatic, as a guide who unlocks a door beyond which the ecstatic lies, but who cannot himself pass beyond that door. Reason, and hence all language, is the pointing finger of signification which alerts human existence of the presence of the ecstatic, but which can only point to it, and can neither grasp it nor contain it.
The intention of this site is not to give descriptions of various ecstatic experiences, but rather to examine the nature of the experience, the elements which, in cultures throughout the world, catalyze the ecstatic experience. The subtitle of this site should give fair enough indication of this pursuit.
This is not intended to be a one man show... community is where we need to be, for in community people discuss and force one another to think. It is only through community that this site, and others like it, can develop and flourish. To this end, I have included what i consider to be the most important catalysts for the ecstatic experience. As interest grows and communication thrives, surely we'll see more catalysts worthy of discussion.
This site will also be used as a sounding board for contemporary ecstatic issues, such as shamanic revivalism, ethnomusicology, ethnobotany, and consciousness studies. While remaining ever aware of the non-rational (not irrational) nature of the Experience itself, there is much that modern rational science can tell us, particularly in the fields of botany and consciousness studies. We, like the scientists, must not reduce things to an 'either/or' dichotomy, but rather we must view things as patterns, systems, wholes in a 'both/and' kind of way.
Matters Philosophical
Matters Poetical
Matters Theological
Matters Musical
Matters Kinesthetical
Matters Botanical
