Ecstatic Experiences

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29744, 10 February 1962, Page 3

Ecstatic Experiences

Fcstasy: A Study of Some Secular A Religious Experiences. By Marghanita Laski. Cresset Press. 533 pp. Index.

Mrs Laski’s interest in the phenomenon which provides her with the subject of her latest book springs from a novel she wrote some years ago. As the result of an ecstatic experience, the heroine found herself outside time and was then translated into the past. Having com. mitted her to this, t’-e author understandably enough, felt some compunction: she began to wonder if such a thins were really possible. In order to find out other people’s experience and ideas, she prepared a questionnaire, which is quoted on page 9 Even to contemplate it is out. facing. “I. Do you know a sensation of transcendent ecstasy?” ”4. How many times in your life have you felt it—in units, tens, hundreds?”

The questionnaire was given to a variety of people, including writers. housewives. civil servants, artists of various kinds, scientists, a ‘•cosmetician” and a solitary trades union official. Mrs Laski thinks it a pity that she omitted to try it on anyone “engaged in commerce .” In due course the answers were sorted and tabulated and this forms one part of the materia) the author uses to come to her conclusions Literary sources of the most varied kind are also drawn upon: and here it is. of course, easy to find omissions It is strange that John Donne is mentioned only once and Richard Crashaw not at all. Indeed the author seems not to have given any consideration to the store of. material available in Baroque ar. and literature. Mrs Laski, It should be noted, does not accept a supernatural ground as a basis of mystical experience Neither does she seek refuge, cr the other hand, in any concept f morbid psychology Her investigations prove to her that experience of ecstatic states is too frequent to be classed as anything but natural. Of course, the subject, as treated in the pages of this book, tends to get out of

hand. The range of discussion is vast. “Language and Ecstatic Experience’’ is probably a topic for a book rather than a chapter. It is soon followed by a chapter on the unrelated theme of mescalin and ecstasy. Only four pages are given to the ecstatic experiences of children; and the sections on ecstasy and sexual love and on revela, tional ecstasy, although very interesting, would be classed by psychologists as literature rather than science

In the fourth part of her book. Mrs Laski states that “intensity-experiences may be divided into three kinds though with infinite possibilities of gradation.” “Adamic” ecstasies are characterised by feelings of being born anew. Illumination or super-human knowledge is the mark of the second kind—“knowledgecontact” ecstasies. Unionecstasies “are characterised by feelings of union with someone or something.” ‘‘lntensity experiences.” she adds "are almost alivays preceded by contact with one or some of a limited range of objects, events and ideas, which I have called triggers ”

Probably “trigger” is just as good a word as stimulus; but the effect in these pages is sometimes little short of frightening On page 231. for instance. Mrs Laski writes “Trigger assimilation is a deceitful device which will, when successful, appear as an example of a trigger-list, a trigger comparison, or some other device involving triggers. The method is to compare a trigger with something not usually accepted as a trigger or a insert such a non-trigger tn a list of triggers. The aim is that by association with triggers the non-trigger may pass itself off as a trigger and so gam some of the lust a and prestige we accord to triggers.” Norman Douglas once wrote a cruel review of a book bv Evelyn Underhill, who is frequently quoted in these pages “She has saturated herself with their mystical thoughts,” ns said; “she has adopted and. in our opinion, considerably improved upon, their I rich technical jargon.”