Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 What Ecstasy? An Assessment of the Misregard
- 2 Paul's Brain: The Cognitive Neurology of Ecstasy
- 3 Paul's Voice: Parsing Paul's Ecstatic Discourse
- 4 Paul's Practice: Discerning Ecstasies in Practice
- 5 The Whole Paul: A Short Course in (Nondeterministic) Complexity
- Bibliography
- Index of Ancient Sources
- Index of Modern Authors
- Subject Index
5 - The Whole Paul: A Short Course in (Nondeterministic) Complexity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 What Ecstasy? An Assessment of the Misregard
- 2 Paul's Brain: The Cognitive Neurology of Ecstasy
- 3 Paul's Voice: Parsing Paul's Ecstatic Discourse
- 4 Paul's Practice: Discerning Ecstasies in Practice
- 5 The Whole Paul: A Short Course in (Nondeterministic) Complexity
- Bibliography
- Index of Ancient Sources
- Index of Modern Authors
- Subject Index
Summary
Experience is never limited…it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.
– Henry James“Best not to speculate, really,” said Aziraphale. “You can't second-guess ineffability, I always say.”
– Neil Gaiman and Terry PratchettThis examination began with a description of paul's ecstatic experience as a curiosity. By this point in the examination, I hope that it seems much less curious but no less intriguing as a result. The preceding chapters have presented evidence for the widespread and enduring fact of ecstatic religious experience as a meaningful part of the lives of individuals and a contributing factor in the health and growth (as well as some of the conflicts) of their communities. Such positive effects derive in part from the fact that the neurological mechanisms that permit ecstatic experience also provide access to rich ways of knowing that are otherwise often veiled from consciousness. For Paul and these first communities, religious ecstasy helped to make the world meaningful and to orient them in the midst of change and contingency. When they were gathered for worship, their corporate ecstasy became sacred experience and, because the body is inextricably bound to the experience itself, even their bodies were partly redeemed through their participation. Through religious ecstasy, they felt they were in the process of being transformed, as Paul put it, from one glory to another (2 Cor 3:18).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Paul in EcstasyThe Neurobiology of the Apostle's Life and Thought, pp. 204 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009