Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional (and sometimes physical) euphoria.
Although the experience is usually brief in time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during one's lifetime.
A person's sense of time and space disappear during a religious ecstasy forsaking any senses or physical cognizance in its duration. Among venerated Catholic saints who dabble in Christian mysticism, a person's physical stature, human sensory, or perception is completely detached to time and space during an ecstatic experience.
In Islamic Sufism, the experience is referred to as majzoobiyat.
Context
The adjective "religious" means that the experience occurs in connection with religious activities or is interpreted in context of a religion. Marghanita Laski writes in her study "Ecstasy in Religious and Secular Experiences," first published in 1961:
Ecstasy (Avant album)
Ecstasy is the second studio album by Avant. It includes the singles "Makin' Good Love", "Don't Say No, Just Say Yes" and "You Ain't Right". The album is Avant's biggest selling album to date with over 1.7 Million copies in the US and just over five million worldwide. The album was heavily promoted. A few months before the release Avant's son was born.
Track listing
References
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance is a collection of three novellas by Irvine Welsh.
Stories
Lorraine Goes To Livingston
After suffering a stroke, Rebecca Navarro, a best-selling romance novelist, discovers the truth about her corrupt, pornography-loving husband. With the help of Lorraine, her sexually confused nurse, she plots her revenge.
Another nurse at the hospital, Glen, has been secretly admiring Lorraine but after a night at a club, decides to pursue her friend Yvonne instead. Meanwhile, Glen has been accepting money from Freddy Royle, a necrophiliac TV personality. The hospital trustees turn a blind eye to Freddy's nefarious pastime but have to do some fast talking when the new coroner begins asking questions.
Fortune's Always Hiding
Samantha Worthington, an angry and bitter 'Tenazedrine' (Thalidomide) victim, enlists a football hooligan, Dave, to help her seek revenge on the last man left alive who pushed the drug who caused her deformed arms, the drug's marketing director.
Vast (novel)
Vast is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata, part of her loosely connected "Nanotech Succession" sequence.
Background
The main characters of Vast are the crew and passengers of the Null Boundary, who are fleeing from the alien Chenzeme. The Chenzeme, using the "cult virus" and other, more conventional, weapons have destroyed much of human-occupied space, leaving the inhabitants of the Null Boundary to attempt to discover why.
While Vast is a standalone novel, there are links to The Bohr Maker, Tech-Heaven and Deception Well, primarily in the form of two shared technological innovations: advanced nanotechnology and "ghosts", a name given to electronically preserved human memories and personalities.
Literary significance and reception
The SF Site gave the novel a positive review, commenting on the balance between the relatively straightforward plotline and the complex character interaction.
John Clute, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, described the "Deception Well" sub-sequence (comprising Deception Well and Vast) as "an immensely complex tale," drawing comparisons with the work of Olaf Stapledon and Larry Niven.
VAST (disambiguation)
VAST can mean: as a styling:
VAST as an acronym
Podcasts:
