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The Experience of Ecstasy
as the Experience of God By Gianluigi Gugliermetto 1/7/2025 |
I have always been interested in exploring the beginnings of Matthew Fox’s theological career, as I am convinced that the way one lays out one’s perspective on life and being is key to understanding everything that happens later. |
However, in this exploration of mine, I have overlooked until now a book published originally in 1976, thus quite early in Matthew’s career, which goes by the title Whee! We, Wee All The Way Home: A Guide to Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality. I believe that going back to such a book can provide extremely precious insights, not only to understand his work in its entirety, but especially for a chaotic time like ours. The main idea that Matthew develops in the first part of the book is that the experience of ecstasy is the experience of God. This sentence alone would |
Matthew Fox’s early work Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home (1976). Image from his website. |
deserve several books for unpacking it, not because it is obscure, but because it goes to the root of so many unresolved cultural issues that my mind reels when I simply read or speak it. It is a very important idea for us today, for the following reasons: 1. Today “God” is either expunged from common discourse, or is used as a signpost for Christofascist ideologies; therefore, bringing back God in defiance of both the “death of God” claims and the fascist, blasphemous uses of the Sacred Name can be a revolutionary move; 2. Today "ecstasy" is commodified or vilified, that is, some people make use of an increasing quantity of chemical substances in order to experience something out of the ordinary — as their everyday experience is quite miserable — while other people condemn all kinds of search for ecstatic experiences — thus reducing human life, and even religion, to an ethical experience free from any scent of the
sacred; |
The promise of ecstasy, commodified: The cover of a “Fredericks of Hollywood” catalog, circa 1980. In many cases, uncredited commercial artists (themselves exploited) “sell” the promise better than real-live models. From the collection of team member Rosanna Tufts. | 3. Today "experience" is mostly an unknown reality, in the sense that the personal unique qualities associated to true personal
experience are being squashed by the lack of time to savor them, and by the general regimentation induced by consumerist society. Just by simply touching on the three words involved in the Foxian sentence “the experience of ecstasy is the experience of God,” we have gotten enough material to muse upon. But let’s add
Matthew’s definition of ecstasy: Ecstasy is a memorable experience of forgetting oneself, of getting |
outside of oneself. Here is the crux of the matter. What is missing today — which explains why the world is going so bad — is the courage to go beyond one’s comfort zone and, in so doing, touch the divine. Be it through nature, friendship, music, sex, art, etc., there are many alleys available to human
beings in order to experience ecstasy, that is, to have an experience of life that is not possible to control and regiment. But what cannot be regimented cannot be reproduced and sold. Their surrogates are produced and sold, of course, but they achieve the opposite results, that of leading people away from the Sacred Source, which theologians like myself call God. Transcending oneself, not simply as a result of effort but as the experience of a gift, has been for all of human history a major component of culture. Fox writes that in experiencing ecstasy, we are experiencing what our forefathers in spiritual traditions called ‘grace’. Thus the death of God is a concern, not because with it dies the symbol of social order and control, but because the fundamental and basic experience
of transcendence, of forgetting one’s ego, risks to be commodified and ultimately eliminated. |
It does not matter, in the end, if people use or not use the word “God,” but whether the experience of the sacred, that is, ecstatic experience — which is so naturally available and yet so incredibly denied today — is preserved and transmitted to future generations. To be clear, to me as a theologian that |
Music can bring the listener outside of oneself, for an ecstatic experience. The BBC Orchestra plays “Neptune, the Mystic” from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.” Video by Daniel Brusch. |
means honoring God and living in God. Playing a game, talking freely with a friend, walking alone in nature may seem obvious things, but to the extent that we live those things deeply we get freedom from our ego and we touch the divine. These are, after all, the most mystical and political
acts we can enjoy, in the sense that they constitute that very essential element of human culture and civilization which is continually undermined in our time. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you find helpful Matthew’s definition of the experience of the divine as an
experience of ecstasy, i.e. forgetting oneself and getting outside of oneself? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. Books and More by Matthew and Friends! Be sure to check out Matthew's new store at MatthewFox.org, now offering books, recorded courses old and new, and special events... and don't miss our growing collection of books endorsed by Matthew on Bookshop.org! |
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