OA-week at DI: Tuesday’s article

Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, published since 1967, is a conference publication issued by the Donner Institute. In Scripta, a selection of conference papers presented at symposia and conferences organised by the institute, often in collaboration with international partners, are published in a revised article form. Scripta has been published as an open-access peer-review publication since 2014. All older articles have been digitalised and provided with abstracts and key words in journal.fi.

The article of the day is:

Holm, N. (1982). Ecstasy research in the 20th century – an introduction. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 11. https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67128

The phenomenon of religious ecstasy has been the focus of scholarly investigations and debate for centuries. In his article, Holm gives an overview of the study of ecstacy and related concepts such as trance, mysticism, possession, and altered states of consciousness in the 20th century. While scholars of previous generations strived to establish the nature of ecstasy in order to classify it according to different typologies, the trend in the second half of the twentieth century shifted towards more comprehensive models for understanding the ecstatic experience within its historical and cultural context. These perspectives make the study of religious ecstacy relevant still today.