Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality: Religion in a Pluralistic World

A cross-disciplinary exploration of comparative religion that offers a “unified field theory” of religion as human behavior.

In this book, anthropologist and spiritual explorer Felicitas Goodman examines ritual, the religious trance, alternate reality, ethics and moral code, and the named category designating religion. The analysis is divided into two sections. The first reviews species-wide human traits that form the basis for religious behavior. Goodman, in speculative examination, traces the origins of religion to the dawn of human history, when religious ritual was accompanied by gesture rather than full-fledged modern speech. Ritual is seen as being the expression of the vastness of the drama of human life, death, birth, and procreation. The common neurophysiological basis for religious experience is seen to be a particular type of brain “tuning,” the religious altered state of consciousness, a trance facilitating contact with an alternate reality. The content of this other reality is shown to vary according to the type of adaptation to the habitat.

The second section describes the religious systems of the world, dividing them according to societal type. A systematic comparison shows that religions vary according to whether people are hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agriculturalists, nomadic pastoralists, or city dwellers.

“An important book which deserves the careful attention of serious students of religion.” —Religious Studies Review

“Very few such global interpretations are ever attempted—and this one succeeds . . . The book’s importance is in the interpretation as well as in the rich data base materials the book presents.” —Willard Johnson