ECSTASY — By Robert A Johnson
Author of He, She and Me
Understanding the Psychology of Joy
Harper San Francisco isbn 0-06-250432-0 1989
“ECSTASY–The Dionysian experience–may be intellectually unfamiliar. But in ecstatic expression we will recognize a long-forgotten part of ourselves that makes us truly alive and connects us with every living thing. In Greek myth that part of ourselves is represented by Dionysus.”
“Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstasy, liberation and abandon. He is the perennial profusion of color and life and energy. When we touch Dionysus we touch the irrational wisdom of the senses and experience joy.”
Back cover: “The loss of ecstasy is one of the greatest tragedies of Western culture. We no longer know how to experience true ecstasy and the transformation it brings. By desperately seeking the mere physical expressions of joy — we remain unfulfilled and imbalanced. Here noted author and Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson explains the nature of ecstasy and shows us how to reconnect with the ecstatic element that lies dormant within us.”
Carl Jung: “The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological kind but are psychic events. We are threatened in a fearful way by wars and revolutions that are nothing else than psychic epidemics. At any moment a few million people may be seized by a madness and then we have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being exposed to wild beasts, tumbling rocks and inundating waters — man is exposed today to the elemental forces of his own psyche.”
Robert A. Johnson: “You cannot kill a god who is by definition immortal. Neither can you kill an archetype for an archetype is a basic human drive. We carry the archetypes deep within us; they are integral parts of our human nature that must be lived out. When an archetype is not lived out with consciousness or dignity as von Franz says,’it loads up with energy and becomes inhuman'”‘.
“Craving spiritual ecstasy we mistakenly seek material fulfillment. We chase after a phantom and when we catch it — in the form of more money, more food, more sex, more drugs, more drinks, more oblivion — we find that we have been chasing ephemeral happiness when we should have invited lasting joy.”
“But, as with addiction, we need more and more and more. Because we are not getting the divine joy we actually need to satisfy us, we crave its opposite. Thus robberies become muggings, muggings become beatings, beatings become shootings, shooting become bombings and where will it end? This is the addictive behavior that plagues our society and touches every aspect of our lives.”
“When Western society chose to follow the erratic footsteps of the degraded Bacchus instead of the joyful dance of Dionysus, it began it began to confuse materialism with sensation. As a result we citizens of the late twentieth century can truly be said to have lost our senses — or at least to have lost contact with them.”
“We often bemoan the ‘loss of intimacy’ in our society. We are quick to take a stranger to bed but we are loath to be touched emotionally. When we lost the concept of touch as a way to contact the god, we became ashamed of our natural urges and guilty even for our fantasies.”
“Truly to experience ecstasy, the love of God, would mean to invite profound change and this we are unwilling to do.”