ABSTRACT

The word 'rapture' denotes a sense of being transported from one place to another in ecstatic delight, mental or physical. In Christianity it is usually experienced in private and often with a sense of non-volition or passivity (cf. Catherine of Siena, fourteenth century, or Theresa of Avila, sixteenth century). In Shamanist or possession religions it may be a two-way experience: while the rapture becomes lost in the divine, god or the spirit can now inhabit the available body.