| Abstract
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The main findings on embodied spirituality within the Toronto Blessing are presented in this article. The aim of this study is to interpret ecstatic religious experiences from a psychological point of view. The theoretical framework is interdisciplinary, using theories from ego-psychology, social psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and ritual theory. Regarding the latter notion, Thomas Csordas has developed cultural phenomenology, which is a culturally constructed way of understanding a situation through using bodily senses in a sort of sensory engagement that is linked with inter-subjectivity. This way of thinking assumes that the body can impart knowledge and help us understand apparently non-rational phenomena. Ecstatic phenomena can be interpreted as bodily knowledge, a habitus, stored or saved in the body to be later activated in a cultural and ritual context. The main findings on embodied spirituality within the Toronto Blessing are presented in this article. The aim of this study is to interpret ecstatic religious experiences from a psychological point of view. The theoretical framework is interdisciplinary, using theories from ego-psychology, social psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and ritual theory. Regarding the latter notion, Thomas Csordas has developed cultural phenomenology, which is a culturally constructed way of understanding a situation through using bodily senses in a sort of sensory engagement that is linked with inter-subjectivity. This way of thinking assumes that the body can impart knowledge and help us understand apparently non-rational phenomena. Ecstatic phenomena can be interpreted as bodily knowledge, a habitus, stored or saved in the body to be later activated in a cultural and ritual context.
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