@article{Grosso_2021, title={Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece by Yulia Ustinova}, volume={35}, url={https://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/article/view/2127}, DOI={10.31275/20212127}, abstractNote={<p>What role did altered states of consciousness play in the life of ancient Greek society?&nbsp; With consummate skill and scholarship, Yulia Ustinova answers this question in her book, <em>Divine </em>Mania<em>: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece</em>. It appears that the secret of the extraordinary creativity of the ancient Greeks was their receptivity to, and approval of, a particular altered state of consciousness they cultivated.&nbsp; <em>Mania</em> is the name for this but it must be qualified as “god-given.” <em>Mania</em> is a word that touches on a cluster of concepts: madness, ecstasy, and enthusiasm<em>, engoddedness</em>, to use Ustinova’s more vivid coinage. It seems a paradox that this special, strange and often quite frightening state of dissociation should be so closely linked to one of the most creative civilizations.&nbsp; Unlike the Roman and Egyptian, the Greek approved and recognized the value of god-inspired mania. Plato makes Socrates say in the <em>Phaedrus</em> that through <em>mania </em>we may obtain the “greatest blessings.” Whereas resistance to divine ecstasy can end in disaster, as Euripides illustrates in <em>The Bacchants</em> when Pentheus, a repressive authoritarian, tries to inhibit a posse of women from their ecstatic mountain dances. He is torn to shreds by his mother and her maniacal cohorts. &nbsp;&nbsp;This mindset of the ancient Greeks may have long ago petered out, but similar tendencies are constants, expressed in one form or another, throughout history.</p&gt;}, number={3}, journal={Journal of Scientific Exploration}, author={Grosso, Michael}, year={2021}, month={Sep.}, pages={682-686} }