Destructive Ecstasies: Wargasm and the Joy of Violence

Abstract

In this chapter, we look at some of the ways that ecstasy has been redirected into violence, transgression, and destruction. In the fascination with violent films and videos of vampires and ghosts, in “wargasm ” and joy of killing, we see a transformation of the supernatural and transcendent into the superstitious and dark. Here, we examine ecstatic violence and the joys of terrorism . When no religious form of ecstasy is accessible (whether because it is false, or only available in the future), the desire for intensity can turn to the current evil and monstrous, or to the future apocalypse. Here, we examine the ecstasy of transgression , and the ways that violence has been incorporated into religions, including the tensions between the ethical and the mystical