Estasi

Feeding on the vernacular mystical traditions that flourished in Europe from the thirteenth century onward, radical reformers recast many classical themes of Christian mysticism. This entry particularly focuses on the theme of ecstasy in sixteenth-century radicalism: an experience and idea central to the history of Christian mysticism, but one that transcends its boundaries by intertwining with apocalypticism and prophecy. Through a selection of relevant cases, this paper aims to highlight the mystical element’s crucial role in the religious proposal of radical reformers: key ideas of mysticism such as ecstasy were pivotal in the radical reformers’ quest for an ecclesiological deconstruction and for a cult that unfolds entirely – or almost entirely – in the worshiper’s inwardness.