The Art of Losing Control: A Philosopher's Search for Ecstatic Experience

Every society in human history, except ours, had accepted ways for people to lose control, go beyond the ego, and connect to something bigger than them. This experience of ego-dissolution was known as ecstasy. After the Enlightenment, western culture wrote off ecstatic experiences as a form of mental illness. But in the last decades, they have returned to the mainstream and become an object of scientific research.

Are there ways we escape the claustrophobia of our egos and find transcendence that are good for us, and that don't require us to believe in nonsense? Drawing on his work as research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, as well as his own ecstatic experiences, Jules Evans explores what we can gain from learning the art of losing control.

Jules's exploration of ecstasy is an intellectual and emotional odyssey balancing personal experience, interviews and readings from ancient and modern philosophers that will change the way you think about how you feel. From Aristotle and Plato, via the Bishop of London and Sister Bliss, radical Jihadis and Silicon Valley transhumanists, The Art of Losing Control illuminates a new science of ecstasy which can motivate us, free us, and transform our relationship with the world.