Inebriation, trance, ecstasy – when are these `minor flights' welcome as the possibility to escape rationalized everyday experience, at least for a while? And when are they considered a social risk? This volume focuses on the question of how different societies and subcultures deal with extraordinary states of consciousness, and how the respective cultural frameworks can be comparatively understood. The spectrum of examples from bygone eras and distant cultures is broad, and it speaks to both cultural studies readers and non-specialists alike.
