"To recognize means to “know again,” implying that you knew before.” - Ekstæses Syllabus
"To recognize means to “know again,” implying that you knew before.” - Ekstæses Syllabus
Who We Are.
Ekstaeses Sanctuary is a religious nonprofit community. We exist for one purpose: to offer relief from the suffering that comes from the experience of separation — from Your Source, from one another, from yourself.
We are not a church in the traditional sense. We have no building, no hierarchy, and no story you must accept. What we have is a shared commitment to one thing: the direct, personal, unmistakable experience of oneness with Your Source.
We were founded on a simple but radical premise — that the Divine is not distant, not inaccessible, and not reserved for the few. It is present. It is available. And it can be experienced directly, by anyone who comes with sincerity and an open heart.
Our community gathers in person and in practice. We are bound not by doctrine but by experience — and by the recognition that what we seek, we already are.
Our PhilosophyWe take our name from the Greek word ekstasis — to stand outside oneself. To be moved beyond the ordinary boundaries of the self and into direct contact with something greater.
At Ekstæses Sanctuary, we believe this experience is not an accident. It is not reserved for saints or mystics. It is the birthright of every human being — and it can be cultivated, supported, and returned to again and again.
We do not teach about The Divine. We create the conditions for you to experience it directly. Everything in our practice — the daily lessons, the gatherings, the pilgrimages — is designed with this single aim.
Our Founding.
Ekstæses Sanctuary was founded in California by a small group of seekers who had each, independently, arrived at the same conclusion: that the most important thing a human being can do is come into direct relationship with Their Source — and that very little in contemporary life supports this.
We are a 501(c)(3) religious nonprofit. We operate by attraction, not promotion. We do not advertise or proselytize — a small and intentional community, united by practice rather than proximity. Those who find us tend to find us because something in them was already looking.
We are guided by the principle that the experience of What Sourced you cannot be manufactured — but it can be invited. Everything we do is an invitation.
“We do not ask for belief. We ask for willingness. The experience, when it comes, requires neither explanation nor defense.”
A lineage of direct experience
The Ekstæses Syllabus is adapted from A Course in Miracles (1975 public domain version) — a text we regard as one of the most direct and complete maps to the experience of oneness available in the modern era.
What we have created is our own living interpretation of that foundation: carefully adapted, renamed, and held within the specific theology and practice of Ekstæses Sanctuary. The Syllabus is not a replacement for the Course — it is the Course as we have received it, and as we practice it.
Additional texts are in preparation and will be made available to the community as they are completed.
Our Theology.
What we hold to be true
Ekstæses theology rests on a single recognition: that separation from Your Source is not real, and that the experience of oneness is not something to be earned or achieved — it is something to be remembered.
Suffering, in our understanding, arises not from the world but from the belief that we are apart from what created us. Our practice is oriented entirely toward dissolving that belief — not through argument or doctrine, but through direct, lived experience.
We do not proselytize. We operate by attraction, not promotion. Those who find their way to Ekstæses generally do so because something in them was already listening.
