Ecstasy, rapture, transport denote a feeling or a state of intense, sometimes excessive or extreme, mental and emotional exaltation.
Ecstasy in its earlier sense, which is now found chiefly in religious and poetical writings, implies a trancelike state in which consciousness of one’s surroundings is lost and the mind is intent either on what it contemplates (as does the mystic) or on what it conceives and creates (as does the inspired poet or artist).
In later and now general use the term implies overmastering, entrancing joy, or other emotion that exalts the mind and overcomes the senses.
Rapture in its early religious use and still occasionally in theology, mysticism, and poetry differs from ecstasy in implying a lifting of the mind or soul out of itself by divine power, so that it may see things beyond the reach of human vision; the experiences narrated by the Apostle Paul of being caught up to the third heaven are in this sense raptures.
In its chief current sense rapture merely implies intense bliss or beatitude with or without the connotation of accompanying ecstasy or loss of perception of everything else.
Transport applies to any violent or powerful emotion that lifts one out of oneself and, usually, provokes enthusiastic or vehement expression.