This verse is another indication that this is a speech given in the presence of the sons of Mosiah. While it is quite possible that Alma really could have such great joy just by remembering the success of his brethren, it is more likely that this describes the powerful spirit that must have been present when these old friends are discussing the events. In addition to Alma’s own spirituality, the great spirit of the sons of Mosiah would also be present, and would increase the intensity of the spiritual atmosphere.
Cultural: Alma makes an interesting statement that his “soul is carried away, even to the separation of it from the body.” Of course this brings to mind not only his own experience during his conversion (Mosiah 27:19) and the conversions of Lamoni and his father (Alma 18:42; Alma 22:18). In the Mesoamerican cultural context in which we are placing the story of the Book of Mormon, this statement may have an even wider implication.
Mesoamerican religions are built upon a religious cosmology known as shamanism. The volume Maya Cosmos is subtitled “Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path” (David Freidel, Linda Schele, Joy Parker. William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York 1993). Shamanic religions have as one of the major underpinnings the idea that the shaman may communicate with the world of the spirits through some type of ecstatic experience. That ecstatic experience may be triggered in many ways, but is frequently described as the soul leaving the body.
In some cases, the departure of the soul leaves the body quiescent as the spirit travels (note an example of a shamanic initiation in Mircea Eliade, Shamanism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1964, p. 53). In a world embued with the cosmology of shamanism, it is possible that the separation of spirit and body was understood as a supreme act of spiritual communion, and the trance-like, death-like states of Lamoni and his father may have been cultural interpreted as such a trance. This would be particularly true since it was expected of shamanic kings that they perform such ecstatic rituals.
While Alma is certainly not a shaman, nevertheless it would not be surprising if his vocabulary were colored by the worldview in which he grew up. We must remember that prior to his conversion he was apparently quite taken with the non-gospel worldview. When he discusses a spiritual experience in terms of separation from his body, it is not impossible that this would be an echo of the cultural understanding of the shamanic ecstatic journey.