Fine summary of an important issue, and I am delighted that our culture is becoming more open to calm and respectful study of the range of human experience. We have named our mysteries religious, spiritual, creative, psychedelic, mystical, emotional, metaphysical — all different but overlapping labels for these various exotic ways of knowing and being.

The stubborn question remains, of course: do those states of mind connect with states beyond our own minds — to entities or conditions we might call god or spirit? That’s what it seems to feel like for most who experience those states.

Or are those wonders merely light shows our minds project on the inner walls of our skulls, as some insist?

I’d give an answer, but I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.

Keep the faith.