>>This has nothing to do with Jesus but is all about the prideful ego trip that causes you to think you have Truth in areas where a truly spiritual man would walk with humility in the face of the ineffable.
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>>Is it at all possible that there is no Satanic influence here but merely a lot of people who think you're a complete fool and are tired of your touting a version of Christianity which even most Christians find narrow-minded, ignorant, completely at odds with rational thinking and doing more harm to the cause of spirituality than all the secular attacks of the last millennium.?
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>>You exist in a tautological absurdity and while you are certainly entitled to do so, others are entitled to question your sanity.
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>>You are not even close to winning converts but on the contrary are re-enforcing people's worse impressions of believers. You might ask yourself that in that case whose cause are you really serving?
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>Beautifully argued.
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>Unhappily, it can never be enough.
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>The oxytocin storm associated with a personal epiphany primes the brain for mass rewiring. In that fertile field a complex-enough tautology will permanently bind all receptors, leaving none available to evaluate differing ideas. This is analogous to the preferential binding of carbon monoxide to hemoglobin.
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>If the condition is severe enough, the subject literally cannot entertain a different opinion. The capacity is no longer there.

Back in my days of being fascinated with psychotropics and kicking in the doors of perception, I was very interested in how the psychedelic experience - however induced - in various cultures had been ritualized to the "born again" epiphany. Spent a lot of time with R.D.Laing, Alan Watts, Huxley and Sandoz.

It is indeed very much a question of expectation and pre-programming so that an experience which is "real" in that it represents a serious chemical shaking of the sandbox will be processed and verbalized to the everyday conscious mind in a way that can be digested in a cultural context. If one were lucky, the prep said "just experience the wonder" and didn't try to put it in a box.

But at worst, in dogmatic cultures, the "born-again" experience, as you've described, just pours cement in the sandbox so there will be not more shaking.

At best, epiphany restores faith that there is a whole lot of something outside the illusion of the sensory mundane. It doesn't have to be comprehended, just apprehended. Agape should be enough.

I've heard scientists hit the same high note when they talk of the size of space or contemplate the space between atoms and the illusion of solid matter or how light refraction works. Sure they want answers and "Laws" but what they really are getting off on is that Question is so worthy of asking and there is a delight in not knowing all the answers yet.

The closest I get to the Great Wonder is working my way through extended chord progressions. The Gospel according to Bill Evans.

I acknowledge the "reality" of the born-again experience and I don't think psychotic breaks are necessarily "bad".

But I think being told "what it means", by a codified cultural preconception pollutes it destroy its value.

A really evolved religion would concentrate on reminding one to stay open to seeking and never claim to have found it for you.

A really evolved religion would not want you to believe it.