I'm not referencing "The Exorcist" (1) loosely inspired by actual events, but of personal experience that leads the explorer into a world beyond, the beyond that appears to be present within our sentient perception.
Aldous Huxley's understandings of perception are not my experience: The literature of religious experience abounds in references to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum. In theological language, this fear is due to the in-compatibility between man's egotism and the divine purity, between man's self-aggravated separateness and the infinity of God.
It is my understanding that there is no incompatibility between the experience of the divine presence, and the human ego focused on its journey into the unknown reaches of its passage through time.
You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it—an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare's words "Under it my genius is rebuked." This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous. ~ C. S. Lewis
Simply expressed there is the thought that the inexplicable incident that challenges our understandings of the rational serves a purpose that at the appropriate time will reveal to us its reasoning. Meaning that for every event that challenges our interpretation of the stimuli that daily enter our life, there will be an answer appearing in its due time to justify, and explain the event. At the time the episode takes place we may well be in awe of that which has mesmerised us sufficiently to seek an answer within the realm of rational possibility.
All I wish for is a deep change, a complete transformation. But, for God's sake, in any direction other than spirituality ~ Mircea Eliade
For not a few who undergo a numinous experience there is often an immediate rejection of the so called spiritual involvement, there being no wish to enter into a world where rational thinking never provides a satisfactory answer to the questions that arise from the phenomenon that challenges our understandings of the rational.
I have known those who have instantly rejected the spiritual dimension of their numinous events, leading them away from any thought that their experience held any religious, or spiritual worth. Or, they attempt to do so, believing that their extraordinary experience was merely their brain playing tricks.
Simplistic answers often satisfy those who choose to believe that there is no life beyond that which the senses can easily explain.
“To whatever degree he may have desacralised the world, the man who has made his choice in favour of a profane life never succeeds in completely doing away with religious behavior.” ― Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism_of_Roland_Doe
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