Here’s what undergoing spiritual experiences from a secular materialist background is like. One day, you start seeing glimpses of a new color, that’s more vivid than all of the other colors. Let’s just call it purple. Looking at purple starts to have profound effects on your behavior and priorities, which are unmistakably positive. You report this to some people you know and the responses are like: “Well, science has disproven the existence of that color.” Or: “Are you sure you’re seeing purple? People are really suggestible.” Or: “Yeah, I took a mindfulness course and they talked about purple, it’s a helpful concept, but I think it’s just a metaphor.” Meanwhile, you start talking to woo people you dismissed as stupid before. And, much to your initial chagrin, it turns out they have an extremely sophisticated vocabulary for when and why purple shows up, how to interact with it, and how to act such that it begins to suffuse your entire life. Some of what they say seems like load-bearing myth and symbol rather than verifiable truth, but it’s still helpful. It works on these experiences you start having, it’s clear that they’re talking about the same earth-shattering phenomena you are encountering. You do the things they say, and find your life completely transformed. Even the woo people you talk to who are not so academically smart, who have less rigorous ways of thinking overall, still seem to have better intuitions for dealing with purple, and its existence, and at least they see it—the most important and beautiful thing in the world. Which makes all the very intellectually sophisticated but closed people, who you used to uncritically admire, seem blind in an important way. Because it becomes clear that they are actively trying to avoid an element of human life that, for many thousands of years, has been regarded as intelligent (and non-intelligent) people as the most deep, sustaining, and fulfilling aspect of existence.