Mystic Experience and Conversion

We now have something of a basis for understanding how this model applies to religious, mystical experiences:

The cognitive spectrum provides us with a vantage point from which we can survey and make sense of human thought as a whole. More: it tells us something about the dynamics of human thought—its history over multiple time scales.

1. "Over the course of a day fatigue sets in and the character of thought changes."
2. "Over the first decades of life maturity comes about, and the character of thought changes."
3. "Over the millenia of human existence the modern mind emerges, and the character of thought changes."

I'll call these the Big Three cognitive transitions. They differ radically in character and take place over radically different time scales. But it's a curious fact that, if we view these three transitions from the spectrum’s vantage point, they all three seem to tell the same underlying story. It is the story of gradual transition across the spectrum… The three transitions remain radically different, but the underlying theme turns out to be the same.