Crucially, Gelernter explicitly does not believe his model “explains away” spiritual experience, but rather elevates it to the same validity and importance as high-focus thought.
From the last page of the above-linked PDF:
…One more patronizing attempt to explain religious and spiritual phenomena out of existence? I think not. Because I can assert—the spectrum [of high/low focus] allows me to assert— that the spiritual state of minds is in fact truth revealing. It produces not merely a certain something-or-other feeling but fresh knowledge, although not necessarily of a sort that can be communicated. The “connectedness” of which spiritualists speak is exactly the same stuff out of which discoveries of the structure of benzene are made. It is real connectedness. Not every affect link reveals a fact of scientific value, or of any practical value, but every affect link reveals a truth.