A quote

“Which was more likely to happen first: the spontaneously generated idea of an afterlife in which the disembodied soul, liberated from the restrictions of time and space, experiences eternal bliss, or the accidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants that give a sense of euphoria, dislocate the center of consciousness, and distort time and space, making them balloon outward in greatly expanded vistas? … the latter experience might have had an almost explosive effect on the largely dormant minds of men, causing them to think of think of things they had never thought of before. This, if you like, is direct revelation.” –Mary Barnard, as quoted by Huston Smith