In a public lecture that Abraham Maslow gave in 1961 he spoke about spiritual / mystical / peak experiences in exalted terms, saying that they feel like "[a] miracle achieved, like perfection finally attained."
He also said that they were extremely common. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I now suspect that they occur in practically everybody although without being recognized or accepted for what they are." Maslow continues:
"Think for a minute how crazy this is in its implications. It’s taken a long time for it to soak in on me. Practically everybody reports peak-experiences if approached and questioned and encouraged in the right way. Also I’ve learned that just talking about it, as I’m doing now, seems to release from the depths all sorts of secret memories of peaks never revealed to anyone before, not even to oneself perhaps."
Then he asks a question, which I have also been wondring about for years: "Why are we so shy about them? If something wonderful happens to us, why do we conceal it?"
