Sublime experience may lead to the adoption of new spiritualistic beliefs and/or

affections, some of which can affect behavior. As mentioned earlier, the line between this

category and the transformative theistic sublime is blurry. It seems possible for a

traditional theist to have sublime experiences that lead initially to an expansion of

doctrinal commitments and an openness to other forms of theistic expression. Later,

however, the same person might cite those same sublime experiences as a motivation for

the ultimate relinquishment of classical theism altogether in favor of a broader,

spiritualistic credo. A prominent example here is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who came out of

traditional Christianity (he was pastor of Boston’s Second Church for a time), through

something like the transformative theistic sublime, and ultimately to a departure from

traditional theistic commitment, though he did not abandon transcendent metaphysics

entirely.

It seems equally possible for an atheist or agnostic to undergo the conversional

spiritualistic sublime. Such a person would presumably experience the bedazzlement-

outstripping-epiphany trio as leading directly to a spiritualistic vision of the world,

bypassing theism altogether. A possible example of the second sort of conversional

movement is Emerson’s protégé, Henry David Thoreau, who from an early age claimed

to have experiences that produced various “transcendentalist” beliefs about Being and

“the world-soul,” as well as an ethical outlook that emphasized tolerance, unity, and

collective consciousness.23
23
For some evidence of this, see Alan D. Hodder, Thoreau's Ecstatic Witness (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Even if it is not correct to say that Thoreau himself

took precisely this path, however, there are presumably others who have, especially in

south and east Asia, where traditional monotheism was never dominant

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