Maslow collected reports of what he called "peak experiences" – those extraordinary self-transcendent moments that feel qualitatively different from ordinary life. ... Here are some [of the common features of peak experiences]: The universe is perceived as a unified whole where everything is accepted and nothing is judged or ranked; egocentrism and goal-striving disappear as a person feels merged with the universe (and often with God); perceptions of time and space are altered; and the person is flooded with feelings of wonder, awe, joy, love and gratitude.

Maslow's goal was to demonstrate that spiritual life has a naturalistic meaning, that peak experiences are a basic fact about the human mind. In all eras and cultures, many people have had these experiences, and Maslow suggested that all religions are based on the insights of somebody's peak experience. Peak experiences make people nobler, just as James had said, and religions were created as methods of promoting peak experiences and then maximizing their ennobling powers. Religions sometimes lose touch with their origins, however; they are sometimes taken over by people who have not had peak experiences – the bureaucrats and company men who want to routinize procedures and guard orthodoxy for orthodoxy's sake.