# Religious, Redux

Originally published: 2017-03-11
Canonical URL: /2017/Mar/religious-redux/

"Shit! _Shit!_ Remember how, the last time this happened to me, I described it as [feeling religious](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2013/03/religious/)?"

"Yeah."

"I was wrong! It's actually the feeling of _acquiring a new religion_, getting eaten by someone else's egregore. It's not that the God-shaped hole was _empty_ before; it's that I didn't _notice_ what it was filled _with_. It's tempting to describe the psychotic [delusions-of-reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_reference_and_delusions_of_reference)/anticipation-of-Heaven/fear-of-Hell state as a 'religious experience' because the process of the God-shaped hole getting filled with something new is so _intense_. But that's only because once the hole is filled and you feel safe again, it doesn't feel like a religion anymore; it just feels like reality."