About half of the U.S. public (49%) says they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a "moment of sudden religious insight or awakening." This is similar to a survey conducted in 2006 but much higher than in surveys conducted in 1976 and 1994, and more than twice as high as in a 1962 Gallup survey (22%). In fact, the 2009 Pew Forum survey finds that religious and mystical experiences are more common today among those who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (30%) than they were in the 1960s among the public as whole (22%).
According to kabbalists, a person constantly questions his goals, and the surfacing of all kinds of desires in him prompts changes in his life. However, all these desires and occurrences surface at the level of our world, and as such, are unrelated to spirituality. It could also be that this person starts worrying about the world to come, about what will happen to him after he dies, and thus starts noticing everything in the world as being illusive and transient, and that he’ll be left with nothing at the end of it… In either case, he is pursuing security, and religion offers him a reward for his efforts.