Spiritual Experience for Atheists

"It's often imagined that atheists are in principle closed to spiritual experience. But the truth is that there is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing self-trancending love. Or ecstasy. Or rapture. Or awe. In fact there's nothing that prevents an atheist from going into a cave for a year, or a decade, and practicing meditation like a proper mystic.

What atheists don't tend to do is make unjustified and unjustifiable claims about the cosmos on the basis of those experiences."

~Sam Harris

From this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEV0xhTzI&feature=fvwrel