I think one clue where I am concerned is the number of threads of melody in the piece. Both the Sullivan and the Strauss had multiple lines contributing to the harmony. The Sullivan had two female and two male chorus parts, plus several soloists, and was using melodic harmony lines, which wove in and out of each other (I see a Mudcat analogy here). When we got it right, it became one thing, more than the sum of the parts. DonMeixner referred to the same thing, I think. And that thing occupied all my consciousness, and I was part of it. I know a couple of other things with a similar effect, but not quite the same. One is in a silent Quaker meeting, which becomes "gathered". (Quakerspeak for what we are discussing, I think, when it concerns the power of the Holy Spirit.) This doesn't always happen, but when it does, it is extraordinary. The singing is more physical, obviously. (Don't do much quaking, these days.) I suspect breathing has something to do with it. I wondered last time about contributing a detail from my memory, for which I cannot offer any references, about the effects of medieval church singing. Particularly the word Alleluia. I read that it contributed to changed consciousness and a meditative state. I think that there may be something of the power the Pythagoreans attributed to the action of the sounds, as well. But it's all guesswork.

Because of that piratical experience, I am a little careful about religious experience. I think these things are far more available than religious tradition would like to acknowledge, and that it is rather too easy to assume that such an experience in a religious context is due to God, when it may be due to enthusiastic singing, or inadvertently changing the breathing pattern, and then charge any "information" which accompanies it with a false authority. (Please note that this was the logical side of me making its input, and make the appropriate allowances!)