"Spiritual" or "visionary" experiences are very saillent when considering exceptional scientific feats. Heisenberg: suddenly realized he had to study physics o

"Spiritual" or "visionary" experiences are very saillent when considering exceptional scientific feats. Heisenberg: suddenly realized he had to study physics on a bike when he was a teenage boy. Einstein: was driven by Mach's teenage vision of a metaphysics of pure relativity. Souriau (mathematician): would come up with new concepts in dreams. Voevodsky: would get mathematical insights by talking to DMT-like entities (but did not consume DMT). de Maillet (discovered sea level varied across millenia): had an angel tell him he had a destiny and would do great discoveries. Etc...