It would be presumptuous in a field like pauline studies to claim that one had found the strangest thing because we are indeed blessed with many. Instead, this book is an exploration of the coincidence of two curiosities. The first curiosity, and the major interest of the chapters that follow, is Paul's ecstatic religious experience. This interest begins with the premise that a certain set of Pauline texts not traditionally read together forms an inherently meaningful grouping. In part, they belong together because in each text Paul is describing occasions in which he considered himself to be in contact with nonhuman agents (spoken of mainly as spirit – whether spirit of God, spirit of Christ, holy spirit, spirit of sonship, etc.). In another way, these texts also belong to the broad category of religious experience and, more precisely, can be categorized as involving altered states of consciousness (henceforth designated by the abbreviation ASCs).