There is evidence from ancient texts, and modern documented experiences, that grand insights are made during a high dose trip. (example is Elusinian Mysteries, or LSD trials pre-prohibition 1940-1970's, and modern entheogen use in psycho-therapy).
To know yourself, during this life, and shed your fears... Which can prepare you for your final death (to avoid having a bad trip during your final trip). A bad trip is when all your fears and guilt surfaces and freaks you out, basically some conflict of mind, some strong ego that doesn't allow mental flexibility, causing fixation / negative attachment.
Now that you know this, you'll understand the origin of the baptists with their dunking in water to be born again. Using the science of near death experience and what that does to the brain, cheap trip.... risky though, so, they didn't keep it.
And also, you'll see where heaven and resurrection comes from as well. These are not after death, they happen before death... using one of many different cognitive technologies (pharma, meditation, NDE, etc).
Organized religion, and organized society, has sidelined these out of fear - effectively robbing humanity of these gnosis experiences in order to put a priest in your path to "know god". Over millenia, they've even redefined "god" from a reality based concept rooted in cognitive manipulation techniques, higher consciousness / enlightenment, to god as an inconsistent fairy tale that requires belief. All for control, power and wealth.