I thought this was strange

Doesn't seem too far fetched to believe that there were mystery religions that would initiate someone if they were willing to bribe them. I think she's forgetting that the Mediterranean was a hot-bed for monotheism with most of the intellectuals of the time promoting it and questioning the morality of the gods that were being worshiped at the time. Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and of course 2nd Temple Judaism that all promoted a form of monotheism. I'm sure there are other groups I'm leaving out, but yeah monotheism the flavor of the week and a god above god stance was a way to make sense of why there would be talks of other gods if there is only one God.

It's a mystery.

All jokes aside, it's honestly a mystery at to what the experience could have been, we'd have to have been part of those mystery religions to gather what they were about.

Edit: Not all spiritual experiences are the same nor do they come from the same source. That's why I have a problem with DeConick trying to say that Gnostic was the ancient New Age. They recognized that there were different spirits and that they should be tested. New Age, or at least the New Age I was involved in didn't encourage that.