In fact, none of the great founded religions, Christianity, Buddhism,
Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, none of them began
with a philosophical framework or even a main idea. They all began
with an overwhelming
new experience, what Joachim
Wach
called "the experience of the holy," and Max Weber, "possession of the
deity," the sense of being a vessel of the divine, of the All-one....
Jesus, Mani, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha -- at the very outset the
leader did not offer his circle of followers a better state hereafter
or an improved social order or any reward other than a certain
"psychological state in the here and now," as
Weber put it.
-- Tom Wolfe. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968).