Moreover, many premodern cultures believed in the existence of superior states of consciousness that people might access through meditation, drugs or rituals. Shamans, monks and ascetics systematically explored the mysterious lands of mind, and returned laden with breathtaking stories. They told of unfamiliar states of supreme tranquillity, extreme sharpness and matchless sensitivity. They told of the mind expanding to infinity or dissolving into emptiness.
Modern science has and continues to study the same - there's empirical evidence. The author is either ignorant of decades of research, or is purposely not giving such any weight.
