UPG purportedly comes about when an individual gains an understanding of a god, spirit, myth, or ritual by means of intuition or the experience of communication with a non-human entity.
[1] Phenomenologically, it is identical to "magical consciousness" as described by Susan Greenwood (see below) and has also been referred to in anthropological literature as "extraordinary experience.
[3] Because reconstructionists attempt to rebuild pre-Christian religious and spiritual practices based on texts, archaeology, and historical research, some practitioners find UPG to be counter to the point or excessively permissive.
[7][8] In this mode, often but not always enabled by a deliberately induced trance state, a person experiences awareness of and participation with other consciousnesses.
These other consciousnesses are understood in terms of the experiencer's cultural setting, often as separate beings but also as aspects of the self or larger patterns of which the self is a small part.