>"I am talking about an experience I cannot fit in or explain away. ....couldn't brush it off as an ordinary experience perceived under extraordinary circumstances?"

What "if" indeed?
That exact same thing has happened to me more than once. The first time it knocked me out of reality. For just for a month or two, maybe a year or two. Maybe a decade. Maybe it's permanent. Now I live constantly between dimensions. I still maintain my grip on reality but I have learned how to juggle.

I have two lives, two perspectives. One comes from my soul level which has an eternal identity. When I am viewing things from this level, I recognize others on my path and see my humbling destiny as a student on this planet. When I am "me", I see how truly multi-dimensional I really am. The Lindy of my childhood. The Lindy as a wife. The Lindy as a mother. And now the Lindy who has two aging parents and two grown children with a lifetime of experience while "Lindy" tries to re-define herself.

So I take the broader perspective. I see the eternal and I have a vantage point above the rest; as I can see the manipulation, the control and know that of which I speak. It IS a lonely existence HERE. But I have chosen the existence to experience it.

>"Magic just seems like an easy excuse to explain away the real issues. A way to avoid facing the truth, and admitting the true cosmic proportions of our loneliness."

Although you see it differently, I understand your grief. We all question our walk upon this planet. Why we're here. WHY? Sometimes it seems so senseless. Is there no greater plan? Are we supposed to be just automatons that struggle from birth to death?
(I feel your pain). This is where faith of some sort comes in to protect you from that ever increasing loneliness. And that faith can be in many different venues. Religion. The marketplace. Material possessions. Self. Another. Addictions. The list IS endless.