If collective life awakens religious thought on reaching a certain degree of intensity, it is because it brings about a state of effervescence which changes the conditions of psychic activity. Vital energies are overexcited, passions more active, sensations stronger; there are even some which are produced only at this moment. A man does not recognize himself; he feels transformed and consequently he transforms the environment which surrounds him.

Durkheim, Émile. 1912 [1961]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by J. Swain, Free Press of Glencoe. Excerpted in R. Robertson. 1969. ed.: Sociology of Religion, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p.605-606.