Music generally speaking is essential to the spiritual and religious experiences. In that sense which is solicited from external stimuli, other means of exciting the senses are also valid and can greatly increase such experiences.

Music stimulates the sense of hearing through sound vibrations and is therefore more subtle and finer. That makes it more accessible in general because it relies on air molecules which are everywhere present to transmit; it then depends on touch of the ear drums.

A sense like taste participates in these same experiences when for example a dish has been prepared by one who possesses the gift or better said a siddhi. In such context a meal has been assessed to provide pleasure only describable in comparison to sex, another externally processed experience (yet originating in the subtle).

Touch and smell are more difficult to isolate in their participation but they too can contribute to feelings of wellness and even therapy. There exists traditional and alternative medicine based on all the senses.  

Music will always be just music and remain a lofty part of human experience; it can easily and immediately provide exhilaration and joy as well as therapy in the form relaxation and inspirations.

On the other hand, religious experience always relies on external objects and their interceding, through to the divine. Religious practices or experience normally are infused with traditional habits of summoning the divine for attributes such as health, wealth, etc. Such practices may also include the use of the nature’s elements (of earth, water, wind and fire) to support and reinforce the religious claims or demands.

And, spirituality increasingly includes the new terminology of yoga as well as formats of Buddhism are being defined to mean a positive state of mind or being, and not necessarily and systematically a lifestyle. That is a demarcation from the religious life as a display of communal aspirations to the afterlife.

Neo-spirituality is the integration of said attributes into one’s life by means of personal practice, such as use of sensory therapy to enhance health or sense of happiness. Religiosity would then be the communal summoning of such attributes through a clergy and its affiliated supernatural figurehead by use of material means.

Individual religious practitioners who can rely solely on the analytical faculty or literal appreciation of their doctrine of the divine do not need the sensory input for satisfaction, but they are rare and are able to dedicate more time to their practice or religious observation. They may still commune with others of their faith by dint of rituals and ceremonies.

However, when the practitioners’ vibrational energy has been positioned so as to directly elevate the level of perception, the participation of different senses is accessed intra-dimensionally, and not from this material dimension that is external to the spirit of the worshiper.

In such cases external stimulation serves as a disturbance to the inner experience. And it can be very challenging for the intellect to reproduce those supra-natural sensations or experiences through gross senses or means.

This can be difficult question to answer; the gross appreciation is sourced in a subtle need for enjoyment and will be still be felt beyond death, without a gross body. And, higher level of existence or environments display increasing subtler mediums and objects of enjoyment.

There can be a channeling of the harnessed effects of the sensory stimulation like melody and lyrics, when they denote devotion and the worshiper is able to access the existential bandwidth of their deity (ies).

In such cases, there is transcendence of the external human experience because the devotee has presumably gotten in touch with the environment of their object of worship. This is similar to the manifestation of the variegated states of trance depicted in different esoteric sub-cultures.

Anecdotally, when I lived in Chicago in the late 90’s I would attend a tiny and humbling church in an abandoned house in the South side of town. It was clear across town from the Hare Krishna Temple almost in front of which I was renting an apartment. The priestess, mother Troy as we called her would play the organ after her sermon.

During the following litany she and her most advanced and very astute disciple brother Zain would lead the congregation of less than 10, in speaking in tongues. The following half hour would suddenly combust into a feverish pitch confused in an array of physical exclamations and exertion from babbling and stammering hysterically.

Once the energy and amalgamated emotions that were practically palpable would simmer down, the disciples described their experiences. Brother Zain who was about high school age, in particular would always describe a union with Lord J. Christ and mother Toy herself would be also in his description normally wearing a white dress, and astrally positioned to the right side of the Lord.   

Considering the degree of fervency these practitioners appeared to exhibit, it is reasonable to assume that they will in the hereafter coalesce around their practice as they did on this experiential side. And they will access the same means of sensory perception along with the corresponding subtle objects, mediums and craft they have had previously co-created or contributed to.