Oprah Winfrey

You know, I remember having a gospel brunch here on the lawn many years ago, and I had Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick and Mariah Carey, and all of them were here.

And someone was passing the mic and literally everybody in the audience, all of us were in collective effervescence.

We had never seen anything like it or experienced anything like it.

And it was like the spirit came in to each of them and then entered us.

It was spectacular.

But lots of people experience this in sports, sporting events.

Yeah.

Concerts.

Yeah.

I remember just recently this past year, I went to see Gypsy with Audra McDonald.

Uh-huh.

And that performance of hers was, I just started weeping now, was out of body.

Yeah.

Was an out of body experience.

And so was Nicole in Sunset Boulevard, out of body.

So you were just amazed that a human being can do that.

I was like, I literally afterwards wrote both of them letters saying to see somebody vibrating at their highest level possible.

You just know that it doesn't get any higher than that.

That's the collective effervescence you talked about.

Well, in awe, one of the things, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life, one of the things you did was you asked over 2,000 people from all over the world, different faiths, different backgrounds, different life situations, different educations, and you asked them, what is an experience of awe that you've had when you encountered a vast mystery that transcends your world?