Ayrton Senna
In his lifetime, Ayrton Senna was acknowledged as the greatest F1 racing driver in the world.  Gifted with immense natural skill and technical understanding, he rose to the top of the F1 world and became world champion four times, an astonishing achievement.  Even his detractors allowed he had no equal inside a racing car, and though his ethics were sometimes questionable, his self belief was not.  He did not come from a humble background, but had still to work his way up the ladder in the most competitive sport imaginable.  He subscribed to the Christian faith, but of it, he said:

"There is no end to the knowledge that you can get or the understanding or the peace by going deeper and deeper.  I pray regularly, not because it is a habit but because it has innovated my life.  I hardly go to church because the only time I feel really good in a church is when there's nobody there." (1)

An intellectual subscription to religion is not exactly remarkable.  But Senna was a talented individual, certainly not far from the realms of genius.  Genius is, evolutionarily speaking, close to the threshold of mystical experience.  A short step or sudden event can carry an individual from one state to the other, even momentarily, confirming a lifetime of instinctive faith in a higher world.   Consider this description of events at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix of 1988:

"..the last qualifying session.  I was already on pole, then by half a second and then one second and I just kept going.   Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car.  And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously.  I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.  It was like I was in a tunnel.  Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel.  I was just going and going, more and more and more and more.  I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.

"Then suddenly something just kicked me.   I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are.  My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.  I drove slowly back to the pits and I didn't want to go out any more that day.  It frightened me because I was well beyond my conscious understanding.  It happens rarely but I keep these experiences very much alive inside me because it is something that is important for self-preservation." (2)

Remember also that two seconds is an eternity in a sport where thousandths of a second are the established currency.  Senna's team mate at the time, Alain Prost, is also widely regarded as one of the smoothest, and therefore fastest, drivers of all time, and was also world champion several times.  From the above quote it is clear that Senna on occasion joined that group of individuals who are talented to the point of complete focus, sometimes achieving a point at which their own innate intelligence is overwhelmed by a greater one beyond their direct control.