stephen hendry:
BV swore me to secrecy but he told me the angels/devas visit him in his meditation and have informed him that what he is teaching is identical to what Buddha taught.
Dude that is one typical case of a guy who believed what the depths of his fear-full (or bliss-full) mind wanted to believe. If only he had known that it was possible to fall into such delusions as a result of meditation practice, maybe he wouldn't have.
I have myself during practice come across such whisperings. I had a few months of my first-path A&P during which it felt I understood "The Truth," which is something like "the whole universe is a permanent act of lovemaking between shiva and shakti," or something to that effect. I have some embarrassing posts here on DhO juggling with a slightly less lavish version of the ideas I had at that time, I won't bother to point it out (and I will feel really silly if you do Daniel and Tarin).
Looking in retrospect, it seems very foolish, and I can clearly see that the core of "knowing The Truth," was simply feeling that way (in this case, feeling that life was a constant act of lovemaking), without any objective content or thesis at all. I can easily imagine me getting stuck into such a delusion if I didn't have enough critical thinking to backtrack why and how I came to those beliefs.
The ensuing dark night helped a lot also

. However, during my first dark night, I also came to the conclusion that life was pointless and worthless, and that other people didn't see that because of being idiots. Now every time I walk in the park I can clearly see who was the idiot then

Rapture and pain can both feel like understanding. But every "conceptual construction" which derives from such "understanding" is usually incredibly biased! And in fact, the act of delusion can easily be changed into an act of understanding by only a slight change of perspective: it is clear that BV clearly "feels as if"
angels/devas visit him in his meditation and have informed him that what he is teaching is identical to what Buddha taught, and if he could see it that way (instead of buying into the content), he would have a great insight into the tricky nature of belief and his own mind. Instead, he has become a poor silly, lost dude, liable to drag others into the same shit-hole.
Anyone else here has stories of silly stuff they came to believe because of their practice?