In researching that last post, I came across a link someplace (I think on Fantastic Planet) about satori, the term Zen Buddhists use for the experience of the flash of enlightenment. I found a quote there by the famous DT Suzuki who wrote a bunch of stuff about Zen for westerners. Joseph Campbell used to quote him all the time.

Satori is the sudden flashing into consciousness of a new truth hitherto undreamed of. It is a sort of mental catastrophe taking place all at once, after much piling up of matters intellectual and demonstrative. The piling has reached a
limit of stability and the whole edifice has come tumbling to the ground, when, behold, a new heaven is open to full survey. When the freezing point is reached, water suddenly turns into ice; the liquid has suddenly turned into a solid body and no more flows freely. Satori comes upon a man unawares, when he feels that he has exhausted his whole being. Religiously, it is a new birth; intellectually, it is the acquiring of a new viewpoint.

Not only does this relate to the 2nd saying in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, it also calls to mind the Tower card in the major arcana of the Tarot deck, which stands for sudden abrupt upheaval. It depicts lightning striking a castle tower and two people plunging out of it. Here’s an alternate explanation of the card, and here is a history of it’s variations.