Is a supernatural explanation for religious experience reasonable?

Religious believers often give an account of some experience as evidence for their beliefs, or at least as evidence for why they personally belief. These experiences, the proponent often claims, are direct evidence for the existence of the object of their beliefs. In the case of Christians, these experiences are claimed to indicate the truth of Christianity, or at least provide the believer (and perhaps others) with (possibly overwhelming) reasons to believe.

The description of the experiences that I'm familiar with don't seem to hold any mystical quality. The believer tends to describe something which does not seem entirely out of the ordinary for a brain/mind to produce - feelings of love, of the presence of another person, feelings of peace and tranquillity. These feelings tend to then be interpreted in a manner which is consistent with the believers faith tradition. Sometimes the interpretation leads to something slightly different to the person's current faith tradition, but rarely if ever does it appear that the interpretation is something completely outside the persons current belief system. There don't seem to be many accounts of Buddhists experiencing a Trinitarian deity while deep in meditation, of or Christians experiencing a loss of individuality and oneness with "reality". I would expect experiences which differ from what is "expected" by the person to be interpreted in light of their current beliefs regardless.

So, where does this leave the believer (and us). We seem to have a large number of disparate experiences, and incompatible interpretations of those experiences. The interpretations, as pointed out, always seem to be in line with the faith tradition of the person. This seems to indicate that not all of these experiences can be veridical. For, how can the foundation of reality be both a Trinitarian person, as well as an impersonal "force"?

This leaves the believer having to claim that, while their experience was veridical, the experience of others was not so, though on what grounds they are able to make this distinction I do not know. Believers of very different faiths seems similarly sincere in their beliefs, and in the veridical nature of their experiences. I'd expect that the simple existence of experiences which don't comport to their faith tradition, or to the interpretation of their own experience, ought to lead to at least a little caution in accepting a particular experience as truthful.

But, is that all we can say regarding religious experiences? Are we left with a comparison of subjective experiences and the associated subjective interpretations of those experiences? I don't think so.

There is evidence from science that purely physical stimulation of the brain can elicit experiences of a similar nature to those described by those who have had a so called religious experience. This fact, that the experience could be an entirely physical reaction within the brain, should also, I'd think, add some doubt to the believer as to how the experience arose. If the person's brain is capable of generating the experience, without the need for contact with something outside of the person (whether God or something else), then how can you tell whether your experience was caused by something other than your brain? It seems to me that the believer is left with making a bare assertion that this was the case, and I'm not sure what sort of evidence could be brought forward to justify this assertion.

So, if the above is reasonable, then surely the believer ought to be in an agnostic position regarding the nature of their experience. Is this, then, all that can be said? Again, I think we can argue further.

Surely we can ask how it is that these experiences can influence the world? It seems that somehow the experience must have an empirical effect, and empirical effects are open to investigation. Such experiences entail that the laws of physics break down in the small area of tissue within our skulls. Regardless of whether the person is a substance dualist or a materialist when it comes to questions of the relationship between the mind and the brain, at some stage something non-material must effect something material. Whether it is the person's purported immaterial mind influencing the brain to cause the experience (which on this account would not be amenable to empirical investigation), or whether the "something else" outside of the brain which caused the person's brain to elicit this experience, some interaction has taken place. We would have a breakdown of the regular behaviour of particles. So what, you might ask, isn't God able to cause miracles? Perhaps, but this would still require the breakdown of the laws of physics as we understand them, and some of those laws are rather well supported by theory and empirical evidence. One such law which would need to break down is the law of conservation of matter/energy. While this is "suspended" for very short periods of time over very small distances in quantum mechanics, it is, as I understand it, maintained globally, and always when we get to the realm of classical physics.

So where does this leave the believer?
We have multiple conflicting experiences and interpretations given by believers in various different and conflicting faiths, seemingly without any objective means to differentiate between "real" experiences and "correct" interpretations, which indicates that not everyone's experience can be "real", nor can everyone's interpretation be "correct".
We have evidence that the experiences can in fact be elicited physically, indicating that these experiences could possibly be entirely physical in nature, and that these experiences could simply be part and parcel of "brain ownership".
Finally, we have models of reality which are solidly attested by the evidence, which indicate that any claim of some "supernatural" or "immaterial" interaction is implausible.

Now, the believer is within their rights to claim that their experience is veridical, but as far as I see it, for the claim to be rational they would need to (1) provide some methodology by which to distinguish "real" experiences from the dross, (2) some means of identifying whether an experience was not simply a physical occurrence in the brain, and finally (3) some string evidence that the laws of physics as we know them do not apply, or at least don't always apply, within our skulls.

So far responses to (1) seem to amount to special pleading for the persons specific interpretation and faith tradition. responses to (2) seem to plead that the individual can simply tell whether the experience was extra-physical in some way. Responses to (3) seem to appeal to mystery.

In short, I don't see that any of the responses I've seen, to explain religious experience, give the person who had the experience, let alone a third party, reason to accept it as evidence in favour of their beliefs.

The people who seem to insist that their experiences were "real" also seem to have the belief that unless something is "abnormal" with their mind/brain (under extreme stress or suffering from a mental disorder) that their mind/brain is inherently reliable under all circumstances.

I would reply that this is not the case, that our mind/brain can be unreliable under normal circumstances, and that science has indicated what these circumstances might be. Just as an optical illusion can fool the image processing of our mind/brain, so to can other situations fool other parts - and some of this "aberrant" mental processing likely has good reason for occurring under "normal" situations (hyperactive agency detection comes to mind).