My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor{Greek Parakleton: Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, and Comfortor.} with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

 This was not so much knowing God as feeling God. But it was a highly emotional experience and, as such, it was necessarily transient. It was a kind of religious drug. It quite definitely found God in an abnormal experience and its aim was to escape from ordinary life. 