It would be interesting to get people's opinions on this. Since my last breakdown three years ago I still don't know how to tell if it was real or not. I was also pagan, but I started to get "visits" from Jesus and demons were exorcised out of me. After that happened I started to read the Bible and went through a bit of a religious phase. So, I can totally relate to this question of how can we tell what's a real spiritual/religious experience and what's MI.

From my understanding people with Bipolar can still get psychosis when deep into a manic or depressive phase. Unless that psychosis happens outside of one of those phases. Then perhaps it is something else (schizoaffective for example like I have).