Not necessarily. My exchange with Ricter used "feelings" and "emotions" interchangeably. The thoughts preceding a resulting emotion can be instantaneous and fleeting, or more protracted as you described them. The principal constant is the order in which they occur. But don't take my word for it.
From the non-religious perspective, Newberg has been criticized for not ultimately reducing religion to brain function.
Read the book. Feelings can be a conditioned response to a stimulus based on a past event that may or may not have been blown out of proportion. (Problems arise when people blow things out of proportion.) This conditioned response can be near instantaneous. Imagine Charlie Brown, who once met a red-headed girl and became enamored of her. Despite his strong attraction to her (based on love maps or whatever), she did not return his affection and this left a mark on him. Now, he may flinch almost automatically every time he sees a red-headed girl and feel nervous and unsure of himself. His near automatic response is based on his perception of a past event which is now affecting his perception of present and possibly future events. Duration of thought to a near automatic feeling can be fleeting. We are all "victims" of our own life experiences, both good and bad, when we blow things out of proportion and fall into various mental traps described in the book.
I was adding context to your following remarks:
I was merely pointing out that feelings/emotions are essentially the byproduct of thoughts that precede them. By virtue of transitivity, that implies that thoughts are "real" too, which, of course, they are. However, real thoughts need not necessarily be valid, which is why I used the extreme example of a psychotic earlier. A psychotic's feelings may be very real, but they are based on a thought process that is flawed. My point, therefore, is that although feelings may be very real, they are only as valid as the thoughts that preceded them.
