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But the mystical experience is not sufficiently common to be made the foundation for popular instruction in the modes of obtaining it. Humanity in its present stage is not even mystical by nature, let alone philosophical, but it could become so by education and training. For mysticism always follows religion as a further stage in the individual's journey. The mystical consciousness is an inevitable stage of human evolution. Every man will attain it with the efflux of time. But he will not do so by a smooth mechanical clocklike progress. His ascent will be uneven erratic and zigzag. Yet he will necessarily attain it. The few who want to anticipate the human evolutionary process must take to mysticism or philosophy.

-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 5 : Self-Development > # 336