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When I read Heisenberg's reflections in a small book, I noticed that he used the word "poetry" almost interchangeably with "mysticism" (obviously to protect himself among fellow scientists against the accusation of having become woolly-minded). It prompted the remembrance of two things: first, Carl Jung's statement (in a conversation we had at his home in Küsnact) that he kept his mystical belief and experience secret in order to preserve his scientific reputation; second, Matthew Arnold's prediction more than a hundred years ago that religion would be displaced by poetry, and William Butler Yeats' statement in a conversation at his London club that the poet and the artist were taking over the work of the priests.

-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 6 : The Profane and The Profound > # 82