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Emerson's scorn of the "mummery" of Catholic pageants and processions which he saw in Italy is intellectually understandable but spiritually unwarranted. Such festival shows have this effect, that in the mentally unevolved masses they keep alive the remembrance of historic figures and values in their religion, while in the mentally evolved they provide satisfaction for aesthetic needs or symbolic ones. Whatever promotes a mood of reverence is to be welcomed.

-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 1 : Origin, Purpose of Religions > # 267