The Ultimate meaning and social significance of religion will be hidden from us so long as we do not understand that it represents the appeal to the first of the three stages of growth in human mentality. The latter begins with the primitive, arrives at the civilized, and finishes with the philosophic stage. We have only to study the fruits of anthropological research to become aware of this truth. Ultimate truth being beyond the intellectual range of savage society, its wiser leaders unfolded a faith suited to their followers' capacity and needs, a faith which worked perfectly well and was indeed the best faith for such people. It ill becomes us to sneer at their superstitions, therefore, merely because we are totally unable to place ourselves into sympathetic relationship with their primitive environment. Their beliefs became superstitions only when those who led them did not realize that capacity for change and growth must be allowed for when the tribes had outgrown their first faith. Therefore, such esotericism does not mean that the masses are condemned to wear forever the badge of intellectual backwardness.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 3 : Religion As Preparatory > # 13
