The individual mystic's lack of status is regrettable but expectable. For it is the penalty he must pay for refusing to be overawed by the dogmas current in his time and the traditions inherited from his people's past. What chance has this teaching when its adherents form only a small unrecognized entirely scattered cult whereas the adherents of orthodoxy are numbered by the million, and even those of unorthodoxy are numbered by the thousand or hundred? Must all importance, all truth, all significance in religion be limited to organized groups alone? Are there no inspired persons and no ordinary individuals who do not choose to belong to any such groups at all? Why should orthodoxy and unorthodoxy, merely because they are organized into churches and labelled as denominations, alone represent the voice of religion?
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 3 : Religion As Preparatory > # 135
