Humanity has to find a religious form to suit the coming era. It has to find something between the extreme of mere anarchy and the extreme of steel-trap institutionalism. In the first case, it becomes the victim of any and every phantasy which human imagination may throw up, which human ambition may put forth, or which human ignorance may blunder into. In the second case, it becomes the victim of a letter that kills the spirit or of a collective enslavement by outworn dogmas and selfish organizations and by mechanical worship. Humanity has to find a form which respects the individual's right to choose freely what will most help him and which to that extent leaves religion a personal matter. Yet it cannot afford to disdain the proffered hand of traditional experience, authoritative knowledge, and group association. The needed revelation must be relevant to external conditions and adequate to internal outlook. Those who are no longer attracted by church religion, who believe its claims are exaggerated and its dogmas untenable, can go forward towards higher religious truth only by going forward into a more mystical and more scientific cult. Instead of wasting time trying to resurrect the dead forms of an old faith, many people were moved up by the war closer to this point of view.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 7 : Beyond Religion As We Know It > # 2
