Not the least of the obstacles to a spiritual revival is that the mere appearance of religion has posed as its authentic reality. When it will be openly admitted that the truths of religion have faded from the modern man's psyche, leaving only their mere shadows behind, it will be possible to do what can and should be done to revivify them. The first step will be to cast out primitive superstitions, to correct functional abuses, to democratize authority, and to get rid of hollow formalism. Yet although religion clings so desperately to what is outworn and outmoded, the desire to revive decaying creeds, techniques, and attitudes is futile; the attempt to do so is predestined to eventual failure. There is also no future for obligatory beliefs, cultural absolutisms, or imposed ideas. We have lived to witness the last desperate effort in this direction, that of Nazism, and its failure. The religious world is too hampered by its past to produce easily the new faith which mankind must construct today, if it is to survive. It is too much caught in its own medieval creation to provide dynamic leadership. If spirituality, therefore, begins to make itself felt a little among us today, it is not because of organized religion but in spite of it.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 7 : Beyond Religion As We Know It > # 44
