The mystical attack upon intellect has sufficient basis to justify it up to a certain point. But when it goes beyond that point and unreservedly praises the holy imbecile and listens with bated breath to his utterances, it renders a disservice to mysticism. If all this enormous human evolution is to end in men feeling like children and acting like fools, is there not a danger that they may go farther and turn into idiots? Life today is too challenging to be met successfully by the brainless or foolish. It is also nonsense for any mystic of the religious devotional school to say that intellect is useless and unnecessary on the spiritual path. It may be so on his particular path--although even there his assertion is arguable--but it is certainly not so on the other paths. How can it harm a seeker to acquire all possible knowledge about the quest, to know all that he can gather from the history of mysticism, the biography of mystics, the psychology of mystical states, and the philosophy of mystical thinkers? Thus equipped, he is surely better equipped to find his way in what is, after all, a dim and obscure territory. And how can he learn these things without studying books, listening to lectures, discussing ideas, and exchanging experiences with others?
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 2 : The Service of Intellect > # 80
