Source: Ancient of Days, William Blake
“…religious beliefs are illusions…
in the sense that they are not pure products of experience or end results of thinking but fulfilments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. An illusion is not a mistake…An illusion is not necessarily false, that is, incapable of realization or contradictory to reality. The great question is: If illusions are needed, how can we have those that are capable of correction; how can we have those that will not deteriorate into delusions?”
–Pruyser, Paul W., ‘Some Trends in the Psychology of Religion’ in Current Perspectives in the Psychology of Religion, Grand Rapids MI, Willam B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1977, p. 59