The reason human civilization is tired, depressed, unimaginative in dealing with unemployment, pollution, youth despair, injustice and inequality is that we “do not even know who we are,” as Hildegard put it. We are out of touch with our “true selves” as Alice Miller puts it. A civilization that denies the mystic is not civilization at all. It offers no hope and no adventure, no challenge worthy of sacrifice and joy to its youth or its artists…. It encourages us to seek outside stimulants to provide meaning for life and defense from enemies because it is woefully out of touch with the power inside.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew Fox, p.43.