However restricted the experience of modern man may be in things belonging to the psychic or subtle order, there are still phenomena of that kind which are in no way inaccessible to him in principle, but he treats them from the start as “SUPERSTITIONs” and hands them over to the occultists. Acceptance of the psychic dimension is in any case part of religion: one cannot deny magic without straying from faith; so far as miracles are concerned, their cause surpasses the psychic plane, though their effects come by way of it. In theological language the term “SUPERSTITION” tends to be confusing because it expresses two entirely different ideas, namely, on the one hand a wrong application of religious sentiment, and on the other a belief in unreal or ineffectual things. Thus spiritualism is called “SUPERSTITION”, but rightly so only with respect to its interpretations of phenomena and its cult, and not with respect to the phenomena themselves; on the other hand sciences like astrology are perfectly real and effectual, and imply no deviation of a pseudo-religious kind. The word “SUPERSTITION” ought really not to be applied to sciences or facts that are unknown and are ridiculed although not a single word about them is understood, but to practices that are either intrinsically useless, or totally misunderstood and called upon to fill the gap left by an absence of true spirituality or of effectual rites. No less superstitious is a false or improper interpretation of a symbolism or of some coincidence, often in conjunction with fantastic fears or scruples, and so on. In these days the word “SUPERSTITION” no longer means anything; when theologians use it – the point will bear repetition – one never knows whether they are finding fault with a concrete diabolism or with a mere illusion; in their eyes a magical act and a pretence at magic look like the same thing, and they do not notice the contradiction inherent in declaring in the same breath that sorcery is a great sin and that it is nothing but SUPERSTITION. (GTUFS: LightAW, Reflections on Naïvety)