The blameless fanatic

Was reading a bit about automatic writing by Yeats this morning and his interest in the occult, which led to discovering a text from Sinnett called Esoteric Buddhism. Like many morning reading sessions, one click led to another, and I found a few quotes I wanted to save for posterity's sake. Warnings against fundamentalism and fear of The Other are on my mind a lot lately...but the beauty of the bold type deserves to be saved (my emphasis added).

Perhaps to understand the hatred of the fanatic, we must study how one acquires a blamelessly devoted attitude of mind:

"Nothing can produce more disastrous effects on human progress, as regards the destiny of individuals, than the very prevalent notion that one religion followed out in a pious spirit, is as good as another, and that if such and such doctrines are perhaps absurd when you look into them, the great majority of good people will never think of their absurdity, but will recite them in a blamelessly devoted attitude of mind." (Sinnett 1885, pp. 194–195; Guénon 2004, p. 126.)

Sinnett, A. P. (1885) [1883]. Esoteric Buddhism (5th ed.). London: Chapman and Hall Ltd

"It is priestly imposture that rendered these gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is the belief in God and gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them." (Barker 1924, Letter 10.)

Kuthumi; et al. (1924). Barker, A. T. (ed.). The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. & K. H. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers