Let us realize what this means, that there is in truth no other court than that of the mind of man. There are books that are called inspired and given by revelation of God; but the pleadings whereby it is sought to enforce their recognition come ultimately before this court. I am not, be it observed, proposing that the court is infallible, for the findings of today may be reversed tomorrow. It is in session everywhere, and the judges no man can number; it is good, bad, or indifferent on this or that bench; it is too often in permanent contradiction; and in our universal scepticism we have challenged it from time immemorial on the count of its chief findings; but these facts not withstanding, it remains that there is no other. Once on a day or night in a very far-off time it imposed - let us cite at a venture - the ten commandments, amid the emblematic thunders of a highly figurative mountain; and our age-long commentary on this yoke and bit and bridle has been their almost unchequered repudiation in all our daily life; yet it was this court and no other which was in session on Sinai. We are Moses, Aholiab and Bezaleel, we are Solomon King of Israel, Hiram King of Tyre and Hiram Abiff; we are Zerubbabel Prince of the People, Haggai the Prophet and Joshuah son of the High Priest; we are Confucius, Manu, and Zarathustra; and we bear other titles, some of which I shall forbear to name. We give the judgments, inflict the penalties, and make the various awards; but under whatever denomination, we are ourselves the court in question; while if we happen to dispute the office, it is we who confer the warrants... A true beginning may be made in a kind of conditional unbelief, consecrated by its sincerity. Faith is not the faculty of affirming and holding by a mental tour de force what we know to be untrue in fact by all the evidential canons. There is a still small voice speaking at the heart of being. The validity of the Great Secret and the operation of the Great Mystery abide with us. There is a place in the world within us where it is better to contemplate and hearken than to have the freedom of all the schools and to have earned all their titles...

Arthur Edward Waite
(Shadows of Life and Thought)