Together, they drained the shady ponds and replaced them with fish tanks. The walls of the tanks were constructed of ignorance and superstition, held together with fear. Not every silty bayou could be drained, of course. They were regarded as mavericks, exotic and inferior. If they splashed too high, they were thought to be threatening and in need of extermination.
Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism.
The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished. The theory that most fully explains all these phenomena is quantum mechanics, or quantum physics.