Perhaps a better term than sacred places would be playrooms or spiritual kindergartens for adults. The third link between creativity, mature self-deception, and wonder is play. Play allows self-deception and religious wonder to create order out of chaos and to seem to be true. In the presence of psychological conflict, play can put into the world what was not there before. Play allows us to repeat and re-create conflictual relationships so that we can develop increasingly stable internalizations of those we love.
Playful repetition offers mastery over past experiences of helplessness.
Play, like religion and defenses, creates order. In both play and in the evolution of mature defenses, the strength of a higher power may become ours. Play produces the very opposite of what we usually think of as illusion, for play is essential to the Piagetian concept of assimilation. Play, like religion and defenses, creates its own reality. To interrupt play creates disarray and anger.