Individual Mysticism

"...anyone wishing above all to avoid the religious dimension should consider that the intense individualism which has focused our attention exclusively on the social-contract model is itself thoroughly mystical. It has glorified the individual human soul as an object having infinite and transcendent value, has hailed it as the only real creator, and has bestowed on it much of the panoply of God."

             ----Mary Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, Ch. 18, pg. 189-90.