The reason religious participation is declining, at least in the west, is that religious experiences are happening less frequently than they used to. In Catholicism, the priesthood these days is largely devoid of mystics and seers. Even among Catholics they are shunned for being so "prideful" that they'd assume to have a connection with a higher power. Their frequency is much lower than in Medieval times, when it was quite common to hear about monks and saints who could talk to God or had witnessed or performed divine miracles.
Religious quality has a strong relationship to experience. When one experiences the beauty of God, or regularly communicates with it on some level, one is more likely to believe in it. Indoctrination is averse to religion because of the stigma attached to people who blindly follow things without discovering for themselves. These days everyone needs personal evidence of the truth; they can't just listen and accept what they're being told. The amount of distrust in religion has reached epidemic levels, and for good reason. For centuries the Church has tried to erase any semblance of heresy or alternate beliefs. You could say they finally got what was coming to them.
Another thing that led to the decline of religious belief was the rise science. It's harder now to influence people's imagination because science is now the authority on what's real and what isn't. Shamans and mystics these days are often discredited by the militant atheist community, which uses science as their rule book. It must be frustrating for those who experience divinity yet can't make any headway for fear of being castigated by mobs of skeptics who won't believe them.
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