Page:Heavenly Bridegrooms.djvu/86

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else rashly assumed the whole thing to be diabolical. From this time on, it were indeed strange if she should fail to see subjectively what she expected i. e., the Devil. All in vain now was it for her to exclaim in terror or indignation, "I will have nothing to do with you!" Her angelic lover had indeed ceased to communicate; but her subconsciousness had not ceased to vibrate along the lines of psychical illusion; and unless she possessed great self-control and had her subconscious nature well in hand, time and time only, could work a cure unless, indeed, she should implicitly submit her inner self to the priest or to some other earthly human being as her hypnotizer, in which case, it was a change from the hypnotic control of a clearseeing angel, to that of a more or less blind fallible earthly man, who may or may not take undue advantage of the power placed in his hands over her mainsprings of action. When one (1) considers that every woman who enters a convent is pledged to a mystic union with a heavenly bridegroom, denominated Christ; (2) that the union more often than the public is aware, becomes so objectively real that the confessor feels obliged to term it "Congresus cum daemonis"; (3) that ignorance on the men's part of Borderland laws will render her experience fantastic or diabolical; (4) that her deliverance from these experiences may be secured by a change in the hypnotizer, from an unseen angel to a visible earthly priest: We see what a power resides with confessors to mould the minds of the nuns to carry out his hypnotic suggestions for the glory of the church. For the person who has been hypnotized by spirits, and who has not acquired the power of resisting hypnotic suggestion, will more readily yield to an earthly hypnotizer. That the angelic lover should force himself upon her as an incubus against her will is contrary to Borderland laws; for in the world beyond the Borderland (the world beyond the grave), it is reckoned a sin for a woman to have aught to do with husband or lover save for love's sake; and hence the idea that women may be forced into a marital union on the Borderland is totally incorrect inasmuch as the highest standards of social and ethical duty in both