in the lives of the saints;[1] how powerfully sensuality expresses itself in the histories of religious fanatics; and in what revolting scenes, true orgies, the religious festivals of antiquity, no less than the “meetings” of certain sects in modern times, express themselves,—to say nothing of the lustful mysteries which characterized the cults of the ancients. On the other hand, we see that unsatisfied sensuality very frequently finds an equivalent in religious enthusiasm.[2]
This relation between religious and sexual feeling is also shown on the basis of unequivocal psycho-pathological states. It suffices to recall how intense sensuality makes itself manifest in the clinical histories of many religious maniacs; the motley mixture of religious and sexual delusions that is so frequently observed in psychoses (e.g., in maniacal women, who think they are or will be the Mother of God), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and, finally, the sensual, cruel self-punishments, injuries, self-castrations, and even self-crucifixions resulting from abnormal sexual-religious feeling.
Any attempt to explain the relations between religion and love has difficulties to encounter. Many analogies present themselves. The feeling of sexual attraction and religious feeling (considered as a psychological fact) consist of two elements.
In religion the primary element is a feeling of dependence,—a fact which Schleiermacher recognized long before the later studies in anthropology and ethnography, founded on the observation of primitive conditions, had led to the same conclusion. It is only at a higher stage of culture that the second and essentially ethical element—love of God—enters- ↑ Comp. Friedreich, “gerichtl. Psychologie,” p. 389, who has collected numerous examples. Thus the nun Blanbekin was always troubled with the thought about what had become of the part lost at the circumcision of Christ. Veronica Juliani, canonized by Pope Pius II, in memory of the divine lion, took an actual lion in her bed and kissed it, and let it suck from her breast; and even secreted a few drops of milk for it. St. Catherine, of Genoa, often burned with such inward fire that, in order to cool herself, she would lie down on the ground and cry “Love, love, I can endure it no longer!” At the same time she felt a peculiar inclination for her confessor. One day she lifted his hand to her nose and smelled an odor which penetrated to her heart, “a heavenly perfume, so delightful that it would wake the dead.” St. Armelle and St. Elizabeth were troubled with a similar longing for the child Jesus. The temptations of St. Anthony, of Padua, are well known. An old prayer is significant: “O, that I had found thee, Holy Emanuel; O, that I had thee in my bed to bring delight to body and soul. Come and be mine, and my heart shall be thy resting-place.”
- ↑ Comp. Friedreich, “Diagnostik der psych. Krankheiten,” p. 247 u. ff.; Neumann, “Lehrb. d. Psychiatrie,” p. 80.
