Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/26

8 in the lives of the saints; 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.

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