5. _Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut succumberes aliquo

jumento et illud jumentum ad coitum qualicumque posses ingenio ut sic coiret tecum?_ The celebrated Debreyne has written a whole book on the same subject for the instruction of young confessors, and in it he has enumerated all kinds of debauchery and sexual perversion which he could imagine, "Maechiology," or _Treatise on all the Sins against the Sixth_ (seventh in the Decalogue) _and the Ninth_ (tenth) _Commandments_, as well as on all questions of married life connected with them. This book is very celebrated and is widely studied in the Roman Church. We only quote from it the two following questions: To men: _Ad cognoscendum an usque ad pollutionem se tetigerint, quando tempore et quo fine se tetigerint; an tunc quoddam motus in corpore experti fuerint, et per quantum temporis spatium; an cessantibus tactibus nihil insolitum et turpe acciderit; ad non longe majorem in corpore voluptatem perciperint in fine inactum quam in eorum principio; an tum in fine quando magnam delectationem carnalem senserunt, omnes motus corporis cessaverint; an non malefacti fuerint?_ etc., etc. To girls: _Quae sese tetigisse fatentur, an non aliquem pruritum extinguere tentaverit, et utrum pruritus ille cessaverit cum magnam senserint voluptatem; an tunc ipsimet tactus cessaverint?_ Among a thousand other analogous precepts the reverend Kenrick, bishop of Boston, in the United States, gives the following to his confessors: _Uxor quae, in usu matrimonii, se vertit, ut non recipiat semen, vel statim post illud acceptum surgit, ut expellatur, lethaliter peccat; sed opus non est ut diu resuspina jaceat, quum matrix, brevi semen attrahat, et mox, arctissime claudatur._ _Puellae patienti licet se vertere et conari ut non recipiat semen, quod injuria et emittitur; sed, acceptum non licet expellere, quia jam possessionem pacificam habet et haud absque injuria naturae ejiceretur._ _Conjuges senes plerumque coeunt absque culpa, licet contingat semen extra vas effundi; id enim per accidens fit ex infirmitati naturae._ _Quod si vires adeo sint fractae ut nulla sit seminandi intra vas spes, jam nequeunt jure conjugi uti_ (vol. III, p. 317). Such is the teaching of Chiniqui, the man whose courage and powerful individuality succeeded in introducing abstinence from alcohol in Canada. His long life was that of a pioneer and an inflexible champion of social and moral reform in that country, based on Christianity. He died at the age of ninety. I have quoted the erotic precepts of the confessional from him, as I was anxious to quote from an absolutely reliable source. It was not with a light heart that Chiniqui abandoned the Catholic Church, but only after violent and bitter struggles with conscience, struggles of which he relates the tragic episodes, and which lasted for many years. He commences the chapter from which we have quoted with the following words: "Let legislators, fathers and husbands read this chapter and ask themselves the question whether the respect which they owe to their mothers, their wives and their daughters does not impose upon them the duty of forbidding auricular confession. How is it possible for a young girl to remain pure in mind after such conversations with an unmarried man? Is she not more prepared for the depths of vice than for conjugal life?" The author of these lines is a man who was obliged for many years to be a confessor himself, and who understood to what extent confession corrupted the sexual life of women and priests. It is true that persons, priests or women, of strong character, and especially those with a cold nature from the sexual point of view, may resist such sexual excitation. But has confession been specially instituted for this type of character? Every one who is not a hypocrite will own that it is exactly the contrary. =Religious Prudery.=--The results of such a combination of sexual life with religious prescriptions are a mixture of ridiculous prudery and continual eroticism. In certain convents (those of the nuns of Galicia, for example) the nuns forbid their pupils to wash the sexual organs, because it is improper! In Austria the nuns often cover the crucifix in their bedroom with a handkerchief, "so that Christ cannot see their nakedness"! But the convents of nuns, in the Middle Ages, were often transformed into brothels; and it is not uncommon to see hypocrites or the subjects of erotic hysteria (both men and women) perform sexual orgies of the worst kind under the cloak of religious ecstasy. =Hottentots. Eunuchs.=--Among the Hottentots, the lips of the vulva (_labia minora_) in women are artificially elongated, and among the Orientals eunuchs are made. In themselves these two operations have certainly nothing to do with religion and only originated in profane customs. In the course of time they were made religious precepts, which has deeply rooted them in the customs of the people. =Religious Eroticism.=--The examples which we have cited show to what extent man is disposed to clothe his eroticism with the cloak of religion. He then attributes a divine origin to his desires and lays the precepts which he attaches to them on the commandments of his God or gods, so as to sanctify them. Hence, the unnatural influence of a mysticism, which is nothing else than the crystallized product of the fantastic imagination of men, raised to a dogma, imposes itself indirectly on natural sexual life, by entering at the back door under the cloak of religion. It is obvious that grave abuses or even vices often acquire the seal and power of religious precepts; while in the same domain a number of other customs or precepts are based on good hygienic or moral principles, for example, circumcision and conjugal fidelity. It is perhaps in the domain of pathology that the relations of religion to sexual life are the most striking (see Chapter VIII). We must not forget that the facts of reproduction seem to ignorant people and especially to barbarians, to be of a very mysterious nature. These people have no idea of germinal cells or their conjugation. They see in conception, embryogeny, pregnancy and birth, the miraculous effects of a divine and occult higher power--of the divinity, often even of the devil. The violent excitement which is associated with the sexual appetite and with love urges man to ecstasy; hence it is not to be wondered at that eroticism is so often complicated by ecstatic religious sentiments. In his book on Psychopathia sexualis, Krafft-Ebing remarks how easily religion, poetry and eroticism are combined and mingled in the obscure feelings and presentiments of maturing youth. In the life of saints there is always the question of sexual temptations, in which the most elevated and ideal sentiments are mixed with the most repugnant erotic images. On the same basis are developed the sexual orgies of different religious fêtes in the ancient world, as well as in certain modern sects. Mysticism, religious ecstasy and sexual voluptuousness are often combined in a real trinity, and one often sees unsatisfied sensuality seek compensation in religious exaltation. Krafft-Ebing cites the following cases from Friedreich's "Legal Psychology" (p. 389): In this way the nun Blaubekin was perpetually tormented by the thought of what happened to the part of Jesus' body removed by circumcision. In order to make his devotions to the lamb of God, Véronique Juliani, who was canonized by Pope Pius II, took into his chamber a terrestrial lamb, embraced it and sucked its breasts. Saint Catherine of Gênes often suffered from such internal heat, that, to cool herself, she laid on the ground, crying: "Love, love, I can do no more!" In doing this she felt a peculiar inclination for her confessor. One day, putting his hand to her nose, she perceived an odor which penetrated her heart, "a celestial odor the voluptuousness of which could wake the dead." =The Role of Mental Pathology in Religious Eroticism.=--Among the insane, and especially in women, but also in men afflicted with _paranoia_ (a mental disease) we often find a strange and repugnant mixture of eroticism and religious images. Such are the everlasting betrothals with Christ, the Virgin Mary, with God or with the Holy Spirit, betrothals in which the venereal orgasm is combined with imaginary coitus and masturbation, followed by imaginary pregnancy and childbirth. These symptoms give us a clear indication of the relation which exists between eroticism and religious exaltation. The French alienists have even designated them by the characteristic term of "erotico-religious delirium." A single visit to the female division of a lunatic asylum is often sufficient to satisfy the visitor. A point which has received less attention is the immense historical influence which certain psychopathological personalities, chiefly hysterical subjects, but also some crazy persons or hereditary visionaries, have exercised at all times on human destiny, usually by the aid of the suggestive effects of sexual and religious ideas (erotico-religious), the connections of which have not always been clear. Every psychiatrist knows the insane whose delirium is combined with religious or mystic exaltation, and who by the mysticism of their delirium have exercised and continue to exercise a profound influence on the mass of humanity which surround them--"Panurge's Sheep," if I may use the expression. These people are themselves so dominated by the pathological influence of their auto-suggestions or their delirium that they behave with the fanaticism of fakirs, and exhibit an extraordinary energy and perseverance in the pursuit of the object of their morbid ideas. By their assurance, the sentiment of infallibility, and the fire of faith which is manifested in their prophetical manner, they fascinate the feeble brains of the people who surround them and attract them by their suggestive action. A very human and often powerful eroticism is usually associated with their delirium; but it is covered by a cloak of religious ecstasy, which imposes on natures disposed to exaltation, and renders them blind to the ignominy which often lies under this ecstasy. What makes these patients so persuasive is the fact that they are themselves persuaded. Even the normal man, we must admit, is guided less by reason than by sentiment, and the persons we have just described exert a powerful action on sentiment, and this more by their piercing glance, their prophetic and dominating tone, their manner and appearance, than by the extremely confused text of their discourses and doctrines. In this way there are always arising small epidemics of attraction in which a group of individuals allows itself to be infatuated by so-called prophets, messiahs, holy virgins and other visionaries, who are only lunatics or crazy persons. Under their influence are produced certain forms of insanity by contagion, which have been called double, triple or quadruple madness, and which may sometimes take the form of an epidemic. When the "prophet" is more consistent in his words and actions, or when his environment is still very ignorant and superstitious, the crowd of believers increases still more rapidly, and thus one sees even at the present day in less-civilized countries new sects or religious guilds, more or less ephemeral, in which the spirit of the prophet sometimes stirs up grave sexual orgies. Among more cultured people the prophet is generally exposed or sent to a lunatic asylum, much to the indignation of his disciples, who often consist of his wife and children and a few feeble-minded acquaintances. Thanks to the cheapness of printing, these prophets often publish their new religious system and sell it among their dupes. I possess a small library of works of this kind which have been sent me by their authors; probably with the idea that they might one day be taken for fools, and to prove to me in advance that they were not. According to them, God has personally revealed to them the new truth in which they believe, and has appointed them as prophets. Erotic images are generally associated with their system. One of them, whose system is astronomical, divides the planets into males and females. Another, a lunatic, describes the pathological sexual sensations by the term of "psycho-sexual contact by action at a distance." These are phenomena which we meet with at each step in psychiatry, and which give the clue to what follows. =The Historical Role of Mental Anomalies which are Not Very Apparent and Border on Genius. Their Influence on Religious Eroticism.=--These persons are not always afflicted with paranoia or other grave psychoses, but often hereditary and constitutional psychopaths who are only half-crazy or simply hysterical, and who may, in spite of this defect, possess a certain degree of intellectual power, an energetic will and the fire of enthusiasm. Things then take an essentially different course, even when they rest on an analogous basis. The prophet combines with his exaltation a logic which is often very concise in its details, although applied on a morbid basis. Moreover, he clothes his utterances in fine and poetical language, and in this way succeeds in rallying round him, not a flock of Panurge's ignorant sheep, but more elevated people and even a considerable proportion of the surrounding society. In this case pathological exaltation may be united to a high moral and intellectual ideal, which is very apt to veil the bizarre fancies of the prophet. We thus meet with the astonishing but undeniable fact that certain great historical personalities who have exercised a powerful influence on humanity were of more or less pathological nature. We discover among them erotico-religious traits, more or less marked, often even as the leading threads of their arguments. This important category of individuals constitutes a whole series of transitions between the insane prophets of whom we have spoken and well-balanced men of genius. It is often very difficult to understand and interpret the series of intermediate forms, so graduating and so variable, which exist between insanity and genius. It is necessary to guard against any exclusive generalization in one way or the other. In any case, the fact that many men of genius are of pathological nature does not authorize us to regard every person of genius or originality as insane, whether he attacks the routine and prejudices of his contemporaries, or whether he opens up new horizons and goes out of the beaten track. Let me cite a few examples. Joan of Arc was, in my opinion, a hysterical genius whose hallucinations were auto-suggestive. The distress of France had profoundly agitated her, and, fired with the desire to save her country, her brain was affected by auto-suggestion with hallucinations of the voices of saints and visions, which pointed out her mission and which she regarded as coming from real saints in heaven. At that period such things were common enough and need not surprise us. In spite of her good sense and modesty, Joan of Arc was urged by an exaltation unconscious of self. By a destiny as astonishing as providential, this young girl of genius, and at the same time pathological, exalted by ecstatic hallucinations, led France to a victorious war of freedom. The most conscientious historical sources show that the morality of Joan of Arc was pure and above reproach. Her replies to the invidious questions of the Inquisition are admirable and bear witness both to her high intelligence and the moral elevation of her sentiments. It is evident that the sentiments of love were transformed in her into religious ecstasy and enthusiasm for the ideal of her mission, a frequent occurrence among women. Another remarkable example is that of Thomas à Becket. The sudden transformation of this man of the world into an ascetic priest (it is true, on the occasion of his nomination as archbishop), from this devoted friend and servitor of the king of England into his most violent adversary, and into a champion of the Church against the State, evidently represents the auto-suggestive transformation of a hysterical subject, for this is the only way of explaining such a sudden and complete contradiction which caused him to change suddenly from one fanaticism to a contrary one. The religious exaltation of the Mormon prophet, Smith, was no doubt combined with eroticism, which made him organize his sect on the basis of polygamy. Mahomet also had visions, and sexual connection plays an important part in his teaching and prophesies. The apostle St. Paul was also a visionary who passed suddenly from one extreme to another as the result of hallucination. Pascal, Napoleon, and Rousseau presented very marked pathological traits. Although some of these cases have no direct connection with the sexual question, I have mentioned them to show how such personalities exert their influence on the masses, and through them on history. As soon as they acquire authority, their peculiar ideas and sexual conceptions, however exclusive or even absurd they may be, react strongly on their contemporaries, as we see to-day the ascetic ideas of Tolstoi influence his numerous disciples. Sudden conversions, whatever may be their nature, especially when the convert goes from one extreme to another, are not the fruit of reason, but depend on suggestion or auto-suggestion and especially on pathological suggestibility. (Vide Chapter IX). In other respects sexual anomalies often govern the acts of hysterical persons and other psychopaths. The Roman emperors, Nero, Tiberius and Caligula were almost certainly sadists and enjoyed sexual pleasure at the sight of the sufferings of their victims. Valerie, Messalina and Catherine de Médici were also female sadists. Under the hypocritical veil of religion, Catherine de Médici was the principal instigator of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris, and wallowed in pleasure at the sight of the massacre of the Huguenots. On the other hand, masochism may give tone to the thoughts and sexual feelings of certain persons of great influence, such as Rousseau, and to sects of ascetics, such as the fakirs, etc. Involuntarily, therefore, the sexual feelings of every prophet and founder of religion, even during a short period of his life only, influence more or less his religious system and consequently the laws of morality based on it, which remain after his death. Hence it is that sentiments, as variable in different individuals as sexual sentiments, are obliged to submit to the constraint of fixed and tyrannical dogmas which martyrize for centuries, or even thousands of years, men who have other opinions than the founder of the religion or its interpreters who succeed him. In religion we see everywhere idealized eroticism, and often idealism perfumed with eroticism. The Songs of Solomon, the original sense of which was very lay, like that of most religious matters, has been made allegorical and applied to the Christian Church, but it was and will always remain an erotic poem. It is hardly necessary to add that natural eroticism very often leads the severe and ascetic preachers of morality to the grossest hypocrisy. Priests and other pious persons often preach an idealized asceticism, while in secret they commit the most disgusting sexual excesses. We must not, however, judge such crying inconsistencies too severely; they are to a great extent unconscious and are the result of the shock of passion against the tyranny of dogma, prejudice, and public opinion. They are often also the result of mental anomalies. When science is allowed to enlighten sexual life freely and openly, the hypocrisy of normal people will cease, and that of the abnormal will be recognized in time and prevented from doing harm. =Transformation of Eroticism into Religious Sentiment.=--In ordinary life we find everywhere traces of the mixture of religion with sexual sensations and images. The religious ceremonies of marriage among all peoples constitute a significant remnant thereof. When we look for the causes of sudden and progressive religious exaltation we often discover that it is nothing else than compensation for disappointed love. I refer here to true and fervid exaltation, identified with the whole inner consciousness, and not to the religion of habit which the average man scarcely remembers in his daily life, and only observes on Sunday in the form of a conventional promenade, or a contribution to the church. This religion of habit is only an empty form, which awakes no sentiment, and consequently is associated with no sensation, even erotic, in its followers. In other individuals it may be otherwise, and certainly was so formerly. Everything goes to prove that the exalted sentiments of sympathy from which our religion is to a great extent derived, such as the holy fervor, the devotional ardor and the delights of ecstasy which it has so often procured for its followers and still procures for some of them, whether their object be God, Allah, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Vishnu, the Virgin Mary, or the Saints, that these sentiments have to a great extent their roots in primary erotic sensations and sentiments, or represent the direct transformation of them. It is needless to say that all this may take place quite unconsciously and with the purest intentions. I hasten to add that the majority of true religious sentiments come from quite a different source. When we study the religious sentiment profoundly, especially in the Christian religion, and Catholicism in particular, we find at each step its astonishing connection with eroticism. We find it in the exalted adoration of holy women, such as Mary Magdalene, Marie de Bethany, for Jesus, in the holy legends, in the worship of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages, and especially in art. The ecstatic Madonnas in our art galleries cast their fervent regards on Jesus or on the heavens. The expression in Murillo's "Immaculate Conception" may be interpreted by the highest voluptuous exaltation of love as well as by holy transfiguration. The "Saints" of Correggio regard the Holy Virgin with an amorous ardor which may be celestial, but appears in reality extremely terrestrial and human. Numerous sects, both ancient and modern, have entered on the scene in a hardly less libidinous manner; for example, the sexual excesses of the anabaptists in former times and the sexual ecstasies of certain modern sects in America. If the objection is raised that these sects are the pathological excrescences of religion, I reply with their disciples as follows: "We have come into the world because your State religions are sunk in indifference, hypocrisy and hollow formality, offering nothing to the human heart but empty phrases. It behooves us to awaken from this sleep. We want enthusiasm and fervor to transform the inner life of man and convert him." These words, which we can see and hear everywhere by opening our eyes and ears, constitute a formal avowal of the suggestive factor in religion. (See Chapter IX.) In the Canton of Zurich I have myself often had occasion to observe, especially among women, the followers of the singular sect of the Pastor Zeller, of Maennedorf. He is a kind of visionary prophet who heals people after the manner of Christ and John the Baptist, by placing his hands on them and anointing them with oil. The cures which he obtains are due naturally to suggestion, like those of Lourdes, but he attributes them to divine miracles. He even told me naively that he heard a grinding (crepitation) in a broken bone, which he regarded as a miraculous cure! A crowd of women, mostly hysterical, collected around this man with an ardor which was unconsciously directed much more to his person than to that of God or Christ whom he was supposed to symbolize. I have treated patients who had been to him, and who associated with his person both the mildest and the most carnal erotic images--of course, in the innocence of their hearts. It is far from me to reproach this sincere man and many others of the same kind, especially the priests who are surrounded by a halo of sanctity pushed to ecstasy. I only maintain that when a human being exalts himself in the search for pure-mindedness and sanctity, thus denying his true nature, he is always in danger of falling unconsciously into the most gross sensuality, and at the same time of sanctifying this sensuality. =Description of Religious Eroticism by the Poets.=--The Swiss poet, Gottfried Keller, with his peculiar genius has described religious eroticism in an admirable way, especially in his seven legends. Read, for example, _Dorothea's Blumenkörbchen_ (Dorothea's little flower-basket), in which the terrestial lover of Dorothea ends by becoming jealous of her celestial lover, of whom she always speaks in the most exalted sentiments. Wherever she went she spoke in the most tender terms and expressed the most ardent desire for a celestial lover that she had found, who waited in immortal beauty to press her against his shining breast. When the wicked prefect had bound Dorothea on the gridiron under which was placed a slow fire, this hurt her delicate body, and she uttered smothered cries. Then her terrestrial lover, Theophilus, forcing his way through the crowd, burst her bonds and said with a sad smile, "Does it hurt you, Dorothea?" But when suddenly freed from all pain she immediately replied: "How could it hurt me, Theophilus? I lay on the roses of the lover I adore! This is my wedding day!" Keller shows us here, along with eroticism, the suggestive effect of ecstasy, which among martyrs, may reach the most complete anæsthesia. Goethe has also described erotico-religious ecstasy; for example, at the end of the second part of Faust, in the prayers addressed by certain anchorites to the queen of heaven. =Distinction Between Religion and the Ecstasy Derived from Eroticism.=--It would be quite false to maintain that religion in itself arises from sexual sensations. The terror of death and the enigmas of existence, the sentiments of human weakness and insufficiency of life, the want of consolation for all miseries, the hope of a future life, all play an important part in the origin of religions. On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize the considerable role of the erotic sexual factor in religious sentiments and dogmas, where on the one hand it leads to ardent fervor, while on the other hand it tyrannizes, especially by the exclusiveness of its residues transformed into dogmas, the natural expansion of the erotic sentiments which are so variable in individuals. One of the most difficult and important future tasks of social science toward humanity is, therefore, to set free sexual relations from the tyranny of religious dogmas, by placing them in harmony with the true and purely human laws of natural ethics. =Compensations.=--In the animal series we have seen that sentiments of sympathy are derived, in a general way, by phylogeny, from the sentiments of sexual attraction, and we often see in man a sexual love, deceived, despised or transfigured, seek compensation or idealization in the fervor or religious exaltation. The question naturally presents itself whether this compensation or this ideal is indispensable, and if other objects of a human and not mystical nature cannot take its place. There are, in my opinion, purely human ideals, which are capable of transfiguring erotic love "religiously" quite as well as the mysticism of so-called divine revelations. Christianity is called the religion of love, and the apostle Paul even places charity higher than faith. But what is charity but the synthesis of the social sentiments of sympathy, devotion and self-denial, for the benefit of humanity? Cannot it, therefore, be established on another basis than that of cheques to be drawn on paradise? Cannot exaltation and fervor apply their powerful faith, the beauty of their form and the elevation of their sentiments to the social ideal and the future welfare of our children? Cannot we replace the cult of religious legends, the adoration of the works of Jehovah and Christ, as they are given in the Bible, by the religion of our descendants and their welfare? In my opinion, the suggestion of religious ecstasy and love might well be directed toward the benefit of society. Its fanaticism is admirably adapted to shake the indifference and indolence of men; but this source of energy should not be wasted in the adoration of legendary mirages, but used for the efficacious culture of a true human religion of love on earth.