Religion & Sex Part 8

Much valuable light is thrown upon this aspect of the subject by a study of human behaviour under the influence of actual disease. Of late years much useful work has been done in this direction, and our knowledge of normal psychology greatly helped by a study of abnormal mental states.[117] This is mainly because in disease we are able to observe the operation of tendencies that are un.o.bscured by the restraints and inhibitions created by education and social convention.

And one of the most striking, and to many startling, things observed is the close relation existing between erotic mania and religious delusion.

The person who at one time feels himself under direct religious inspiration, or who imagines himself to be the incarnation of a divine personage, will at another time exhibit the most shocking obscenity in action and language. Sir T. S. Clouston furnishes a very striking case of this character, which he cites in order to show "the common mixture of religious and s.e.xual emotion."[118] I do not reproduce it here because of its grossly obscene character; but, save for coa.r.s.eness of language, it does not differ materially from ill.u.s.trations already given. Almost any of the text-books will supply cases ill.u.s.trating the connection between s.e.xualism and religion, a connection generally recognised as the opinions cited already clearly show.

Dr. Mercier, in dealing with the connection between s.e.xualism and religion, which he says "has long been recognised, but never accounted for," traces it to a feeling of, or desire for self-sacrifice common to both. Certainly sacrifice in some form--of food, weapons, land, money, or bodily inconvenience--is a feature present in every religion more or less. And it is quite certain that not merely the fact, but the desire for some amount of sacrifice, forms "an integral, fundamental, and preponderating element" in the s.e.xual emotion. Dr. Mercier further believes that the benevolence founded on religious emotion has its origin in s.e.xual emotion, which is, again, extremely likely. This community of origin would allow for the transformation of one into the other, and supplies a key to the language of lover-like devotion and self-abnegation which is so prominent in religious devotional literature. The importance attached to dress is also very suggestive; for here, again, the element of sacrifice expresses itself in the cultivation of a studied repulsiveness to the normal attractiveness of costume. "Thus," says Dr. Mercier, "we find that the self-sacrificial vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of the hallelujah la.s.s, and the mortified sobriety of the district visitor, have at bottom the same origin as the rags of Cardenio, the cage of Don Quixote de la Mancha, and the yellow stockings and crossed garters of Malvolio."[119]

Professor Granger, who at times comes very near the truth, says:--

"There is something profoundly philosophical in the use of _The Song of Songs_ to typify the communion of the soul with its ideal. The pa.s.sion which is expressed by the Shulamite for her earthly lover in such glowing phrases becomes the type of the love of the soul towards G.o.d."[120]

One fails to see the profoundly philosophic nature of the selection. The _Song of Songs_ is a frankly erotic love poem, written with no other aim than is common to such poetry, and its spiritualisation is due to the same process of reinterpretation that is applied to other parts of the Bible in order to make them agreeable to modern thought. Had it not been in the Bible, Christians would have found it neither profoundly philosophical nor spiritually illuminating; and, as a matter of fact, similar effusions are selected by Christians from non-Christian writings as proofs of their sensual character. The real significance of its use in religious worship is that it gives a marked expression to feelings that crave an outlet. And the lesson is that s.e.xual feeling cannot be eliminated from life; it can only be diverted or disguised. Some expression it will find--here in open perversion resulting in positive vice, there in obsession that leads to a half-insane asceticism, and elsewhere the creation of the unconsciously salacious with an unhealthy fondness for dabbling in questions that refer to the illicit relations of the s.e.xes.

"One of the reasons why popular religion in England," says Professor Granger, "seems to be coming to the limits of its power, is that it has contented itself so largely with the commonplace motives which, after all, find sufficient exercise in the ordinary duties of life." Here, again, is a curious obtuseness to a plain but important truth. With what else should a healthy religion a.s.sociate itself but the ordinary motives or feelings of human life? With what else has religion always a.s.sociated itself? Far from that being the source of the weakness of modern religion, it is its only genuine source of strength. If religion can so a.s.sociate itself with the ordinary facts and feelings of life that these are unintelligible or poorer without religion, then religious people have nothing to fear. But if it be true, as Professor Granger implies, that life in its normal moods can receive complete gratification apart from religion, then the outlook is very different.

From a merely historic point of view it is true that as men have found explanations of phenomena, and gratifications of feelings apart from religion, the latter has lost a deal of its power. This is seen in the growth of the physical sciences, and also, although in a smaller measure, in sociology and morals.

This, however, opens up the enquiry, previously indicated, as to how far the whole range of human life may be satisfactorily explained in the complete absence of religion or supernaturalism. And with this we are not now directly concerned. What we are concerned with is to show that from one direction at least supernaturalism has derived strength from a misinterpretation of the facts. These facts, once interpreted as clear evidence for supernaturalism, are now seen to be susceptible to a different explanation. But they have nevertheless played their part in creating as part of the social heritage a diffused sense of the reality of supernatural intercourse. It is not, then, a question of religion losing power because it has contented itself with commonplace motives, and because these have now found satisfaction in ordinary life. It is rather a question of the adequacy of science to deal with facts that have been taken to lie outside the scientific order. Has science the knowledge or the ability to deal with the extraordinary as well as with the ordinary facts of life? I believe it has. The facts we have pa.s.sed in review _are_ amenable to scientific treatment, for the reason that they belong to a cla.s.s with which the physician of to-day finds himself in constant contact. And it is too often overlooked that the belief in the existence and influence of a supersensible world is itself only a theory put forward in explanation of certain cla.s.ses of facts, and like all theories it becomes superfluous once a simpler theory is made possible.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Article in _The Lancet_, Jan. 11, 1873.

[94] Article in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_.

[95] _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, pp. 66-7.

[96] _The s.e.xual Question_, pp. 354-5.

[97] Cited by Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of s.e.x_, pp. 233-4.

[98] _Conduct and its Disorders_, pp. 368-9.

[99] _Psychopathia-s.e.xualis_, pp. 9-11.

[100] _Lost and Hostile Gospels_, Preface.

[101] Cited by James, _Varieties_, pp. 345-6.

[102] Inge, _Christian Mysticism_, pp. 201-9.

[103] See Ellis, _Psychology of s.e.x_, pp. 240-2.

[104] Parkman's _Jesuits in North America_, p. 175.

[105] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia-s.e.xualis_, p. 8.

[106] See L. a.s.seline's _Mary Alacoque and the Worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus_.

[107] See _St. Teresa of Spain_, by H. H. Colvill, and _Saint Teresa_, by H. Joly.

[108] _Varieties_, p. 413.

[109] _Varieties_, p. 413.

[110] Cited by J. F. Nisbet, _The Insanity of Genius_, p. 248.

[111] _Pathology of Mind_, p. 144. Also Mercier, _Sanity and Insanity_, pp. 223, 281.

[112] _Miscellanies_, 1796, p. 365. From the same essay I take the following: "Even the ceremonies of religion, both in ancient and in modern times, have exhibited the grossest indecencies. Priests in all ages have been the successful panders of the human heart, and have introduced in the solemn worship of the divinity, incitements, gratifications, and representations, which the pen of the historian must refuse to describe. Often has the sensible Catholic blushed amidst his devotions, and I have seen chapels surrounded by pictures of lascivious att.i.tudes, and the obsolete amours of saints revived by the pencil of some Aretine.... Their homilies were manuals of love, and the more religious they became, the more depraved were their imaginations. In the nunnery the love of Jesus was the most abandoned of pa.s.sions, and the ideal espousal was indulged at the cost of the feeble heart of many a solitary beauty" (pp. 369-70).

[113] From a collection published by the Early English Text Society, 1868, pp. 182-4, 268.

[114] G. A. Coe, _The Spiritual Life_, p. 210.

[115] _Les Perles de Saint Francois de Sales_, 1871. Cited by Bloch, p.

111.

[116] Davenport's _Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals_, p. 29.

[117] See, for example, _Conduct and its Disorders_, by Dr. C. Mercier; _Psycho-Pathological Researches_, by Dr. Boris Sidis; and _Abnormal Psychology_, by I. H. Coriat.

[118] _Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases_, p. 584.

[119] _Sanity and Insanity_, chap. viii.

[120] _The Soul of a Christian_, p. 178.

CHAPTER SIX

THE STREAM OF TENDENCY

It should hardly need pointing out that the facts presented in the last chapter are not offered as an attempt at the--to use Professor William James's expression--"reinterpretation of religion as perverted s.e.xuality." Nor, so far as the present writer is aware, has anyone ever so presented them. The expression, indeed, seems almost a deliberate mis-statement of a position in order to make its reb.u.t.tal easier.

Obviously the idea of religion must be already in existence before it could be utilised for the purpose of explaining any group of phenomena.

But if the biographic and other facts described have any value whatever, they are at least strong presumptive evidence in favour of the position that in very many cases a perverted or unsatisfied s.e.xuality has been at the root of a great deal of the world's emotional piety. Of course, the strong religious belief must be in existence before-hand. But given this, and add thereto a s.e.xual nature imperious in its demands and yet denied legitimate outlet, and we have the conditions present for its promptings being interpreted as the fruits of supernatural influence. It is not a reinterpretation of _religion_ that is attempted, but a reinterpretation of phenomena that have been erroneously called religious. And on all sides the need for this reinterpretation is becoming clear. Over sixty years ago Renan wrote, "A rigorous psychological a.n.a.lysis would cla.s.s the innate religious instinct of women in the same category with the s.e.xual instinct,"[121] and since then a very much more detailed knowledge of both physiology and psychology has furnished a mult.i.tude of data for an exhaustive study of the whole question.

In the present chapter our interest is mainly historical. And for various reasons, chief amongst which is that interested readers may the more easily follow up the study should they feel so inclined, the survey has been restricted to the history of that religion with which we are best acquainted--Christianity. Moreover, if we are to form a correct judgment of the part played in the history of religions by the misinterpretations already noted, it is necessary to trace the extent to which they have influenced men and women in a collective capacity. For the striking fact is that, in spite of the purification of the s.e.xual relations being one of the avowed objects of Christianity, in spite, too, of the attempts of the official churches to suppress them, the history of Christianity has been dogged by outbreaks of s.e.xual extravagance, by the continuous emergence of erotico-religious sects, claiming Christian teachings as the authority for their actions. We need not discuss the legitimacy of their inferences. We are concerned solely with a chronicle of historic facts so far as they can be ascertained; and these have a certain significance of their own, as events, quite apart from their reasonableness or desirability.

A part cause of the movements we are about to describe may have been a violent reaction against an extravagant asceticism. Something may also be due to the fact that over-concentration of mind upon a particular evil is apt to defeat its end by the mere force of unconscious suggestion in the contrary direction. But in all probability much was due to the presence of certain elements inherited by Christianity from the older religions. At any rate, those whose minds are filled with the idea that s.e.xual extravagance on a collective scale and under the cloak of religion is either a modern phenomenon, or was unknown to the early history of Christianity, would do well to revise their opinions in the light of ascertainable facts. No less a person than the Rev. S.

Baring-Gould has reminded us that criticism discloses "on the shining face of primitive Christianity rents and craters undreamt of in our old simplicity," and also a.s.serts "that there was in the breast of the newborn Church an element of antinomianism, not latent, but in virulent activity, is a fact as capable of demonstration as any conclusion in a science which is not exact."[122]

There would be little value in a study of these erotico-religious movements if they involved only a detection of individual l.u.s.t consciously using religion as a cloak for its gratification. Such a conclusion is a fatally easy one, but it does little justice to the chief people concerned, and it is quite lacking in historical perspective. In most cases the initiators of these strange sects have put forward a philosophy of religion as a justification of their teaching, and only a slight knowledge of this is enough to prove that we are face to face with a phenomenon of much greater significance than mere immorality. This may be recognised even in the pages of the New Testament itself. It is not a practice that is there denounced; it is a teaching that is repudiated. And one sees the same thing at later periods. The conviction on the one side that certain actions are unlawful, is met on the other side with the conviction that they are perfectly legitimate. Conviction is met with conviction. Each side expresses itself in terms of religion; the ethical aspect is incidental or subordinate. It is a contest of opposing religious beliefs and practices.

The real nature of the conflict is often obscured by the fact of social opinion and the social forces generally being on the side of the more normal expression of s.e.xual life. This, however, is no more than a necessity of the situation. The continuance of a healthful social life is dependent upon the maintenance of a certain balance in the relations of the s.e.xes, and anything that strikes at this strikes at social life as a whole. In such cases we have, therefore, to allow for the operation of social selection, which is always on the side of the more normal type. From this it follows that although a small body of people may exemplify a variation that is in itself socially disastrous, the main forces of social life will prevent its ever a.s.suming large dimensions.

Moreover, a large body of people, such as is represented by a church holding a commanding position in society, will be forced to come to terms with the permanent tendencies of social life, and will either suppress undesirable variations or expel them. It thus happens that while the larger and more dominant churches have been on the side of normal, regularised expressions of the s.e.xual life, abnormal variations have constantly arisen and have been denounced by them. But the significant feature is that they have arisen within the churches, and most commonly during periods of great religious stress or excitement.

These tendencies, as the Rev. S. Baring-Gould has pointed out, existed in the very earliest days of Christianity. It is quite apparent from Paul's writings that as early as the date of the First Epistle to the Corinthians some of the more objectionable features of the older Pagan worship had shown themselves in the Church. The doctrine of 'spiritual wifehood' appeared at a very early date in the Church, and its teachers cited even St. Paul himself as their authority. Their claim was based upon Paul's declaration (1 Cor. ix. 5) that he had power to lead about "a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas." Curiously enough, commentators have never agreed as to what Paul meant by this expression. The word translated may mean either wife, or sister, or woman. Had it been wife in the ordinary sense, it does not appear that at that date there would have been any room for scandal. The clear fact is, however, that others claimed a like privilege; the privilege was not always restricted to one woman, and the practice, if not general, became not uncommon, and furnished the ground for scandal for a long period. Two epistles, wrongly attributed to St.