but with those of their own, with their ancestors and neighbors who grew up with them in the same environment and under similar conditions. And within this compass we shall meet with all degrees of growth and decay; i. e., among Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, etc., there are sects and denominations who hold religious views and perform religious rites which are abnormal to the stage of development of their respective religions.

Unfortunately, however, our knowledge of the life-history of the different tribes and races, especially the primitive ones; the conditions of their social, intellectual, and natural environments, is in many cases too fragmentary and uncertain to enable us to determine whether their religious development has kept pace with their moral, social, and intellectual development, or whether it has been arrested, or degenerated. Of the religions of certain peoples who are our neighbors and contemporaries, such for instaace, as the Holy Orthodox Greek Church of Russia, with its numerous sects and fifteen millions of schismatics, and in our own country the Christian Catholic Church, or Dowieism, Christian Scientists, the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us, and many others, there is certain and almost complete knowledge, and therefore, we have no hesitancy in stigmatizing them as more or less pathological. Of the religions of many primitive peoples, however, we can make no such definite statement. It is difficult to understand the people and get into sympathetic rapport with their religions, and besides our knowledge of them is largely derived from the reports of tourists and missionaries, whose observations were unscientific, to say the least. There is one criterion, however, of which we are sure, namely, the effects of the religions upon their adherents. Religion, like government, is of, for, and by the people, and like government, it is of positive value only when it serves the needs of the people, makes life more moral and joyful, and aids them in their normal development. But just as there are autocratic and tyrannical forms of government which militate against the mental and material welfare and progress of their subjects, so too, are there religions, which, instead of being subservient to their votaries, have terrorized and enslaved them, inoculated them with the virus of pessimism, made death a boon, and hindered their normal development in countless different ways. Such religions cannot but be considered pathological.

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Insanity," writes E. Stanley Abbot, is a morbid condition of the mind which renders it impossible for the conscious individual to think, feel, or act, in relation to his environment, in accordance with the standards of his bringing up, and Dr. Brinton, speaking of racial insanity, says: "A pathological condition of the ethnic mind is present when it is chronically incapable of directing the activities of the group correctly toward self-preservation and development. Basing our criterion on these facts we shall hold that whenever the religious experiences or practices injure the psychical or physical condition of the individual or group, or retard their growth so that they cannot think, act, or feel in relation to their environments, in accordance with the standards normal to their stages of development, they are positively pathological.

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With this criterion constantly in mind, and remembering that the religious state is a combined effect of many, if not all psychic experiences and activities, and not a compound composed of separable units, we shall analyze some of the religions of primitive, ancient, mediæval, and modern peoples into their emotional, intellectual, and volitional elements, for the same reason that psychologists analyze consciousness into sensation, perception, conception, memory, imagination, emotion, will, reasoning, association, etc., and endeavor to show that an excessive exaggeration or elimination of any one of the elements produces a disharmonious relationship between them, so to speak, and leads to degeneration of the whole state.

1 Am. Jour. Insanity, July, 1902.

2 The Basis of Social Relations, p. 84.

CHAPTER II.

THE EMOTIONAL ELEMENT IN RELIGION.

LOVE.

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That love plays a large and most important rôle in the religious experiences of men, will readily be admitted by every one, but that love itself is an irradiation, an efflorescence of the sexual impulse which is as old as life and is the very foundation of life, some few, perhaps, will be inclined to doubt. Biologists, anthropologists, and alienists, however, are unanimous on this point, and philology renders the same verdict. The English word, love,' the German, lieben,' the Danish, lieven,' Russian, lioblyu,' and Latin, 'lubeo,' are all derived from the Sanscrit root word, loab,' which means desire, lust, passion. And the same is true of the Hebrew word for love. (That the instinct which attracts the sexes for the purpose of re-creation is the root from which all love has grown is an established fact of science, and now that we understand better and more truly the meaning of evolution, of sexual selection and reproduction in the plant and animal series, we realize the absurdity of being ashamed of the parentage of our noblest emotion.

This fact is of special interest to us because of the light it throws on the dynamic relationship between religion and sex which appears so frequently in the insane, and in the biographies and autobiographies of Saints, both male and female, of monks and nuns, and religious enthusiasts in general. Here we find that religion and sex are inextricably interwoven, so to speak, and influence each other at every turn. Sexual disturbances irradiate and produce marked religious disturbances such as erotic religious trances, visions, hallucinations, mystic experiences, etc., and religious disturbances such as take place at excited revivals and religious gatherings, frequently give rise to sexual excesses of the most revolting nature. Unable to express itself naturally, the sexual impulse finds an outlet in a more or less sensuous love of God, Christ, or the Virgin Mary; and likewise the religious

impulse when overwrought, breaks through its natural bounds and spends itself in sexual orgies.) In the religious ceremonies of the Christs, for example, a peculiar mystical sect in Russia, after the performance of a series of hysterical acts, such as rapid whirling around on their heels, loud singing and stamping, wild and uncontrolled laughing, yelling, contortioning, mutual flagellation, tearing off their clothes, running wildly, throwing themselves on the ground, walking on all fours, sitting on each others' backs, etc., which continue late in the night, they throw themselves pell mell, men and women, on beds, benches, on the ground, and abandon themselves to indescribable forms of depravity. "The carnal love which we experience for our sisters," they say, in justification of their licentiousness, "is sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit among us.' Even more degrading are the closing scenes of the ceremonies of another kindred Russian sect, the Skoptsy.1 Similar phenomena obtained in the festival of Venus, the Bacchanalia, Florolia, Saturnalia, Liberalia, and others, not only of the early Greeks and Romans, but also of the European nations until almost recent times.

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[Of the influence of sex on religion there are also very many examples. Mme. Guyon, whose married life was loveless and most unhappy, cried, "I wish the Divine love, the love which chills the soul with ineffable shivers, the love which puts me in a swoon."' And later, when she had experienced the mystic union with God, she wrote, "O! my God, if you should make the most sensual persons feel what I feel, they would soon leave their false pleasures to enjoy one so true. Another mystic, Ruysbroeck, sought and found in God an enjoyment, more voluptuous for the body and soul than all other earthly pleasures." Numerous other erotic mystics, especially the female ones, such as St. Teresa, Catherine of Sienna, and St. Gertrude, who experienced mystical "marriages with God," express themselves in similar strains. Of the first, James says, "In the main, her idea of religion seems to have been that of an endless amatory flirtation - if one may say so without irreverence-between the devotee and the Deity."'2 And of the last we read, that one day, "Suffering from a headache, she sought, for the glory of God, to relieve herself by holding certain odoriferous substances in her mouth, when the Lord appeared to her to lean over

1 See N. Tsakni: La Russie Sectaire, pp. 63-97. Paris, 1888. James: Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 347.

towards her lovingly, and to find comfort Himself in these odors. After having gently breathed them in, He arose, and said with a gratified air to the Saints, as if contented with what He had done: See the new present which my betrothed has given Me!'

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"One day, at chapel, she heard supernaturally sung, the words, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,' The Son of God lean

ing towards her like a sweet lover, and giving to her soul the softest kiss, said to her at the second Sanctus: In this Sanctus addressed to my person, receive with this kiss all the sanctity of my divinity and of my humanity, and let it be to thee a sufficient preparation for the approaching communion table.' And the next following Sunday, while she was thanking God for this favor, behold the Son of God, more beauteous than thousands of angels, takes her in His arms as if He were proud of her, and presents her to God, the Father, in that perfection of sanctity with which He had dowered her. And the Father took such delight in this soul thus presented by His only Son, that, as if unable longer to restrain Himself, He gave her, and the Holy Ghost gave her also, the sanctity attributed to each by His own Sanctus, and thus she remained endowed with the plenary fullness of the blessing of Sanctity, bestowed on her by Omnipotence, by Wisdom, and by Love."2

(Francis Parkman states that the nuns sent over to America in colonization days were frequently seized with religio-sexual frenzy. "She heard," he writes of Marie de l'Incarnation, "in a trance, a miraculous voice. It was that of Christ, promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, full of troubled hopes and fears, when again the voice sounded in her ear, with assurance that the promise was fulfilled, and that she was indeed his bride. Now, ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among Roman Catholic female devotees when married, or married unhappily, and which have their source in the necessities of a woman's nature. To her excited thought, her divine spouse became a living presence; and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is of intense passion. She went to prayer, agitated and tremulous, as if to a meeting with an earthly lover. "Oh my Love!" she exclaimed, when shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments that I suffer? Alas! alas! my Love! my

2 Revelations de Sainte Gertrude, Paris, 1898, i. 44, 186. Quoted by James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 345-6.