In Reply to: The Transcendental Temptation posted by Perry on September 22, 2004 at 14:54:14:
I was a bit surprised to read the following passages from chapter 6, The Appeal to Mysticism. In this section of the chapter, Kurtz provides some naturalistic explanations for mystical experiences. He then discusses certain aspects of Christian mysticism. See if what he recounts here reminds you of anyone.
"One aspect of the life of the mystic that is particularly intriguing is the role that sexual repression and symbolism plays in this experience. Two striking ingredients are present. First, there is repression and frustration, a sense that pleasures of the flesh, especially sexual enjoyment, are evil and sinful. Second, there is an apparent form of sublimation and some sexual gratification in the mystical encounter. According to James Leuba, there are deep-seated psychological and organic needs that help explain the behaviour of mystics. There is a tendency for "self-affirmation" and "self-esteem", a desire "to devote oneself to something or somebody", a need "for affection and moral support", a need "for peace, for singlemindedness or unity". Last, there are "organic needs", for "sensuous satisfaction", especially in connection with one's sex life. Christian mystics fall under the influence of two ideals of monastic Christianity: "self-surrender to God's will and chastity." On the other hand there is the ideal of "self-renunciation", in which physical sex is forbidden; on the other, the demand to surrender obediently to a loving and righteous God. Very few, if any, of the prominent mystics led a normal married or sexual life: they mystical life in a sense grew out of perturbation and perversion. It expressed a pathological response to the need for sexual fullfillment, by means of a deflected discharge of the libido.
"The most notable illustration of this is St. Theresa. Her mystical experience has unmistakable phallic symbols and orgasmic overtones. She says, " I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form ... I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God."
"A similar sexual element is found in a description by Mm. Guyon, a French mystic (1648 - 1717). "I crave", she cries, "the love that thrills and burns and leaves on fainting in an inexpressable joy and pain." God, she says, answers her cries, sets her aflame with passion, and after the gratification, still trembling in every limb, she says to him, "O God, if you would permit sensual people to feel what I feel, very soon they would leave their false pleasures in order to enjoy so real a blessing."
"Pierre Janet, the French psychiatrist, treated a patient, a lonely woman named Madeleine, who was noted for her mystical experience. She reported, "I feel myself under the spell of a pure and sweet hug which ravishes the whole of my being, an inexpressible heat burns me to the marrow of my bones ... The flesh, which is dead to the [sense] perceptions is very much alive to the pure and divine enjoyments. I go to sleep sweetly cradled in God's embrace. God presses me so hard to Himself that He causes me suffering in all my body; but these are pains that I cannot but love ..."
"Madeleine also reveals her desires for children in her fantasies about her relationship with God: "On one occasion she remarks that her nipples are inflamed, 'because He suckles so much.' She is God's mother and wet-nurse, she lets God play, she scolds Him, and so forth."
"Elements of sexuality are also present in male mystics, which tends to suggest a latent homosexuality. The statutes and paintings of an almost nude Jesus, which appear in the great cathedrals of Europe, perhaps helped to arouse prurient feelings.
"St. John of the Cross graphically describes his union: 'O gentle subtile touch, the Word, the Son of God, Who dost penetrate subtiley the very substance of my soul, and touching it gently, absorbest it wholly in divine ways of sweetness ... What the soul tastes now in this touch of God, is in truth, though not perfectly, a certain foretaste of everlasting life. It is not incredible that it should be so, when we believe, as we do believe, that this touch is most substantial, and that the Substance of God touches the substance of the soul. Many saints have experience it in this life. The sweetness of delight which this touch occasions baffles all description.
"Jan van Ruysbroeck [another mystic] says: 'In this storm of love two spirits strive together: The Spirit of God and our own spirit. God, through the Holy Ghost, inclines Himself towards us; and thereby we are touched in love ... This makes the lovers melt into each other, God's touch and His gifts, our loving craving and our giving back: these fulfill love. This flux and reflux causes the fountain of love to brim over: and thus the touch of God and our loving craving become one simple love ... For that abysmal Good which we taste and possess, we can neither grasp nor understand; neither can we enter into it by ourselves or by means of our exercises. And so we are poor in ourselves, but rich in God.'
"St. Bernard describes his experience as the "mystic kiss" of Christ. If fundamentalists were to read Catholic devotional literature, they would probably regard the following as pornographic: [The Kiss of His Mouth] signifies nothing else than to receive the inpouring of the Holy Spirit ... The Bride has the boldness to ask trustingly that the inpouring of the Holy Spirit may be granted to her under the name of a Kiss. When the Bride is praying that the Kiss may be given her, her entreaty is for the inpouring of the grace of this threefold knowledge, as far as it can be experienced in this mortal body. ... This gift conveys both the light of knowledge and the unction of piety.'
"Another form of sexuality is masochism. In many cases, the mystic is able to achieve his intense rapture only after self-torture and flagellation. The church extolled physical suffering; it found grateful devotees who willingly and lovingly submitted to its demands."
...
"The church has exacerbated pathology and psychosis and considered such a state divinely sanctioned and virtuous. It has done so by establishing the monastic life, enforcing celibacy, demanding strict vows of chastity, rewarding penance and suffering, and emphasizing passivity and obedience."