In such cases there is
no conflict between the physical and the psychic, and therefore the
resulting excitement is pleasurable and not painful.
At this point our study of auto-erotism brings us into the sphere of
mysticism. Leuba, in a penetrating and suggestive essay on Christian
mysticism, after quoting the present _Study_, refers to the famous
passages in which St. Theresa describes how a beautiful little angel
inserted a flame-tipped dart into her heart until it descended into her
bowels and left her inflamed with divine love. "What physiological
difference," he asks, "is there between this voluptuous sensation and that
enjoyed by the disciple of the Brotherhood of New Life? St. Theresa says
'bowels,' the woman doctor says 'womb,' that is all."[250]
The extreme form of auto-erotism is the tendency for the sexual
emotion to be absorbed and often entirely lost in
self-admiration. This Narcissus-like tendency, of which the
normal germ in women is symbolized by the mirror, is found in a
minor degree in some men, and is sometimes well marked in women,
usually in association with an attraction for other persons, to
which attraction it is, of course, normally subservient. "The
mirror," remarks Bloch (_Beitraege_ 1, p. 201), "plays an
important part in the genesis of sexual aberration.... It cannot
be doubted that many a boy and girl have first experienced sexual
excitement at the sight of their own bodies in a mirror.
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