In the effort to make a moral
adjustment it consequently turns out that a technique is used which
was derived originally from sexual life, and the use, so to speak,
of the sexual machinery for a moral adjustment involves, in some
cases, the carrying over into the general process of some sexual
manifestations."[390]
The relationship of the sexual and the religious emotions--like so many
other of the essential characters of human nature--is seen in its nakedest
shape by the alienist. Esquirol referred to this relationship, and, many
years ago, J.B. Friedreich, a German alienist of wide outlook and
considerable insight, emphasized the connection between the sexual and the
religious emotions, and brought forward illustrative cases.[391] Schroeder
van der Kolk also remarked: "I venture to express my conviction that we
should rarely err if, in a case of religious melancholy, we assumed the
sexual apparatus to be implicated."[392] Regis, in France, lays it down
that "there exists a close connection between mystic ideas and erotic
ideas, and most often these two orders of conception are associated in
insanity."[393] Berthier considered that erotic forms of insanity are
those most frequently found in convents. Bevan-Lewis points out how
frequently religious exaltation occurs at puberty in women, and religious
depression at the climacteric, the period of sexual decline.[394]
"Religion is very closely allied to love," remarks Savage, "and the love
of woman and the worship of God are constantly sources of trouble in
unstable youth; it is very interesting to note the frequency with which
these two deep feelings are associated.
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