to symbolize. I have treated patients who had been to him, and who
associated with his person both the mildest and the most carnal erotic
images--of course, in the innocence of their hearts.

It is far from me to reproach this sincere man and many others of the
same kind, especially the priests who are surrounded by a halo of
sanctity pushed to ecstasy. I only maintain that when a human being
exalts himself in the search for pure-mindedness and sanctity, thus
denying his true nature, he is always in danger of falling
unconsciously into the most gross sensuality, and at the same time of
sanctifying this sensuality.

=Description of Religious Eroticism by the Poets.=--The Swiss poet,
Gottfried Keller, with his peculiar genius has described religious
eroticism in an admirable way, especially in his seven legends. Read,
for example, _Dorothea's Blumenkoerbchen_ (Dorothea's little
flower-basket), in which the terrestial lover of Dorothea ends by
becoming jealous of her celestial lover, of whom she always speaks in
the most exalted sentiments. Wherever she went she spoke in the most
tender terms and expressed the most ardent desire for a celestial
lover that she had found, who waited in immortal beauty to press her
against his shining breast. When the wicked prefect had bound Dorothea
on the gridiron under which was placed a slow fire, this hurt her
delicate body, and she uttered smothered cries. Then her terrestrial
lover, Theophilus, forcing his way through the crowd, burst her bonds
and said with a sad smile, "Does it hurt you, Dorothea?" But when
suddenly freed from all pain she immediately replied: "How could it
hurt me, Theophilus? I lay on the roses of the lover I adore! This is
my wedding day!" Keller shows us here, along with eroticism, the
suggestive effect of ecstasy, which among martyrs, may reach the most
complete anaesthesia.

Goethe has also described erotico-religious ecstasy; for example, at
the end of the second part of Faust, in the prayers addressed by
certain anchorites to the queen of heaven.

=Distinction Between Religion and the Ecstasy Derived from
Eroticism.=--It would be quite false to maintain that religion in
itself arises from sexual sensations. The terror of death and the
enigmas of existence, the sentiments of human weakness and
insufficiency of life, the want of consolation for all miseries, the
hope of a future life, all play an important part in the origin of
religions. On the other ha