e's point by the worship of
Bacchus and Ceres, or by the ecstatic feelings of some other saints
about the Eucharist?" Or, seeing that the Bible is full of the language
of respiratory oppression, "one might almost as well interpret religion
as a perversion of the respiratory function." And if it is pointed out
that active interest in religion synchronises with adolescence, "the
retort again is easy.... The interest in mechanics, physics, chemistry,
logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent
years along with that in poetry and religion, is also a perversion of
the sexual instinct."[1]

Excellent fooling, this, but little else. I do not know that anyone has
ever claimed that religion took its origin in sexual feeling, or that
this would alone provide an explanation of historical religion. All that
anyone has ever urged is that a deal of so-called religious feeling,
past and present, can be shown to be due to unsatisfied or perverted
sexual feeling--which is a very different statement, and one of which
the truth may be demonstrated from Professor James's own pages. But
between saying that certain feelings are wrongly interpreted in terms of
an already existing idea, and saying that the idea itself is nothing but
these same feelings transformed, there is an obvious and important
difference. In every case the religious idea is taken for granted. Its
origin is a quite different subject of enquiry. But once the idea is in
existence there is always the probability of evidence for its truth
being found in the wrong direction. The analogy of the digestive and
respiratory organs is clever, but futile. The belief that much which
has passed for religious feeling is perverted sexuality is not based
merely upon the language employed. The language is only symptomatic. The
terminology of respiration and digestion when used in connection with
religion is frankly and palpably symbolic. That of sexual love is as
often frankly literal, and can be correlated with the actual state of
the person using it. Digestion and respiration must go on in any case;
but it is precisely the point at issue whether with a different sexual
life these so-called religious ecstatic states would have been
experienced. When we find religious characters of strongly marked
amorous dispositions, but leading an ascetic life, using toward the
object of their adoration terms usually associated with strong sexual
feeling, it does not seem extrava