THE REVENGE OF SEXUALITY

_The Demoniacal and the Obscene_

In conclusion I will attempt to elucidate a group of phenomena which
play a part, important though often ignored, in the emotional life of
the present day. They are related to the subject under discussion,
inasmuch as they, too, are the result of a lack of harmony between
sensuousness and love. As long as sensuousness is felt and understood as
a natural element, and one which does not under normal circumstances
enter consciousness as a distinct principle, the emotional sphere which
may be designated as demoniacal-sexual and obscene, does not exist. Not
until sensuousness is confronted by a higher principle, a now solely
acknowledged spiritual-divine principle, will natural life, and
particularly normal sexuality, be stigmatised as low and ungodly, even
as demoniacal. In proportion as the conception of God became more
spiritual and divine, the conception of the devil became more horrible;
the higher the soul soared, the deeper sank the body. This philosophy of
pure spirituality was expressed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in the
following words: "Oh, soul, stamped with the image of God, adorned with
His semblance, espoused to faith, endowed with His spirit, redeemed by
His blood, the compeer of angels, invested with reason--what hast thou
in common with the flesh, for which thou must suffer so much?... And yet
it is thy dearest companion! Behold, there will come a day when it shall
be a miserable, pallid corpse, food for worms! For however beautifully
it may be adorned, yet it is nothing but flesh!" The man of the later
Middle Ages, and especially the cleric, who was completely dominated by
the contrast of the ascetic and the sexual, feared the devil more than
he loved God, and regarded the sensual temptations which beset his
excited, superstitious and eternally unsatisfied imagination as sent by
the devil. The naivete of sensuality had passed away for ever; as
goodness was looked upon as divine and supernatural, nature and natural
instincts were condemned. Man was torn asunder.

But the devil was not only feared, he was also worshipped. A
devil-worship, the details of which have been little studied, existed
from the tenth to the fourteenth century (when it reached its climax),
side by side with the worship of God. The greater the dread of heresy
and witchcraft, the greater became the number of men who, despairing of
salvation, prostrated themselves before t