insane whose delirium is combined with
religious or mystic exaltation, and who by the mysticism of their
delirium have exercised and continue to exercise a profound influence
on the mass of humanity which surround them--"Panurge's Sheep," if I
may use the expression. These people are themselves so dominated by
the pathological influence of their auto-suggestions or their delirium
that they behave with the fanaticism of fakirs, and exhibit an
extraordinary energy and perseverance in the pursuit of the object of
their morbid ideas. By their assurance, the sentiment of
infallibility, and the fire of faith which is manifested in their
prophetical manner, they fascinate the feeble brains of the people who
surround them and attract them by their suggestive action.

A very human and often powerful eroticism is usually associated with
their delirium; but it is covered by a cloak of religious ecstasy,
which imposes on natures disposed to exaltation, and renders them
blind to the ignominy which often lies under this ecstasy.

What makes these patients so persuasive is the fact that they are
themselves persuaded. Even the normal man, we must admit, is guided
less by reason than by sentiment, and the persons we have just
described exert a powerful action on sentiment, and this more by their
piercing glance, their prophetic and dominating tone, their manner and
appearance, than by the extremely confused text of their discourses
and doctrines.

In this way there are always arising small epidemics of attraction in
which a group of individuals allows itself to be infatuated by
so-called prophets, messiahs, holy virgins and other visionaries, who
are only lunatics or crazy persons. Under their influence are produced
certain forms of insanity by contagion, which have been called double,
triple or quadruple madness, and which may sometimes take the form of
an epidemic.

When the "prophet" is more consistent in his words and actions, or
when his environment is still very ignorant and superstitious, the
crowd of believers increases still more rapidly, and thus one sees
even at the present day in less-civilized countries new sects or
religious guilds, more or less ephemeral, in which the spirit of the
prophet sometimes stirs up grave sexual orgies.

Among more cultured people the prophet is generally exposed or sent to
a lunatic asylum, much to the indignation of his disciples, who often
consist of his wife and children and a few feeb