to add that the majority of
true religious sentiments come from quite a different source.

When we study the religious sentiment profoundly, especially in the
Christian religion, and Catholicism in particular, we find at each
step its astonishing connection with eroticism. We find it in the
exalted adoration of holy women, such as Mary Magdalene, Marie de
Bethany, for Jesus, in the holy legends, in the worship of the Virgin
Mary in the Middle Ages, and especially in art. The ecstatic Madonnas
in our art galleries cast their fervent regards on Jesus or on the
heavens. The expression in Murillo's "Immaculate Conception" may be
interpreted by the highest voluptuous exaltation of love as well as by
holy transfiguration. The "Saints" of Correggio regard the Holy Virgin
with an amorous ardor which may be celestial, but appears in reality
extremely terrestrial and human.

Numerous sects, both ancient and modern, have entered on the scene in
a hardly less libidinous manner; for example, the sexual excesses of
the anabaptists in former times and the sexual ecstasies of certain
modern sects in America.

If the objection is raised that these sects are the pathological
excrescences of religion, I reply with their disciples as follows: "We
have come into the world because your State religions are sunk in
indifference, hypocrisy and hollow formality, offering nothing to the
human heart but empty phrases. It behooves us to awaken from this
sleep. We want enthusiasm and fervor to transform the inner life of
man and convert him." These words, which we can see and hear
everywhere by opening our eyes and ears, constitute a formal avowal of
the suggestive factor in religion. (See Chapter IX.)

In the Canton of Zurich I have myself often had occasion to observe,
especially among women, the followers of the singular sect of the
Pastor Zeller, of Maennedorf. He is a kind of visionary prophet who
heals people after the manner of Christ and John the Baptist, by
placing his hands on them and anointing them with oil. The cures which
he obtains are due naturally to suggestion, like those of Lourdes, but
he attributes them to divine miracles. He even told me naively that he
heard a grinding (crepitation) in a broken bone, which he regarded as
a miraculous cure! A crowd of women, mostly hysterical, collected
around this man with an ardor which was unconsciously directed much
more to his person than to that of God or Christ whom he was supposed