closely analogous methods of obtaining supernatural powers are
also customary.

There are fundamental psychological reasons for the wide
prevalence of asceticism and for the remarkable manner in which
it involves self-mortification, even acute physical suffering.
Such pain is an actual psychic stimulant, more especially in
slightly neurotic persons. This is well illustrated by a young
woman, a patient of Janet's, who suffered from mental depression
and was accustomed to find relief by slightly burning her hands
and feet. She herself clearly understood the nature of her
actions. "I feel," she said, "that I make an effort when I hold
my hands on the stove, or when I pour boiling water on my feet;
it is a violent act and it awakens me: I feel that it is really
done by myself and not by another.... To make a mental effort by
itself is too difficult for me; I have to supplement it by
physical efforts. I have not succeeded in any other way; that is
all: when I brace myself up to burn myself I make my mind freer,
lighter and more active for several days. Why do you speak of my
desire for mortification? My parents believe that, but it is
absurd. It would be a mortification if it brought any suffering,
but I enjoy this suffering, it gives me back my mind; it prevents
my thoughts from stopping: what would one not do to attain such
happiness?" (P. Janet, "The Pathogenesis of Some Impulsions,"
_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April, 1906.) If we understand
this psychological process we may realize how it is that even in
the higher religions, however else they may differ, the practical
value of asceticism and mortification as the necessary door to
the most exalted religious state is almost universally
recognized, and with complete cheerfulness. "Asceticism and
ecstacy are inseparable," as Probst-Biraben remarks at the outset
of an interesting paper on Mahommedan mysticism ("L'Extase dans
le Mysticisme Musulman," _Revue Philosophique_, Nov., 1906).
Asceticism is the necessary ante-chamber to spiritual perfection.

It thus happens that savage peoples largely base their often admirable
enforcement of asceticism not on the practical grounds that would justify
it, but on religious grounds that with the growth of intelligence fall
into discredit.[71] Even, however, when the scrupulous observances of
savage