Religion & Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious DevelopmentCohen, Chapman
Religion
Religion & Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development
Cohen, Chapman
Sex -- Religious aspects
The utter uselessness of accepting at its face value anyone's
explanation of the nature of his subjective experience, is well shown by
the once universal belief in witchcraft. If there is a single belief on
behalf of which a mass of apparently unimpeachable evidence could be
produced, it is this one. It has run its course throughout the whole
world. It is still accepted by probably half the human race. In our own
country eminent men, not alone theologians, but doctors, lawyers,
statesmen, and men of letters, have given their solemn testimony in its
favour. Thousands of people have been bewitched, and their symptoms
described by thousands of others. More remarkable still, those accused
have often enough confessed their guilt. Every possible corroboration
has been given to this belief, and yet it is now scouted by educated
persons all over the civilised world. Even religious teachers accept the
explanation that these witchcraft cases were due to distinctly
pathological conditions, and to the power of suggestion operating upon
uninformed minds during an unenlightened age. But communications with
spiritual beings rest on no better foundation than communication with
Satan. Whether the alleged illumination be diabolic or angelic, the
evidence for either, or both, is the same. The testimony of a man like
the Rev. R. J. Campbell that he is conscious of a divine influence in
his life is of no greater value than that of the medieval peasant who
felt himself tormented by Satan. The one person is no better authority
than is the other on such a topic. Both are the heirs of the ages,
inheritors of a superstition that goes back to the most primitive ages
of mankind, only modified in its expression by the culture of
contemporary life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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