Vive Jésus quand ses blandices Me comblent de chastes délices! Vive Jésus lorsque à mon aise Il me permet que je la baise!” [“Praise to Jesus, praise His power, Praise His sweet allurements! Praise to Jesus, when His goodness Reduces me to nakedness; Praise to Jesus when He says to me: ‘My sister, My dove, My beautiful one!’ “Praise to Jesus in all my steps, Praise to His amorous charms! Praise to Jesus, when His mouth Touches mine in a loving kiss! “Praise to Jesus when His gentle caresses Overwhelm me with chaste joys! Praise to Jesus when at my leisure He allows me to kiss Him!”] In addition to religious prostitution and to sexual mysticism, two other religious manifestations show an intimate relationship with the sexual life, are, indeed, in part of sexual origin--namely, =asceticism= and the =belief in witchcraft=. Neither of these is, as has often been maintained by superficial writers, peculiar to the Christian faith. As Nietzsche says, Eros did not poison Christianity alone; asceticism and the belief in witchcraft are =common anthropological conceptions, met with throughout the history of civilization=, and arising from the primitive ardour of religious perceptions. To what degree is the high estimation of asceticism--that is, the view that earthly and eternal salvation are to be found in =complete sexual abstinence=--associated with the religious sentiment? Religion is the yearning after an ideal, a belief in a process of perfectibility. To such a belief the sexual impulse and everything connected with it must appear as the greatest possible hindrance to the realization of the ideal, because nowhere else is the =disharmony= of existence so plainly manifest as in the sexual life.