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 to symbolize. I have treated patients who had been to him, and who associated with his person both the mildest and the most carnal erotic images--of course, in the innocence of their hearts. It is far from me to reproach this sincere man and many others of the same kind, especially the priests who are surrounded by a halo of sanctity pushed to ecstasy. I only maintain that when a human being exalts himself in the search for pure-mindedness and sanctity, thus denying his true nature, he is always in danger of falling unconsciously into the most gross sensuality, and at the same time of sanctifying this sensuality.