1. The term pathological has gotten bad press among those mental-health professionals who value a "non-pathologizing" approach to psychotherapy. Frequently, the objection to the term stems from a reaction (with which I am in sympathy) against the tendency of the so-called "medical model" to label people with this or that particular psychiatric "syndrome" or "disorder" from its "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual." Too often, these DSM diagnoses become concretized or reified, leaving the "patient" feeling as if he or she is inherently defective or is literally infected with some ominous combination of psychological germs, viruses, bacteria, and assorted other emotional "pathogens." In the worst cases, a "dual diagnosis" might be rendered, placing the hapless patient in a dreaded state of "co-morbidity." "Managed care," in turn, has latched ruthlessly onto this model, only authorizing services for those maladies that are sufficiently pathological as to require "medically necessary treatment." And so the clinical "wheel of fortune" turns, as we are forced to pathologize our clients and to diagnosis for dollars–all the while fearing, at least vaguely, that the "cash cow" of insurance reimbursement might actually be an idolatrous "golden calf," like that before which the ancient Israelites reveled and sacrificed their burnt offerings in Moses’ day (Exod. 32:1-6). But, I digress once again (and also wonder where all that came from!).

2. However, an alternative meaning of "pathological" is available. It derives from its root word: pathos, or suffering. From this perspective, we might ask, "In what ways do seemingly crazy and destructive forms of religious experience stem from and revolve around individual and collective suffering, and, tragically, how might they also contribute to this suffering?" Moreover, these questions can be explored empathically, from within the experience of the religious sufferer–and from that part of oneself that can relate to the experience. Thus, rather than "objectifying" religious pathology from a safe distance, we will attempt something of what Kohut calls an "experience near" approach as we try to gain some feeling for the "internal logic" of particular forms of religious pathology–for which William James coined the wonderful phrase "theopathic conditions" (p. 375).

3. But first an important disclaimer regarding: Religious Truth-Claims.

• a. It is important to preface any discussion of pathological religious experience with the disclaimer that the amount of suffering inflicted on oneself or others by a particular religious belief can say nothing for sure about the actual truth or falsehood of the belief. The most that can be said descriptively is that the belief seems to produce more psychological or relational suffering, conflict, and distress than it does health and well being. Yet for all of its prima facie destructiveness, the belief might be absolutely true–if the particular God it espouses, or claims to "reveal," really does exist!

• b. Consequently, the relative truth and health of religious experience can be located in one of the following four quadrants, whose axes designate: (1) true vs. false beliefs and (2) healthy vs. pathological beliefs.

1. 1) Quadrant I represents the possibility that a religious belief-system might both promote psychological health and be "true" regarding the actual existence of the God it professes. (For one definition of "healthy" religion, see Clinebell’s 10 criteria attached to the end of this material [p. 58a]. Most sincere believers would locate their beliefs in this quadrant, even if their daily lives seem unduly pathos-filled, or "pathetic." In all likelihood, they would blame this state of affairs on their personal lack of obedience and faith rather than fault their belief system, itself.

2. 2) Quadrant II represents the possibility that religious beliefs might be "absolutely" false, but still promote psychological health and well being (depending on how "health" is defined). This possibility is underscored by the increasing number of research studies indicating that active religious beliefs and commitments contribute to longer and healthier lives (suicide bombers excepted). Because this phenomenon holds true across a variety of belief systems (that can’t all be equally "true"), it seems that the salutary effects of the beliefs derive, at least in part, from something other than their absolute truth-value.

3. 3) Quadrant III represents the possibility that a belief system can be literally "true" but also produce substantial amounts of personal and collective suffering. For instance, Osama-bin-Laden could conceivably be God’s most faithful follower if an Invisible and Almighty God does indeed exist, has ordained Islam as the purest form of divine revelation, and has enlightened a particular sect within that religion with the most accurate interpretation of that revelation. Similarly, the wrathful and heavily scowling God of Calvin’s Institutes (quoted on page 4, above) could truly exist. If true, Calvin could even argue (and has) that the subsequent awareness of "our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity; plus an awareness of the greatest iniquity . . . extreme folly . . . and the most miserable impotence" is a healthy response to such a God. From this perspective, rather than being "pathological," such self-loathing could be construed as the beginning of true psychological health–a type of spiritual tough love.

4. 4) Quadrant IV represents those religious beliefs that are both pathological and false. Interestingly, Freud places all theistic beliefs in the category. Because he views all such beliefs as false illusions, he logically concludes that to cling to them is inherently pathological–no matter how much psychological well-being they might produce.

c. Leaving the "healthy" religious experience (whether true or false) of quadrants I and IV for the final session on the "therapeutic" dimensions of religious experience, the rest of the material in this section will focus on six types of pathological, or "theopathic," types of religious experience (whether true or false) that can be found in quadrants II and III: (1) the castigated self; (2) hellfire and brimstone; (3) the gods of war; (4) the slaughter of the innocents; (5) the opium of the people; and (6) the projected self.

1. This section describes the self-experience of those whose god-images are harshly condemning, punitive, and rejecting. I had difficulty finding the best adjective do designate the corresponding self-state of such "hellfired" and "brimstoned" persons. Words like "despised," "denigrated," "loathed," and "abhorrent" came to mind–all of which aptly describe a big chunk of the resulting self-image. But there is more to it. In addition to this psychological image, there usually is some effort, more or less strenuous, to "suppress," "restrain," "bottle-up," "deny," or otherwise "mortify" one’s natural and spontaneous needs, expressions, and drives. Paul calls this "buffeting" his body and "enslaving" it so as not to be "disqualified" in the great race of life (1 Cor. 9: 27).

a. At its best, this effort can produce a healthy self-discipline or "asceticism" that simplifies, unclutters, and focuses one’s life.

b. At it’s worst, however, such buffeting (when combined with a despised self-image) takes a decidedly masochistic or self-castigating turn, which means "to subject to severe punishment, reproof, or criticism" (Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary).

• 1) Through a combination of externally and internally "severe punishments and criticisms," the castigated self neither asks for nor receives mercy. Instead, it invents and submits to all manner of devices, resolutions, and "vows" designed to stifle and inhibit self-expression, self-assertion, spontaneity, and basic human needs–which in and of themselves are considered bad and sinful. When these devices fail, as they inevitably do when trying to suppress that which is "hard-wired" into us, the resulting guilt, self-loathing, and private or public rituals of penance can be quite staggering, along with a fear of having committed the unforgivable sin.

• 2) Tellingly, "castigate" is etymologically related to "castrate," which has been an integral component down through the ages of religious self-castigation. Most religious "castration" is figurative and is sublimated into cold showers, vows of celibacy, and doctrines of "immaculate conceptions," and "virgin births." However some devout souls have taken Jesus’ following words of warning literally:

You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to into hell (Matt. 5: 27-30).

Origen of Alexandria (c.185-254), one of the most brilliant of the church "Fathers" and a major contributor to the rise of monasticism, took this admonition extremely literally and did cut off his offending "member" (which actually was located a little lower than the examples cited by Jesus.) Fortunately, however, and rather than resorting to such penitential extremes, most would be "non-sexuals" can relate better to the (almost daily) prayer of a client who at one time was quite convinced that masturbation was the unforgivable sin: "Don’t kill me this time, God, and I promise I never will do it again!"

2. The Life of the Blessed Henry Suso (written by Himself).

While all religious self-castigation falls on a masochistic continuum ranging from mild (to which we all probably can relate) to severe, the following autobiographical testimony of Henry Suso (c. 1300-1365), a German mystic and Dominican monk, might take the cake when it comes to enslaving and torturing one’s body for the cause of Christ. Written in the third person (and quoted in William James, pp. 336-340), he bemoans the fact that "he was in his youth of a temperament full of fire and life." Consequently, "when this began to make itself felt, it was very grievous to him; and he sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjection." Here is his account of five such "devices" by which he sought to beat God to the punch, so to speak, in "buffeting" his rebellious and wayward body:

• a. "He secretly caused an undergarment to be made for him; and in the undergarment he had strips of leather fixed, into which a hundred and fifty brass nails, pointed and filed sharp, were driven, and the points of the nails were always turned towards the flesh. He had this garment made very tight, and so arranged as to go round him and fasten in front in order that it might fit the closure to his body, and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh; and it was high enough to reach up to his naval. In this he used to sleep at night."
  

• b. "The nights in winter were never so long, nor was the summer so hot, as to make him leave off this exercise. On the contrary, he devised something farther–two leathern loops into which he put his hands, and fastened one on each side to his throat, and made the fastenings so secure that even if his cell had been on fire about him, he could not have helped himself. This he continued until his hands and arms had become almost tremulous with the strain, and then he devised something else: two leather gloves; and he caused a brazier to fit them all over with sharp-pointed brass tacks, and he used to put them on at night, in order that if he should try while asleep to throw off the hair undergarment, or relieve himself from the gnawings of vile insects, the tacks might then stick into his body. And so it came to pass. If ever he sought to help himself with his hands in his sleep, he drove the sharp tacks into his breast, and tore himself, so that this flesh festered. When after many weeks the wounds had healed, he tore himself again and made fresh wounds."
  

• c. Suso then tells how, to emulate the sorrows of his crucified Lord, he made himself a cross with thirty protruding iron needles and nails. This he bore on his back between his shoulders day and night. "The first time that he stretched out this cross upon his back his tender frame was struck with terror at it, and blunted the sharp nails slightly against a stone. But soon, repenting of this womanly cowardice, he pointed them all again with a file, and placed once more the cross upon him. It made his back, where the bones are, bloody and seared."
  

• d. "At the same time the Servitor [Suso] procured an old castaway door, and he used to lie upon it at night without any bedclothes to make him comfortable, except that he took off his shoes and wrapped a thick cloak round him. He thus secured for himself a most miserable bed; for hard pea-stalks lay in lumps under his head, the cross with the sharp nails stuck into his back, his arms were locked fast in bonds, the horsehair undergarment was round his loins, and the cloak too was heavy and the door hard. Thus he lay in wretchedness, afraid to stir, just like a log, and he would send up many a sigh to God."
  

• e. "Amid these torments he spent his nights and days; and he endured them all out of the greatness of the love which he bore in his heart to the Divine and eternal Wisdom, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose agonizing sufferings he sought to imitate. . . . Throughout all these years he never took a bath, either a water or a sweating bath; and this he did in order to mortify his comfort-seeking body. . . . For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save only his hands and feet."
  

3. James ends his lengthy quotation from The Life of the Blessed Henry Suso at this point, sparing us "the recital of the poor Suso’s self-inflicted tortures from thirst." "It is pleasant to know," James concludes, "that after his fortieth year, God showed him by a series of visions that he had sufficiently broken down the natural man, and that he might leave these exercises off" (p. 340)–apparently much to Suso’s relief! Which, according to James, markedly contrasts his "theopathy" with that of the religious ascetics who "through an alteration of sensibility" are "capable of actually turning torment into a perverse kind of pleasure." He then references the blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), founder of the Sacred Heart order, by way of example:

• Her love of pain and suffering was insatiable. . . . She said that she could cheerfully live till the day of judgment, provided she might always have matter for suffering for God; but that to live a single day without suffering would be intolerable. She said again that she was devoured with two unassuageable fevers, one for the holy communion, the other for suffering, humiliation, and annihilation. "Nothing but pain," she continually said in her letters, "makes my life supportable" (p. 340).

4. Might there be a kinder and gentler alternative for us self-castigating types than Mary Margaret’s "unassuageable fever" for suffering, humiliation and pain or the hundred and fifty brass nails in Suso’s undergarment? Here’s to those relatively happy occasions when mere "pinpricks" of conscience seem to suffice!

. . . and all religions are at the deepest level systems of cruelties . . . . (Nietszche, 1992b, p. 497)

1. Hand in hand with the castigated self seems to go hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. In fact, the two phenomena seemed linked in a mutual feedback loop that renders moot the question of which came first, or which is the "cause" of the other. Rather, each seems to reinforce the other in a process of "circular causality."

2. In 1741, in the midst of New England’s evangelical revival or "Great Awakening," the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Here are his three main points:

• a. "Thus it is that natural men [i.e., all who are not born-again Christians] are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger . . .; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up. . . . All that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God. . . . Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell" (p. 201).
  

• b. "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours" (p. 202).
  

• c. "Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation: Let every one fly out of Sodom: ‘Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed’ (Gen. 19:17)" (p. 203).
  

• a. To this, the Qur’an adds its own descriptive flourish, depicting hell as the eternal abode of all infidels–those eternal "inmates of the Fire," whose wealth and children "shall be fuel for the Fire," where "so oft as their skins shall be burnt, [God] will change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the torment. Verily God is mighty, wise!" He has "got ready the fire whose smoke shall enwrap them: and if they implore help, helped they shall be with water like molten brass which shall scald their faces. Wretched the drink! and an unhappy couch! ( from Suras III:8,112; IV:59; and XVIII: 28).
  

• b. Despite its title, Dante’s Inferno (that unsurpassed catalog of hell’s multitudinous regions and torments) reminds us that hell is not all fire and brimstone. One only has to enter the vestibule of hell (having passed through the dreaded gates reading: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE) to be confronted immediately by a "lamentation that stuns the very air." As it turns out:
  

These are the nearly soulless whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise. They are mixed here with that despicable corps of angels who were neither for God nor Satan, but only for themselves. . . .

These wretches never born and never dead ran naked in a swarm of wasps and hornets that goaded them the more they fled, and made their faces stream with bloody gouts of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet to be swallowed there by loathsome worms and maggots (Canto III, 9, 32-36, 41, 61-66).

And these are the wretches whose sins are relatively mild and lukewarm. Just imagine what the really hot or cold-blooded sinners are in for down in the lower levels of hell!

• c. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), revered in traditional Catholicism as "The Theologian," adds this icing to the Devil’s Food cake: "In order that the bliss of the saints may be more delightful for them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, it is given to them to see perfectly the punishment of the damned" (quoted in Nietzsche, 1992b, p. 485, note 1).
  

• d. To which Tertullian (c. 160-225), the most pugnacious of the early church fathers, trumpets a resounding "Amen!" After derisively cataloging that which was most esteemed and entertaining in his day (e.g., the "illustrious monarchs," the "world's wise men" and philosophers, the great poets and tragedians, the charioteers in the coliseum, and the wrestlers in the gymnasium), after eternally consigning all of it to the "dissolving flame" and the "fiery billows," and after underscoring how "on that last day of judgment . . . [the world] and all its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame," he rejoices in all of the ways this "vast spectacle" is sure to "excite his admiration" and "rouse him to exultation." Nor did he have to wait until the actual judgment day to begin the festivities: "And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturing of imagination" (quoted in Nietzsche, 1992b, pp. 485-486).
  

3. If any of the above is true, woe is us, and thank God for Jonathan Edwards’ dire words of warning. If untrue, what combination of psychological ingredients (conscious and unconscious) could conjure up, and even relish, such hideous scenarios–not to mention "scare the hell" out of (or into) one’s children with them.

• a. Projected anger, rage, resentment, and desires for sweet revenge–certainly.
  

• b. Projected inner torment of one kind or another?
  

• c. Identification with the Divine Aggressor?
  
  
• d. Others?
  

4. One woe-begotten client, daily nourished on generous portions of the above hell-baked cake, poignantly summed up her Ultimate Catch-22: "Thank God that I can no longer believe in hell; unfortunately, I’m quite sure that is exactly where God will send me precisely because I no longer believe in it!"

(I found myself in a similar dilemma when, after the attack on the World Trade Center, as I decided to read my way through the Qur’an, in hopes of better understanding the various forms of Islam. Almost immediately, I realized that I was in trouble, for scarcely a page can be found in the Qur’an that does not make some reference to the Eternal Fire that is in store for nonbelievers. Moreover, a "double torment" of the Fire awaits those who have been blessed with some knowledge of the Qur’an and still do not repent and believe [Sura VII: 34-36]. Hence my dilemma: on the one hand, my obsessive-compulsive disorder compelled me to finish reading every chapter and verse; on the other hand, every additional page I read without becoming a Muslim only served to fan the flames of my reserved spot in hell!)

Unfortunately, it is just a short leap of faith (or desperation) from being a "sinner in the hands of an angry God" to being an angry sinner waging war in the name of God; thereby, achieving eternal life by means of dispatching unbelievers and infidels to their allotted place in hell. Which brings us to the Gods of War.

It is certain, at any rate, that the Greeks still knew of no tastier spice to offer their gods to season their happiness than the pleasures of cruelty. With what eyes do you think Homer made his gods look down upon the destinies of men? What was at bottom the ultimate meaning of Trojan wars and other such tragic terrors? There can be no doubt whatever: they were intended as festival plays for the gods . . . .

(Nietzsche, 1992b, p. 505)

1. Homer’s The Iliad is the oldest extant piece of major literature from ancient Greece. This literary foundation of western philosophy and civilization is an epic of war–and the gods are there, plotting from high atop Olympus the outcome of the Achaeans’ siege of Troy.

• a. Had the poor, mortal combatants known the extent to which their fate was determined by (1) the Sea-nymph Thetis "clasping the knees of Zeus" and beseeching him to favor the Trojans, at least until the Achaeans came to their senses and duly honored her son Achilles (p. 17), (2) Zeus’ subsequent marital strife when his wife Hera (who favored the Achaeans) discovered the stratagem, and (3) the rest of the gods ranging against each other and pulling strings willy-nilly for one side or the other, they surely would have concluded, "The gods must be crazy, let’s get out of here!"
  

• b. Instead, as if their fate were sealed, they valiantly fought on and trusted in the higher wisdom and motives of the gods whom they knew to be present–"but in what form and to what purpose?"
  

• c. This section considers some of those forms and purposes, beginning with the penchant that bellicose divinities seem to have for instilling in those destined to be sacrificed upon their altars a monomaniacal commitment to a leader and to a cause.
  

2. Charge!

• a. Erich Fromm (1941), in his landmark book Escape from Freedom, offers a penetrating analysis of the often irresistible temptation to surrender one’s heart and mind to "a bigger and more powerful whole outside of oneself," and of the rewards one gets in return:

  This power can be a person, an institution, god, the nation, conscience or psychic compulsion. By becoming part of a power which is felt as unshakably strong, eternal, and glamorous, one participates in its strength and glory. One surrenders one’s own self and renounces all strength and pride connected with it, one loses one’s integrity as an individual and surrenders freedom; but one gains a new security against the torture of doubt . . . . Whether [a person’s] master is an authority outside of himself, or whether he has internalized the master as conscience or psychic compulsion, [he] is saved from the final responsibility for the fate of his self, and thereby saved from the doubt of what decision to make. He is also saved from the doubt of what the meaning of his life is or who "he" is (pp. 177-178).
  

• b. However, our "escapes from freedom" are seldom just that. Often as not, they also are end runs around finitude and into immortality. In this regard, Sam Keen, in his forward to Becker’s book comments:

  Society provides the second line of defense against our natural impotence by creating a hero system that allows us to believe that we transcend death by participating in something of lasting worth. We achieve ersatz immortality by sacrificing ourselves to conquer an empire, to build a temple, to write a book, to establish a family, to accumulate a fortune. . . Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an intricate symbolic system that is covertly religious. This means that ideological conflicts between cultures are essentially battles between immortality projects, holy wars. . . . [Tragically], our heroic projects that are aimed at destroying evil have the paradoxical effect of bringing more evil into the world. Human conflicts are life and death struggles–my gods against your gods, my immortality project against your immortality project (p. xiii).
  

• c. Much of recorded history attests to our mania for escaping freedom and charging headlong into immortality by becoming the pawn of a self-proclaimed Religious Crusader. Such heroic identifications are fostered by Osama-bin-Laden-like guarantees–against all odds–of invincibility, immortality, and victory.

3) Throw enough fanatical believers into the above mix, and a relatively benign folie au deux mushrooms into:

• a) A band of beleaguered, but fiercely determined, "true believers" digging in at Waco, Jonestown, and Ruby Ridge or

• b) A world-threatening insanity of millions, as evidenced in the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

• c) In either case, Becker inquires, "Why are groups so blind and stupid?" "Because they demand illusions," answers Freud.
  

  [Consequently,] they "constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real." And we know why. The real world is simply too terrible to admit; it tells man that he is a small, trembling animal who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way. . . . The masses look to the leaders to give them just the untruth that they need; the leader continues the illusions that triumph over the castration complex and magnifies them into a truly heroic victory (p. 133).

• d. Becker emphasizes an additional function that divinely ordained leaders can serve for the fanatical followers–namely, exemption from conventional morality.

  Furthermore, [the leader] makes possible a new experience, the expression of forbidden impulses, secret wishes, and fantasies. In group behavior anything goes because the leader okays it. . . . In the group, each man seems an omnipotent hero who can give full vent to his appetites under the approving eye of the father. And so we understand the terrifying sadism of group activity (p. 133).

4) And what a litany of carnage the gods and their appointed leaders have sanctioned throughout history. Well known examples include: The Homeric Greeks sacking and laying waste to the city of Troy; Joshua leading the killing of every man, woman, child, and beast in the cities of Canaan; Christian Crusaders slaughtering Muslims and Jews by the tens of thousands; God-fearing Germans systematically exterminating millions more in the holocaust; and al-Qaida turning the World Trade Center into a vast funeral pyre.

5) The following biblical examples from the book of Joshua (considered to be "sacred scripture" by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike), speak for all of the above:

• Then [after the "walls of Jericho "fell down flat"] they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys (6:21).
  
  

• [Next Joshua went up against the city of Ai and] when Israel had finished slaughtering all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and when all of them had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and attacked it with the edge of the sword. The total of those who fell that day, both men and women, was twelve thousand–all the people of Ai (8:24-26).
  

• [A similar lot befell, in rapid succession, the people of Jerusalem, Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, Debir so that] Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded (10:1-40).