RELIGIOUS DEVOTION OR MENTAL ILLNESS

A supplement to Opus Dei



Personally I prefer people whipping themselves to whipping other people. In the Catholic context the purpose of corporal mortification is to release the soul from bondage to the body for union with the divine; to feel Christ’s passion and to be aligned with the poor. But could one not get closer to Christ by easing someone else's pain rather than inflicting pain upon oneself?

Penance is the Roman Catholic Sacrament, involving confession of sins and receiving absolution, and works performed in atonement for sin. Self-mortification is voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some wrongdoing.



A spiked chain called cilice is worn around the upper thigh by an Opus Dei luminary for two hours a day and a Savite Hindu devotee pierces his body during the Chidi Mari Festival in India. Purification devotion, self offering, prayer sacrifice, spiritual transmutation, trance states, visions -- one is Pagan and the other is Catholic. Is there a difference?

The first Catholics to practice corporal mortification were the early Desert Fathers. The development of medieval monasticism cannot be separated off the Egyptian Desert Fahers inasmuch as one cannot ignore the existence of common threads and traits shared between the traditions of the Christian East and Islamic Sufism. It can get hot in the desert.

Corporal mortification was definitely not a Catholic invention. This much revered feature of medieval monasticism has been practiced by pagan religions throughout the ages. Was the Catholic practice different from the barbaric costumes of Native American sun dancers, Hindu firewalkers, nail bed fakirs, or Appalachian snake-handling Pentecostals? Catholics will insist that it is different. But do they know what really brings people to ritual self abuse? Take a look at these pictures. Of course Catholic self-abuse is not well documented, not in the pictorial sense. But make no mistake. The the Catholic devices are meant to hurt and to pierce the flesh.

I don't see a difference. But there are those who will defend corporal mortification in terms of Catholic Tradition with the excuse that it was practiced by the saints. Interestingly corporal mortification was not practiced by Jesus or any of the Apostles. Before accepting this barbarity as a Christian practice we should take a look at the reasons for self abuse.

There is a correlation between masochism and mystical ecstasy. The Flagellants organized by St. Anthony would work themselves into frenzy and when their backs were beaten to raw meat they would be lifted into some sort of spiritual ecstasy. Caterina of Cardona wore iron chains which cut into her flash. She would flog herself with chains and hooks for up to three hours during which she had mystical ecstasies and visions. St Theresa made severe flagellation a daily practice. Through it she entered into states of ecstatic mysticism. I suspect these were bodily responses to pain and not grace.

Whipping the self affects the neurophysiology of the brain: The body is put under stress, the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and most other hormonal glands are forced to release a serious of hormones: serotonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, testosterone, endorphins and so on. Pain and pleasure centers are very close in the brain. (When one gets too much pleasure of anything it is no longer pleasure; it becomes pain.)

Considering the general maltreatment of children in medieval societies and the early age boys and girls were placed in convents and monasteries, it is not surprising that medieval saints turned to corporal mortification. There is a school of thought that perversions, freaky ecstasies are traceable to childhood trauma. Certainly victims of childhood abandonment and abuse often grow attached to the physical and emotional pain they experienced as children. Self induced pain can provide relief from psychic pain and can fill the void left by some childhood trauma. Corporal mortification may have made sense in the medieval monastery. But why people do it today aside from emulating medieval saints is a rather complex question.



“I have been doing this ritual many times now. Every time it has been a different journey. The whole exploration for me is about altered states, a heightened state, energy, fire (yes it can be really hot), and visions. Most especially if I am pulling alone against a stationary object with my eyes closed. Any awareness of others or spectators quickly disappears. It is a personal dance of ecstatic fire, bright or soft. I went several times to a place that is not a place. Beautiful!” Fakir Musafar

Corporal mortification could be seen as a short cut to God… but is it really? In it does man submit his will to God or does he play God? To whom does his body belong; to God or to himself? If man doesn’t own his body does he have the right to abuse it? To whom does he unite his soul when he whips himself; to God or to Satan?

The human body is God's gift; but man does not own his body. Everything, including the body, belongs to God. What right does man have to abuse God’s gift or to place it in peril? Where does severe injury to one’s body end and suicide begin? Daughter of King Béla IV, Saint Margaret of Hungary was four years old when she entered the convent. She died at the age of twenty nine, which was a long life considering Margaret chastised herself from early childhood; wore an iron girdle, hair garments and shoes spiked with nails. What if God honored her sacrifice simply because she lived the best she knew how, even though her sacrifice may have had nothing to do with God’s will for her life.

“The earth is the LORD'S and all it holds, the world and those who live there.” (Psalms 24:1)

“For every animal of the forest is mine, beasts by the thousands on my mountains. I know every bird of the heavens; the creatures of the field belong to me.” (Psalms 50:10-12)

Corporal mortification warrants a second look. The Earth moves.