Masochism as a Spiritual Path
http://www.sexuality.org/l/bdsm/masasp.html
by Dorothy C. Hayden, CSW It has only been in the last hundred years that masochism has been seen as a perversion. When the nineteenth-century psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing placed the term masochism under the rubric "General Pathology" in his famous book "Psychopathia Sexualis", masochism began to get bad press. A few decades later, Freud wrote about masochism as a function of infantile sexuality, incomplete development, stunted growth, and childish irresponsibility. Since then, masochism has been irrevocably allocated to the ghetto of "perversion" and the clinical community has viewed it as a pathological aberration that must be cured.
In the thousands of years before that, however, a masochistic-spiritual connection prevailed throughout most of civilization. Whereas psychology considered masochism as a disease, pre-nineteenth century religion regarded it as a cure. The ancients were in touch with the spiritual, physical and emotional value of masochism. For them, it was an essential part of reality; a combination of the soul in a tortured state, rapturous delight, exquisite pain and unbearable passion that brought them closer to experiencing union with something greater than their individual egos.
In the Western religious tradition, the desire to be beaten and whipped reflected the desire for "penance" which often involved humiliation, shame, pain, worship and submission. In monasteries and churches, bowed heads, bent knees, folded hands, covered heads and full-body prostration reflected the basic masochistic posture. The writers of the New Testament made frequent mention of flagellation and physical pain. The entire "passion play" of Christ, a narrative that has been embedded in our collective psyches for thousands of years, involves bondage, flagellation and crucifixion as part of being subjected to the will of a higher power and the subsequent resurrection to a transcendent consciousness. The Psalmists were in the practice of lashing themselves every day. It was part of the Jewish tradition, 500 years after Christ; to lash one another with scourges after they had finished their prayers and confessed their sins.
Flagellation in monasteries and convents were the order of the day. Saints such as St. William, St. Rudolph and St. Dominic would routinely order their disciples to lash them on bare backs. From flagellating themselves, priests began to flagellate their penitents as part of their penance. It came to be regarded as a necessary act of submission to God. Some holy men maintained that whipping had the power to rescue souls from hell. They believed that humiliation and physical pain provided a way in which one could become fully human.
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At 10:32 AM 12/1/2004, you wrote:
>http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/10197865.htm?1c
>
>Christian School Principal Whips Up Controversy
>
>By Robert Paul Reyes
>Dec. 1, 2004
>
>You can't change some immutable facts of life: Dogs chase cats, salmon swim
>upstream and boys kiss girls.
>
>
>Isn't it ironic that in an attempt to put an end to perfectly wholesome and
>natural behavior, that Unfreid engaged in what most evangelicals consider
>deviant and shameful behavior: sadomasochism?
no. take a look at mel gibson's Passion.
R