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ASCETICISM AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING
of its manifestations are morbid, whether they arise from
emotional conflicts or constitutional disturbances.
Johannes Lindworsky,* a psychologist who is also a priest of
the Jesuit order, expresses an opinion that is contrary to the
theories of both Kretschmer and Schelderup. He says it is not
true that there is always a distorted emotional life behind
ascetic behaviour. Among the ascetics there are many, he insists,
whose sexual experience has been completely normal and who
have decided to relinquish an activity so richly satisfying only
after a severe and painful struggle.
~ Lindworsky acknowledges that asceticism is sometimes rooted
in the disposition, but he points out that a suppression of the
sensual nature does not account for some forms of ascetic
behaviour, which have a positive content in the desire of the
individual to attain Christian perfection through ‘the best
possible realisation of God’s will’. There is a true asceticism
that contrasts markedly with the false and morbid kind.
Many ascetics have themselves pointed out that spiritual
exercises should have a positive character. For instance, Palamos,
who was a monk in the convent at Athos in the fourteenth
century, firmly rejected the idea that man’s physical life
contained the principle of evil and was the cause of sin. Palamos
affirmed that body and soul are both together created in the
image of God, and that an attempt to conquer physical desires
is not to be made with the intention of destroying them, but in
order to change their energy into a new form through which a
person can come into closer fellowship with God. Palamos is a
good representative of orthodox mysticism, and it is interesting
to notice that his line of thought is closely akin to that followed
by modern teachers of the doctrine of sublimation.
Like its negative counterpart, positive asceticism may take
many different forms, according to the individual’s conception
of the relation between body and soul. Thus some ascetics hold
that under a strong intellectual influence the body can become
the instrument through which certain spiritual states are
experienced. It is contended that some kinds of persistent exertion,
methods of breathing, or sustained postures produce physical
changes that bring about or prepare the way for changes of
consciousness and heightened awareness of spiritual phenomena.
1 Psychologie der Aszese, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1936.
N* 195
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