The successive stages of mystic attainment, as expounded in the Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan and Buddhist religions, are compared

with the psychological development which the neurotic goes through in the course of psycho-analytic treatment. Of the three main groups into which those stages fall, the first, or purgative one, in which confession plays a great part, is likened to the patient's outpourings to his analyst; the second, or illuminative, is likened to the release of energy effected in him by analytic interpretation; and the third, or unitive, to the establishment of a harmonious libidinal relationship between him and his analyst, and consequently between him and his internal and external objects.