Mystique Et Continence

Les Etudes Carmelitaines. Desclée de Brouwer, 1952. (Pp. 407.)

This volume consists of papers presented at the 7th International Catholic Congress of Religious Psychology held at Avon. The task it set itself was to confront the findings obtained through mystical experience with those brought to light by scientific workers principally in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. The main question to which an answer is searched for in these papers is—to put it in a nutshell—whether sexuality and a mystical-spiritual way of life, as demanded by the Catholic Church from its priests, are mutually antagonistic or in some way compatible with each other. The contributions have come, apart from the Church (Catholic and others), also from other distinguished authors in the fields of religious philosophy, physiology, psychology, psychiatry, and psycho-analysis. While the profuse variety of these papers—there are twenty-six—offers much that is of interest and also many opinions with which one could personally agree or disagree, there is, too, another noteworthy feature in that several of the Church representatives show a basic acquaintance with the knowledge of the human mind gained during the last half century.

The query which seems to occupy the thoughts of many of the writers—implicitly or explicitly—could be put thus: Why do certain people tolerate sexual abstinence better than others; why do some remain healthy, vigorous, and capable of a satisfactory object relationship, whereas others are not equal to the task and fall ill as a result?

Our patients teach us that there is no single answer of general validity to this complex question, and that factors such as inherited constitution (organic and psychic), early, pre-disposing external influences—and, of course, many more—have to be taken into account. Furthermore, we know from clinical experience that to many people the opposite applies: they can remain comparatively healthy only as long as they can succeed in avoiding