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Third EssayWhat Do Ascetic Ideals Mean?20
But you will already have grasped what I`m getting at. All in all, that`s surely reason enough why we psychologists nowadays cannot rid ourselves of a certain distrust in ourselves? . . . We are also probably "too good" for the work we do. We`re probably also sacrificial victims and prey, made sick by this contemporary taste for moralizing, no matter how much we feel we`re its critics - it probably infects even us as well. What was that diplomat warning about, when he addressed to his colleagues? "Gentlemen, let`s mistrust our first impulses above all!" he said; "they are almost always good." . . . That`s how every psychologist today should speak to his colleagues . . . And so we come back to our problem, which, in fact, requires a certain rigour from us, especially some distrust of our "first impulses."
The ascetic ideal in the service of intentional emotional excess: - with these nine words, whoever remembers the previous essay will already have a preliminary sense, in summary form, of the basic content of what I`m now presenting. To remove the human soul for once from its entire frame, to immerse it in terror, frost, glowing embers, and joys of that kind, so that it rids itself, as if with a bolt of lightning, of all the petty trivialities of lack of interest, apathy, and irritation. What paths lead to this goal? . . . And which of them is the most reliable? . . . All the greatest emotional affects basically have this capacity, provided they discharge themselves suddenly—anger, fear, lust, revenge, hope, triumph, despair, cruelty. And the ascetic priest has, in fact, without a second thought, taken the whole pack of wild hounds in human beings into his service and let loose one of them at one time, another at another time, always for the same purpose, to wake human beings up out of their long sadness, to chase away, at least for a while, their stifling pain, their tentative misery, always covered up in a religious interpretation and "justification."
Every emotional excess of this sort demands payment later - that`s self-evident - it makes sick people sicker. Thus, this way of providing a remedy for pain, measured by modern standards, is a "guilty" method. However, to be fair, we must insist all the more, first, that it was used in good conscience, that the ascetic priest prescribed it with the deepest faith in its utility, indeed, its indispensability - he himself often enough almost fell apart from the misery he created - and, second, that the vehement physiological revenge of such excesses, perhaps even psychic disturbances, basically does not really contradict the whole meaning of this kind of medication, which, as I`ve pointed out above, was not designed to heal sick people, but to fight their enervating depression, to alleviate and anaesthetize it. With this method that goal was attained.
The main idea which the ascetic priest helps himself to in order to let that kind of disorienting ecstatic music ring out in the human soul, as everyone knows, stems from the fact that he makes use of the feeling of guilt. The previous essay indicated, in brief, the origin of this feeling, as a part of animal psychology, nothing more. The feeling of guilt we encountered there in its raw state, as it were. In the hands of the priest, this true artist in guilt feelings, it first acquired a form - and what a form! "Sin" - for that`s how the priest`s new interpretation of the animal "bad conscience" ran (cruelty turned back inside) - has been the greatest event in the history of the sick soul so far. In it we have the most dangerous and the most fateful artistic work of religious interpretation. The human being, suffering from himself somehow - at any rate, psychologically - something like an animal barred up in a cage, confused about why this has happened and what purpose it serves, longing for reasons - reasons provide relief - longing also for treatments and for narcotics, finally discussed the matter with one who also knew about hidden things. Then, lo and behold! He gets a hint. He gets the first hint about the "cause" of his suffering from his magician, from the ascetic priest. He is to seek this cause in himself, in his guilt, in a piece of the past. He is to understand even his own suffering as a condition of punishment. . .
He heard, and he understood - this unfortunate man Now things stand with him as with a hen with a line drawn around it. He`s not coming outside this circular line again. The "sick man" is turned into the "sinner" . . . And now for a couple of millennia people have not rid themselves of the look of this new sick man, the "sinner." Will people ever want to be rid of him? No matter where we look, we see everywhere the hypnotic glance of the sinner, who always moves in one direction (in the direction of "guilt" as the single cause of suffering), everywhere the bad conscience, this "horrifying animal, to use Luther`s words, everywhere the past regurgitated, the fact distorted, the "green eye" cast on all action, everywhere the desire to misunderstand suffering turned into the meaning of life, with suffering reinterpreted into feelings of guilt, fear, and punishment, everywhere the scourge, the hair shirt, the starving body, remorse, everywhere the sinner`s breaking himself on the terrible torture wheel of a restless conscience, greedy for its own sickness; everywhere silent torment, extreme fear, the agony of the tortured heart, spasms of an unknown joy, the cry for "redemption."
As a matter of fact, with this system of procedures the old depression, heaviness, and exhaustion were basically overthrown. Life became very interesting once again: lively, always lively, sleepless, glowing, charred, exhausted and yet not tired - that`s how man looked, the "sinner," who was initiated into these mysteries. This grand old magician in the war against the lack of excitement, the ascetic priest - he had apparently won. His kingdom had come. Now people no longer moaned against pain; they longed for pain: "More pain! More pain!" - that`s been the demanding cry of his disciples and initiates for centuries. Every excess of feeling which brought grief, everything that broke apart, knocked over, smashed to bits, carried away, enraptured—the secrets of the torture chambers, the very invention of hell - from now on everything was discovered, surmised, put into practice. Everything now was available for the magician`s use. Everything in future served for the victory of his ideal, the ascetic ideal. . . . "My empire is not of this world" - he says afterwards (as he said before). Does he really have the right to continue speaking in this way? . . . Goethe asserted that there were only thirty-six tragic situations. From that we can surmise, if we did not know it anyway, that Goethe was no ascetic priest. He knows more . . .
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