Harvard Divinity School

Sacred Pain and the Phenomenal Self Author(s): Ariel Glucklich Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 389-412 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509857 . Accessed: 21/02/2014 11:40
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Sacred

Pain

and

the

Phenomenal

Self

Ariel Glucklich
Georgetown University

The preponderanceof pain in human life ranks among the central problems for religious thought aroundthe world. The problem of suffering, as it is often called, has been a compelling reason for abandoning faith. Given the depth of the dilemma that raw and inexplicable pain poses, it is surprising how pervasive voluntarypain has been among the religions of the world. Ascetics, mystics, and martyrs have sought and applied pain in rites of passage (ordeals) and other forms of initiation in the service of religious inquisitions (including trials by ordeal), execution of heretics and witches, and others. And of course, none of these has been limited by geographic location or historic time. What is the role of voluntary ("sacred")pain in human religious life? Is there a single theory that can explain, for instance, the initiatory ordeals of new shamans and Sufi mystics? There are, in fact, several theories that attempt to explain sacred pain, and they fall into two basic categories: reductive and nonreductive. A nonreductive theory may "explain" initiatory ordeals as symbolic of death and rebirth in a ritual sense. Such a theory, as for example Mircea Eliade's, may expand to take in Sufis and other mystics who are, after all, seeking initiation into a direct experience of the sacred.1To take a dramaticexample, a witch is executed in an exceptionally painful mannerbecause her death is conceived as spiritual

lMircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958); see also Lawrence E. Sullivan, Icanchu's Drum: An Orientationto Meaning in South AmericanReligions (New York: Macmillan, 1988); and Bruce Lincoln, Emerging from the Chrysalis:Studies in Rituals of Women 's Initiation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981 ) .

HTR 91: 4 (1998) 389-412

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passage, or salvation, not merely a removalfrom society.2Unfortunately,such a theory never explains how pain "symbolizes"death, or why a symbol based on sensory experience should acquiresuch immense authority. The theory,in short, standson air. Reductivetheories,on the otherhand,have been more thorough.Freudianpsychoanalyticaltheory,for example,regards"holy"masochismas the ego's response to guilt inducedby factorsembeddedin the superego.3 Voluntary pain is a form of self-punishmentthatsubduessuch voices by suppressingthe effects of instinctual drives thatconflict with the greatersocial interest,especially sexual instincts. So, for instance,the tortureof novices in rites of passage applies by ritualmeans the punitiveforce of society on the no longer infantilesubjectand exposes him or her to the authoritativeorder of being. Psychoanalysis is far more persuasive than Eliade's symbolism, but it fails miserablyto account for the phenomenological voice of participantswho undergopain. Guilt may be associated with the selfflagellation of penitents, but not of ritual mournersor others such as yogis and shamanswho envision their pain in transcendent terms.The introductionof subconscious factorsinto religiousor culturalhistoryis very tricky,andone must also recognize that Freud'sown explanationof clinical masochism is no longer paramountin psychological literature.4 Otherreductivetheories from a variety of disciplines such as sociology, neuropsychology,andeven ethology have been appliedto ritual-sacred pain.5Most of them fail to addressthe experienceof pain itself, andfocus insteadon its function.
2Malleus Maleficarum (trans. Montague Summers; New York: Benjamin Blom, 1970) 3. 19; Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze:A New History of the European WitchHunts (New York: Pandora, 1994) 143-45. 3Of course, for Freud there is no such thing as the holy. Masochism is always a clinical condition, always connected with sexuality, and often, with sadism. See Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (London: Hogarth, 1930); and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (London: Hogarth,1922). See also Marie Bonaparte,"Some Biopsychical Aspects of Sado-Masochism," in Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Hanly, ed., Essential Papers on Masochism (New York: New York University Press, 1995) 432-52. 4For a critique of psychoanalysis in comparative cultural studies, see Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967) 3538. 5Forneuropsychology consider the influential article by Arnold Mandell, "Toward a Psychobiology of Transcendence: God in the Brain," in Julian M. Davidson and John Richards, eds., The Psychobiology of Consciousness (New York: Plenum Books, 1980) 117-35. More recent research is included in Armando Favazza, Bodies under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) 261-64. Prominent ethological theories are contained in the following works: Konrad Lorenz, The Foundations of Ethology (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1981); Desmond Morris, The Human Animal. A Personal View of the Human Species (New York: Crown, 1994); Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978) 30.

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A successful explanationof sacred pain needs to account for this phenomenon, thatis, the experientialcontoursof pain andhow these contributeto the pervasiveness of voluntarypain in the religions of the world. A dozen years ago Elaine Scarrypublisheda book, TheBody in Pain, that has been extremely influentialamong scholarsof religion, particularly on the manner in which they interpretsacredpain.6Scarryseeks to demonstratethe pivotal role of pain in the unmakingof worlds,and,conversely,the struggleto make worlds as acts of overcoming pain. Her point of departureis the overwhelming muteness stemming from pain as an experience that eludes language.Prolonged and unremitting pain has the effect of destroying its victim's ability to communicateand finally shattershis or her entireworld, includingeven the victim's innermostself. Scarry's observations are profoundlypolitical because she argues that pain can never be articulated,nor even imagined, without the instrumentsthat inflict itinstruments of torture.From an epistemologicalpoint of view, however, these are only imagined.Pain is uniqueamonghumanexperiencesin being entirely objectless; the instrumentsare metaphoricalinventions, an effort to conceptualize a subjective experience that has no external objective features. On the positive or creative side, however, Scarryemphasizes that "any state that was permanently objectless would no doubtbegin the process of invention."7 In contrastwith pain, the imaginationis a state thatconsists wholly of objects, so the process of worldbuilding, of moving away from the corporealityof pain, calls on the imagination as its first means. It is the imaginationthatfirst transformsweapons into tools and thatsubstitutessymbols for actualvictims of violent acts, a process thatmakes the building of a world initially possible. One can easily see how Scarry'sideas would influence scholarsof asceticism and martyrology.MaureenFlynn has recently written: For the mystic seeking to chain the humanmind in orderto acquirea higher, more perfect form of understanding, pain providedthe necessary psychic shackle. This is why we see the mystics conscientiously

6Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Makingand Unmaking of the World(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). A brief list of articles in religious journals influenced by her work includes: Maureen Flynn, "The Spiritual Uses of Pain in Spanish Mysticism," JAAR 64 (1996) 257-78; Maureen A. Tilley, "The Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr," JAAR 59 (1990) 467-79; Paula M. Cooey, "Experience, Body, and Authority," HTR82 (1989) 325-42. See also Kristin Boudreau, "Pain and the Unmaking of Self in Toni Morrison's Beloved," Contemporary Literature 36 (1995) 447-65; Pamela A. Smith, "Chronic Pain and Creative Possibility: A Psychological Phenomenon Confronts Theologies of Suffering," in Maureen A. Tilly and Susan A. Ross, eds., Broken and Whole:Essays on Religionand the Body (Annual Publication of the College Theology Society 39; New York: University Press of America, 1993). 7Scarry, Body in Pain, 162.

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intensifying pain, on the surface of their bodies through vigorous scourging and within their bodies through concentration on the Crucifixion, until finally the contents of the world were canceled out in their minds."8

Pain, in short, unmakes their profane world and leads the mystics to self- and world-transcendence. Scarry'sis a dense and complex argument, and no brief summarycan do it justice. Nevertheless,herfundamental axiom,thatpaineludeslanguageandis therefore utterlysubjectiveand objectless,is incorrect.Scarrybases her observationson the devastatingeffects of pain in the context of political tortureand adds to this the epistemologyof clinicianswho struggleto improvethe abilityof patientsto communicate about their pain. I will returnshortlyto the language and epistemology of pain,but Elrst a few commentson torture andpain are in order.Torture does indeed have the power to destroy the world of its victims, to unmaketheir identity,their language,theirmemory.However,it is not clear thatpain is more effective in this processthanothermeans.The torturer has other,perhaps moredecisive instruments: isolation,sleeplessness,starvation, darkness, light,terror (mockexecutions,screams fromothercells), suffocation,anddrownings,which arenot painful.Examples,unfortunately, are too common.Consider,for example,the testimonyof Eric Lomax, who was tortured by the JapaneseduringWorldWarII:
A bench had been placed out in the open. I was told by the interpreterto lie down on it, and I lay on my front to protect my bandaged arms by wrapping them under the seat. But the NCO quickly hauled me upright again and made me lie on my back while he tied me to the bench with a rope.... The NCO suddenly stopped hitting me. He went off to the side and I saw him coming back holding a hosepipe dribbling with water.... He directed the full flow of the now gushing pipe onto my nostrils and mouth at a distance of only a few inches. Water poured down my windpipe and throat and filled my lungs and stomach. The torrent was unimaginably choking. This is the sensation of drowning, on dry land, on a hot dry afternoon. Your humanity bursts from within you as you gag and choke. I tried very hard to will unconsciousness, but no relief came."9

Ascetics and mystics know thatthey possess effective techniques,short of raw pain,for unmalcing theirown profaneselves:firstis a rigiddiet, thenisolation,sleepless nights (vigils), ongoing prayer or chanting, hard physical work and other psychotropic techniques. Pain is one item in a rangeof methods,but it must not be reduced to theothers, just as theothersarenot mutually reducible: the effectsof isolation anddiet aredistinctandcomplementary.
8Flynn, "Spiritual Uses of Pain," 274. 9Eric Lomax, The Railway Man: A True Story of War, Remembrance, and Forgiveness (New York: Ballantine, 1995) 141-43.

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PainandCommunication

Scarryproceeds from an axiomaticcontentionthatpain is private,that it is an objectless experience that eludes language and underminesevery effort to communicate.This hardlyranksas an originalobservation,of course. VirginiaWoolf once remarkedaboutthe English languagethat it has no wordsfor the shiverand headache.... The merestschool girl, andKeatsto speakfor her;butlet whenshe falls in love, has Shakespeare try to describea painin his head to a doctorand languageat a sufferer once runsdry.l of self-transcendence This articlecontendsthatvoluntarypain is an instrument in a meaningfuland communalcontext. To demonstratesuch a claim I will show that pain is not only communicablebut lies at the heart of the human ability to empathizeand share.The symbolic and experientialefficacy of pain derives from the way it bridges"raw"sensationwith the highest qualitiesof humanbeings in a communityof other humanbeings. The clinical specialistsin the areaof pain workingin NorthAmericaand in the of puttingwordsto the subjecEnglishlanguagehave long recognizedthe difElculties thatcouldaidpatients of pain.RonaldMelzackdeviseda questionnaire tive sensations more of theirproblem thenature thequalityof theirpainanddiagnosing in pinpointing choose fromwhichthe patientmay effectively.llThe termslistedin the questionnaire affective,andevaluasuchas sensory, categories, aredividedintodistinctexperiential in Melzack'soriginal termsoutof the seventy-seven tive.Listedbelow aretwenty-five anseveraltimes. The wordsrepresent version,which has been revisedandupdated swers to the questionposed to the patient:Whatdoes your pain feel like? Options shooting,pricking,drilling,sharp,pinching,gnawing, include:flickering,throbbing, punishing, splitting,tiring,suffocating,terrifying, heavy, stinging, burning, tugging, Clearly, andtorturing. nagging, freezing, squeezing, piercing, radiating, intense, blinding, shooting),othersto sensation(throbbing, some of the termsapplyto the "physical" torturing). (punishing, andyet othersto an evaluation response(terrifying), emotional reasonsfor evoking the patient'sdescriptionon Thereare clinical-neurological all three levels. For my purposes,it is sufficient to note, as Scarrydoes, that the referencesto fictitious agencies, usually tools or weapterms make metaphorical ons, and the types of bodily damagethese produce:cutting,shooting, drilling,and so on. Scarryadds, "Physicalpain is not identical with (and often exists without
lVirginia Woolf, "On Being Ill," in idem, TheMomentand Other Essays (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948) 11. llRonald Melzack, "The McGill Questionnaire:MajorPropertiesand Scoring Methods,"Pain 1 (1975) 277-99; Dennis C. Turk and Ronald Melzack, Handbook of Pain Assessment (New York: Guilford, 1992).

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either agency or damage), but these things are referential;consequently we often call on them to convey the experienceof the pain itself.''12 In sum, it is difficult to communicate,perhapseven imagine,the natureof pain withoutresortingto metaphorsof agencyor instrumentality: the weaponthatpenetrates, the vice thatpinches and pulls, the ice that freezes, or the scorpionthat stings. Melzack may have put together the questionnairewith his graduatestudents, but the terms are not his arbitrary inventions.They are meaningfulbecause humansverbalize experiences of pain in such a manner. I will shortlyshow thatpain is not the only experiencethathumanbeings verbalize metaphorically. It may first be useful to note that English does not stand alone in using such metaphorical devices due to an intrinsicpaucityin its abilityto describe subjective states. Sanskritand biblical Hebrew act in a similar way. A brief collection of pain terms in Sanskritincludes the following: pt.da,vedana, ruja,vyatha, arti,sula, vega,toda,and, of course, duhkha. The first term,pt.da, comes from the rootpzd, which means "to squeeze or press,"as one does to obtain the somajuice. The second, vedana, is relatedto the causativeform of the verb "to know" and refers to making something known throughtorture.13 The third term, ruja,originates in the root ruj,which means "to shatterinto pieces" or "break open."The next term,vyatha originatesin vyath, "to tremble,waiver,be agitated, or restless."Next is arti,fromar = a + ri, which means "toinsert,fall into (misfortune),"andin a causativesense "toinflict."In Indianmedicalliterature it describes a sawing pain. Sulais giva's weapon, a fork, spear,lance, or dart.As a word for pain it describesa lancinatingandsharppain, often translated in medical literature as colic. Prisonerscondemnedto death by impailmentdie on the sula. The term vegacomes from vij,"violentagitation,"and describesthe effect of poison or the painfulexpulsion of feces. Bhagavata Purana3.18.6describestodaas a pricking pain; the term derives from the instrumentused to drive cattle or elephants. Finally, duhkha, which means "pain,""grief,"or "suffering," derives from the root duhkh ("topain"),which in turnmay originatefromdu("to burnor consume with fire'').l4 Clearly,those who used Sanskritfor describingtheirexperiences also had to resortto a metaphorical extension of languageinto the realm of agency.A pain is describedin termsof the tool or weapon thatcauses it, or in terms of the effect such a tool may have had squeezing,rippling,and so forth.

l2Scarry, Body in Pain, 15. For Scarry, the result of such metaphorical extensions of experience is the conflation of pain with power, a political observation. 3Kumarasambhava 1.20. l4This list represents an extremely brief selection, based mostly on dictionary sources. I have gone over the Caraka Sam. hita, an ancient medical text, and found dozens of additional terms that lack of space precludes listing here.

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Biblical Hebrew is extremelyrich in its descriptionof pain, and its use of language tends to be poetic and very visual. The best single source is, of course, the book of Job, but several psalms are equally descriptive,as is Jeremiahand a smattering of passages from other books. As in the case of Sanskrit,the list of terms here will be intentionallybrief.Job 6:4, for example,describeshis physical suffering in termsof divine arrowsthathave penetrated his person(hiseiCaddai Jimadi). Othertexts depict a crushingby meansof a storm,breathlessness(lo yitneni has'eb ruhi),fatigue, shriveling,being tornapart,being gnashedwith teeth, being broken in two, being seized by the neck and dashed to pieces (weahaz be Jorpi wayepaspeseni), having his kidneys slashed open (yepalah kilyotai), having his gall poured on the ground (yisvpoh laaresmererati), being burst open (yipreseni peres),having his bowstringloosened, being tossed abouton a storm, having his skin turnblack and fall off (ori s'ahar meMlai), and having his intestines boiled. The list hardlyexhaustsJob's lamentation,let alone the entireBible. The translation in the New Revised StandardVersionis not always clear. For instance, Job 9:17 says: "he crushes me with a tempest,"the English renderingof bisVe 'arah yes'upeni. The verb derives from the root shuf,which does not mean "crush"but "blow" (to blow sparks;the wind blows), "poison" (a snakebite), and in other forms "to lose consciousness" and even, "to smooth"or "torub."The most likely meaning of the quotation is that a storm has blown away Job. Still, the overall meaning of the visual description of his pain is clear: it is inflicted on him by external agencies (arrows,a storm) and feels as if his body is being ripped open, his innardsare spilling out, his bones are burning,and so forth. One may safely conclude that the reliance on metaphors of agency and instrumentalityto describe the subjective experience of pain is not limited to modern speakers or to the English language. Pain, which is a universal biological and psychological fact, must be intrinsically elusive, for it puts human language to work in a surprisingly similar fashion across a variety of cultures and time periods.l5 This observation seems to support the thesis that an experience or sensation that is prelinguistic (thatis, thattakes place in one's nonverbalawareness),can serve as an instrumentof annihilation,both in the negative (political) sense, and in the positive (mystical) sense. Does pain, though, hold a unique place in our awareness in taking place as an "objectless" experience that prefigures language? I think not. Consider pleasure, for instance. Kenneth Mah, a doctoral candidate in McGill University's Clinical Psychology program, has recently applied the basic principles of Melzack's questionnaire in a study, under the supervision of Irv Binik, of adjectives used

l5For pain terms in classical Greek, see Roslyne Rey, The History of Pain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995) 12-14.

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to describe orgasm. Subjects were asked to rate their experiences according to numerousadjectives,organizedinto sensory,emotional,and cognitive categories (like Melzack's adjectives).Again, the numberof adjectives was substantial,but here are a few examples: shuddering,quivering, building, shooting, exploding, hot, throbbing, spreading,flooding, immersing,loving, ecstatic,andeuphoric.The list is not identicalwith the list of adjectivesin its use of metaphorsof weapons or tools, and the level of refinementpales in comparisonwith that of the pain questionnairebecause no diagnosticpurposeis served by completingone on pleasure. All the terms,however,with the exceptionof the evaluative(loving, euphoric)are metaphorical. The descriptionof the temporalstructure of orgasm as shooting or exploding is an obvious exampleof this. The point here is basic: the mere fact that a sensation or experience can only be describedby means of metaphorsdoes not rendersuch an experiencealinguistic.The metaphorical functionof languageas a semanticinstrument is familiarto every beginningstudentof linguistics.Consider the following examples takenfrom a linguistics textbook: a. Let me chew on these ideas for a while. b. They just wouldn't swallow thatidea. c. She'll give us time to digest thatidea.16 In these instances "words from a physical realm are being extended into a mental realm, perhapsbecause the physical vocabularyprovides a familiar and public frame of reference for discussing our private mental life.''17Of course, this is a very general observation, and one needs to state far more precisely in what way the metaphoris an appropriateextension of the experience for which it stands, whether the relationship is arbitraryor grounded in other principles. The similar situation in English, Sanskrit, and Hebrew may suggest that the relationship between the pain metaphorand the sensation it describes is more than an arbitrarydevice (despite the fact that weapons do, in fact, inflict pain).

* TheOrlgin of PainMetaphors
Speakingof pain in termsof tools and weapons extends a privatesensationor experienceintothe publicdomain.l8 Everyoneknowswhata sworddoes, andeveryl6Adrian Akmajian, Richard Demers, and Robert Harnish, eds., Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990) 41. l7Ibid.The foundationalrole of metaphoricalsemantics has been championedby George Lakoff and MarkJohnson,MetaphorsWeLive By (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1980); andGeorge Lakoff, Women,Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). l8This entire topic is discussed in philosophical circles as the question of other minds. Philosophers try to determine how one can know that others have similar mental states, or any

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onecanimagine a scoxpion sting. Thatis thepublicfaceof themetaphor. Perhaps, though, I am movingtoo quickly.How manyreaders of thisjournalhave been shot,crushed, gnawedat (by rats9.), seared,or even pierced?In what way is it safe to assumethat someoneis communicating meaningfillly whenhe or she says thathis or her stomach feelsas though it werebeingsawed?Asa matter of fact,thesensation of beingshotis not "shooting" at all; it is moreof a blow followedby heat.Canone say, to takeanother example,whatit feels like to be drilled? The selectionof metaphors for describing our painis basedon anentirely different principle fromanextension of theeffectsof a toolor weaponon thehuman body.Whatis at work,instead, is an analogy basedon theformal properiies of different senses:themetaphors areoverwhelmingly visual(sometimes tactile)andderive fromacommon formperceived toexistinthevisual, tactile, andnociceptive realms.The awareness of pain (nociception) is not sensoxy, properly speaking. Yet it sharescertain structural gestaltswiththe formsof sensotyperceptions. The metaphors arebasedon these"similarities," orwhatGestalt theorists callisomoIphism.l9 If a painful experience hasthe temporal formof starting suddenly andendingabruptly, whilebeing limitedspatially to a smallregion,we call it a shootingpain.It resemblesthe "visual form" of a shot,notthe nociceptive properties of the shot'sconsequences. By the same token,anorgasmic experience withsimilar spatiotemporal properties is alsodescribed as "shooting." A "sawing" painprojects thetemporal structure of sawing(rhyimic, repetitive, andpossessingfrequent peaksandlulls) on to the visualcharacteristics of a saw. Thistypeof perceptual correspondence is common,andaccording to thepsychologists in thephenomenological Gestalt school,fundamental to thewayhumans organize experience.It allows subjectsin experiments to matchroundishandjagged figureswith corresponding names,whicharevocal(temporal), notspatial.20 An extremeand beautifulexample of the humanabilityto perceive isomorphic forms in a cross-modal fashion was discussed a few years ago by Douglas Hofstadter.As an amateur musician, he found himself fascinated by Frederic Chopin's Etudein C majo; Opus 10. The music was printedby Donald Byrd's SMUT programat IndianaUniversity and reproducedin Metamagical 77lemas.2l

at all. See for instance, John Wisdom, OtherMinds(Oxford: Clarendon, 1956). I will avoid this agenda in this article. l9See, for instance, Kurt Koffka, Principlesof GestaltPsychology(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1935) 55-67. 20Wolfgang Kohler, Gestalt Psychology:An lntroductionto New Concepts in Modern Psychology(New York: Liveright,1947) 225. According to several theorists, the appropriate term is "the unity of the senses." For the precise epistemology see George W. Harmann, GestaltPsychology:A Surveyof Facts and Principles(New York: Ronald, 1935) 141-51. A vivid description of synaesthesia and its role in learning and memory is contained in Aleksander R. Luria, The Mindof a Mnemonist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 2lDouglas R. Hofstadter, MetamagicalThemas:Questingfor the Essence of Mind and Pattern(New York: Basic Books, 1985) 179.

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suggestivein an emotional andimmediately The visualformof the musicis stunning writesthisdescription: way.JamesHuneker The regularblack ascendingand descendingstaircasesof notes strike the neophytewith terror.Like Piranesi'smarvelousaerialarchitectural these dizzy acclivitiesanddescentsof Chopinexercisea charm, dreams, hypnotic,if you will, for the eye as well as the ear; here is the new new in the sense of figure, design, pattechniquein all its nakedness, way.22 tern,web, new in a harmonic Chopin was conscious of what he was doing, making the visual patternof his of the music. In fact, he properties to some of the auditory musicalscorecorrespond emotionalandintelconsciouslyworkedon two levels, or with two types of pattern: lectual. The latter is a syntactic propertyof the music that corresponds to the The of soundsandothertechniquesof poetry.23 rhyme,meter,repetition alliteration, beexists nonetheless but poetry semanticpatternin music is far moreelusive than cause the etude does not fail to move its listeners,and often in the same emotional between spatialpatway. Of course, this is an unusualexampleof correspondence ternandemotionalresponse:most composershave not thoughtabouttheirscores in of music thatit moves such visuallyorganizedterms.Still, it is an intrinsicproperty on pureform,with based semantically, to them communicates it that beings, human devotional, patriotic, sentimental, happy, be sad, can Music verylittlerepresentation. serious,humorous,withoutrecourseto any words.These emotionsareconveyed, as suchas crescendo Gestalttheoristsandartcriticshaveobserved,by formalstructures Musicalsynto mentiononly a few.24 accelerandoandritardando, anddiminuendo, to the patternsof a thatcorrespond tax can move people becauseit createspatterns person'smentalandemotionallife. SusanneLangerobserved: thereare certainaspectsof the so-called"inner-life" physicalor mental which have formalpropertiessimilarto those of music patterns and disagreeof motion and rest, of tensionand release, of agreement fulfillment,excitation,suddenchange,etc.25 ment,preparation, patternsof Humanscommunicatethe idea of pain based on the spatiotemporal to do nothing has uses one metaphor in the the sensation.The choice of instrument with the actualpain it inflicts. The "form"of the pain is due to neurologicalprinanddiagnosticians. factforpainresearchers ciples, not the agentor tool, a significant Of course,whatI have presentedup to now is a very schematicpictureof how pain

22Quoted in ibid., 180. 23Ibid., 181. Gestalt Psychology, 248-49. 24Kohler, 25Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New.Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (New York: New American Library, 1961) 193.

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Gestaltepistemologyandcognitivepsychologyarefarmore may be communicated. comprehensive. So are linguistic theories of semantics. Interestingly,from the of Noam Chomsky'ssynpoint of view, the depthstructures neuroepistemological schools of thoughttake Both principles. perceptual tacticaltheoriesresembleGestalt the positionthattherearebuilt-inbrainfunctionsthatinfluence,in a top-downfashcognitions,and language.This is a very vague ion, the contentsof our perceptions, way of puttingthe matter,but it achieves a basic task:disposing of the notion that pain is a "raw"andprivatesensationin searchof a voice throughlanguage. Finally, the idea that communicatingpain requiresnot only a uniquely efficaobserver, theexperiencein theempathetic cious languagebutthe powerto reproduce the pain, experience vicariously indeed may is both false and trivial.The observer but his or her suffering (if empathetic)or thrill (if sadistic) is caused by deeper psychological reasons than either the semanticsof words or the affect of perception. For a deliciously wry analysis of the tormentor's psyche one turns to Dostoevsky: past therewere I don't know how it is today,but in the not-too-distant distinguishedpeople to whom beating some victim affordedfeelings de Brinvilliers.I de Sade and Marquise similarto those of the Marquis think that there is somethingin these sensationsthat, in these people, makes the heartstop in agonizingdelight. Thereare people like tigers who long for a taste of blood. Anyone who has once experiencedthis power,this unlimitedcontrolover the body, blood, and spiritof a man his brotherin Christ anyonewho has like himself, a fellow creature, beupon another experiencedthe powerto inflict supremehumiliation ing, createdlike himself in the image of God, is boundto be ruledby his emotions.26 in Christ."It is the sharedhumanitythatmakes The key phrasehereis "brother the thrillof the sadist possible, the vicariousidentificationwith the victim. Freud, who was a careful Dostoevsky reader,recognized this aggressive-eroticbond between the victim and the sadist: object relationsare a way of loving (and hating)othSadomasochistic ers and oneself and are especially concernedwith intense ways of loss, loneliengaginganotherso as to mitigatedangersof separateness, and guilt. Aggressionand sexualityare adapted ness, hurt,destruction, person.27 with another to this end of intenseconnectedness

(New York: Signet Classic, 1980) 26Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground 84. 27Freud, quoted in Stanley J. Coen, "The Excitement of Sadomasochism," in Hanly,

Essential Papers on Masochism, 383-84.

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The painful event assigns a distinct role to the victim and to the perpetrator, but the roles resonate, and the torturerneeds the victim in orderto play out fully his own fantasy. Dostoevsky continues: Once when the victim refused to cry out, the flogger, a man whom I knew and who, in other respects could even be considered kindly, took it as a personal offense. At first he had intended to make the punishmenta light one. But when the usual cries for mercy were not forthcoming,he grew furious and orderedfifty extra lashes, seeking both cries and begging and he had his way.28 Notice, though, that even the bystander,say the readerof tortureaccounts, normally identifies with the victim and his or her pain ratherthan the tormentor. Psychoanalystscall this reactionlibidinalsympatheticexcitation,and since Freud clearly linked sadistic aggressionwith sexuality,thereis somethingpornographic about our humanfascinationwith victimization,even if it does also manifest an ability to empathize.29 a

TheNature of Pain

As I have indicated, pain is not only a universal human phenomenon, but it is also eminently communicable, sometimes in profound and nonverbal ways. This does not, however, bring one anywhere near to understandingthe role of pain in the religious life. Why, for instance, does Kabir sing: I wouldrather be sawedin half thansee Youturn Your backto me. Come,embrace me, andlistento myplea. If Youwantto sawmy limbs, I will notflinch. Evenif Youkill mybody, I will notstoplovingYou. There is no difference between Youandme.

From Underground, 86. 29Thereader who wishes to experiment with these ideas, or observe his or her reaction to the appalling "tortureof the rat"may look up Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden (New York: Citadel, 1948) 192-94.

28Dostoevsky, Notes

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Youarethatsamehusband, I thatsamewife.30 in orderto begin answeringsuch a question, it is necessary to criUnfortunately, tique one last time those who have drawnon Scarry'swork for theirinterpretation of religious pain. The sufferinginflicted on prisonersundertortureis acute pain. By contrast,the pain thatreligiousspecialistsvoluntarilyseek is more closely akin to chronic pain. The difference is not one of intensity,as both types can be ferocious. The difference is based on duration,chronic pain exceeding the relatively short-livedtraumaof a gun wound, or even the days or weeks of political torture. Chronicpain sufferersdeal with a range of issues that never occur to patientsof acutepain, and in fact, the very natureof theirpain is distinctfrom the usual tissue damage of acute pain: Activity inducedin the nociceptorand nociceptivepathwaysby a noxious stimulusis not pain, which is always a psychologicalstate, even that pain most often has a proximate thoughwe may well appreciate physicalcause.3l In other words, it is impossible to separatethe confluence of psychological, social, and culturalfactorsfrom the physical event in the overall experienceof the pain, and this applies far more prominentlyin the case of chronic pain. The lifelong voluntarysufferingof a mystic must thus be analyzed and interpretedon a varietyof levels, but not as one might read acute pain.32 PerhapsI am getting aheadof myself again.Even acute pain, which is associated with clear physical causes and tissue damage, is to a large extent a mental injurymay not be perceived at all, or event. Undercertaincircumstancesa horriElc experiencedpainlessly.Soldiersmay be seriouslyinjuredbut continueto function with no awarenessof theirinjury.PatrickD. Wall reportsthe case of young Israeli woman officer who had her leg blown off in an explosion but experienced no immediatepain. Her first reaction,in the momentfollowing the explosion was to On a lesser scale this may happen to ask: "Who is going to marryme now?"33 athletesor ball playersin the midstof theirgames. The suffererdoes not ignorethe or naturalopiates. Instead by neuropeptides pain in such cases, nor is it "sedated"

(New York: SUNY Press, 1991) theAdi Granth 30NirmalDass, trans., Songsof Kabirfrom 14849. 3IHarold Meskey; "Pain Terms," Pain 6 (1979) 249-52. 32See the comments by R. Havard in the Appendix to C. S. Lewis, The Problemof Pain (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950). Againstthe SilentEpidemic Pain: TheWar 33PatrickD. Wall and Mervyn Jones, DefeatinB (New York: Plenum, 1991) 137.

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it is maskedor blottedout by the preoccupationwith, or awarenessof, othermatters. Hours afterthe injury,the soldier or athletemay suddenly become aware of the injury,or ratherof a painthatcan be so intenseas to requirepowerfulsedation. This observationis common sense, and classical medical systems in Europe, as well as Asia, were fully aware of it. The phenomenonpoints toward interesting issues in epistemology andmetaphysics.As a medicalandneurologicalfact, however, this so-called "paradox of pain"was not fully explained until 1960 with the publicationof the "GateControlTheory," authored by RonaldMelzack andPatrick Wall. The theory,subsequently supported by numerous clinicalstudies,posits a mechanism in the spinal cord thatcontrolsthe flow of neuronalstimuli from the body's peripheriesto the brain,wherepain is registered.The gate mechanismoperatesby meansof signals that"descend" fromthe brainto the gate andinhibitthe incoming signals.34 The searchfor the exact inhibitoryneuronalcells has led to the discovery of two types of endogenousopiates,specificallyenkephalinesanddynorphines.In general terms, the success of the Gate ControlTheory has led to the recognition that the intensity,duration,and natureof pain depend on decisions of the central brainnotjust peripheral stimulation. The underlyingpsychologicalandeven philosophical implications are far-reaching,because they seem to imply that human experiences Britishempiricismnotwithstanding areshapedin significantways by "central,"and perhaps genetically built-in, structures(dare one call these a prioricategories?). Clearly, no one should be surprised then, that Rene Descartes was deeply interested in the mechanism and implications of pain, particularlyas it weighed on the debate between "peripheralists"and "centralists."In order to highlight the sharpcontours of the issues to the advantage of his own centralist position, Descartes had to find a case of pain that did not depend on external nerve stimulation. He found his example in the case of a girl with an amputatedarm: A girl suffering from a bad ulcer in the hand had her eyes bandaged whenever the surgeon came to visit her, not being able to bear the sight of the dressing of the sore; and, the gangrene having spread, after the expiry of a few days the arm was amputatedfrom the elbow [without the girl's knowledge]; linen clothes tied one above the other were substitutedin place of the part amputated,so that she remainedfor some time without knowing that the operationhad been performed,and meanwhile she complained of feeling various

34For a convenient summary, see Ronald Melzack, "Phantom-Limb and the Brain," in Burkhart Bromm and John E. Desmedt, eds., Pain and the Brain: From Nociception to Cognition (Advances in Pain Research and Therapy 22; New York: Raven, 1995).

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pains, sometimes in one finger of the hand that was cut off, and sometimesin another.35 Descartesdid not understand the functionof the nervoussystem and imaginedit in mechanical terms,thedominant neurological metaphor of the time.Still, thephilosophical upshot of the girl's phantom pain was similar for Descartes to the contemporary view of leadingneuropsychologists suchasRonaldMelzackandPatrick Wall.Descartesconcluded:"Andthis clearlyshows thatthe pain of the handis not felt by the mind insofaras it is in the hand,but in so far as it is in the brain."36 Anyone who has been to the dentistfor a root canal knows the phantomsensation. Novocain locally anesthetizesthe areawhere work is being done, but it also deadenssensationin a partof the lip. As a result,the lip feels largerthanit really is, and it often tingles as well. This is phantomlip. Individualswho have undergone amputationof a limb owing to a variety of causes, from war injury to diabetes, experiencesimilarandadditionalsensations(heat,cramps,or stabs)"in"the missing limb,thoughfarmorepainfully. This is truefor seventy-twopercentof amputees a week after amputation,and sixty percent six months later. Only ten to twelve percentof amputeesfind complete relief even years afterthe amputation.37 Phantom-limb pain is a profoundlyintractableand devastating affliction, which has until now completely eluded efforts to cure it. Many who are unfortunate enough to sufferthis form of chronicpain have given theirlives over to variousdrugsthat work only by recourseto unconscious states of medicated sleep. Any attemptto block nerve impulses from the region, say by electronic or chemical blockage at the base of the spine, fails to cure the pain. As I)escartes remarked,the pain is located in the brainnot the periphery. Peripheralists, those who believe thatthe brainonly processes stimuli obtained throughthe peripheral nervoussystem, have claimed thatthe phantomexperience can result from such sources as nerve pathology at the stump(neuroma),or alternatively as a form of "memory," or patterning in the brain.The failed blocks in the spine discreditthe neuromaargument, while studieshave shown thatchildrenborn with missing limbs often also experiencephantom-limb pain.38 Melzack, who has

3sRene Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy 4. 196 in John Veitch trans., The Meditations and Selections from the Principles (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1968) 200-201.
36Ibid.

37Thestudies that document these figures appear in Ronald Melzack, "Phantom-Limb Pain and the Brain," 79. See also Joel Katz, "The Role of the Sympathetic Nervous System in Phantom Limb Pain," Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 10:1 (1996) 1, 153-75. 38E. S. M. Saadah and R. Melzack, "Phantom Limb Experience in Congenital Limb-Deficient Adults," Cortex 30 (1994) 479-85. George Grouios, "Phantom Limb Perceptuomotor 'Memories' in a Congenital Limb Child," Medical Science Research 24 (1996) 503-504. For a peripheralist theory of phantom-limb pain (blood clots, gangrene, or stump problems), see

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studiedthis phenomenonmore thoroughlythananyone else, is convinced thatthe sensationandthe pain derivefrom a built-instructure, which he has describedin a relatively new theory of the neuromatrix.39 Melzack begins by observing that the areas of the brainthat process the pain experience are widespreadand extensive. The experience of a phantom, which subjectivelyfeels as real as any other partof the body, is subservedby the same brainregions that process pain, including the limbic system and somatosensory projections. The anatomical networkthatconsistsof neuralloops betweenthe thalamus and the cortex as well as the cortex and limbic system is termed the "neuromatrix." This system is hard-wiredinasmuchas it is anatomicallygenetic, but it is also soft-wired in possessing plasticity,that is, a flexibility for changing synapticconnectionsaccordingto learning.As a functionof its (flexible) systemic structure, the neuromatrix processes incomingnerve impulses accordingto a characteristicpattern,which Melzack calls "neurosignature." All the inputs from the peripheriesof the body flow throughthe synapticconnectionsof the neuromatrix, wherethey aremolded into the pattemsthateventuallybecome convertedinto the structures of awareness.In Melzack's words: The neurosignature, which is a continuousoutflow from the body-self neuromatrix, is projectedto areas in the brain,known as the sentient neural hub (SNH), in which the stream of nerve impulses (the neurosignature modulated by ongoing inputs)is convertedinto a continuallychangingstreamof awareness.40 Meanwhile, a similar patternproceeds through a neuromatrixcircuit ("actionneuromatrix") thateventuallyactivatesneuronsin the spinalcordformuscle activity and complex actions. Melzackcould be wrongas far as the preciseanatomical featuresof his theoryis concemed.The theoryitself,at leastin its philosophical-epistemological foundations, is farfromnew.It goes backthrough Helmholtzto Kantandthe notionthatphenomenal experienceis formedby a combination of empirical inputsfromthe outerworld andsome built-intemplate thatorganizes experience. Accordingto Melzack,we possess a body-selfneuromatrix thatresultsin ourexperience of "owning" ourown body andallowsus to function as a unitywithinanenormously complexanatomical system.
Samuel A. Weiss and Brad Lindell, "Phantom Limb Pain and Etiology of Amputation in Unilateral Lower Extremities Amputees ," Journal of Pain and SymptomManaBement 1 1 ( 1996) 3-17. 39Melzack's theory has appeared in several publications and studies. Among the clearest statements are: Melzack, "Phantom-Limb and the Brain"; "Pain: Past, Present and Future," Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 47 (1993) 615-29; and in the most accessible context idem, "Phantom Limbs," in Scientific American 261 (April 1992) 120-26. 40Melzack, "Phantom-Limb Pain," 75-76.

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The neuromatrix theory provides a coherent bridge between anatomy and experience. It also has significant phenomenological implications. The psychologists of perception of the Gestalt school have recognized that our experience is shaped by characteristic patterns (Gestalten),and they accordingly posited an isomorphismwith underlyingneuronalpatterns.4l Unfortunately for them, they were not able to find any such corresponding anatomical structures; but here, with the neurosignature,or even with the plastic neuromatrix, the Gestalt school may find an extremely rewardingprogramfor future studies
. , .

On lsomorpnlsm.

What, then, is the origin of phantom-limb pain?It is important to keep in mind that the neuromatrixis a system with input and outputcircuits channeling informationandfeedback.Melzacknotes thatin the absenceof modulatinginputsfrom the limbs or body, the active body neuromatrix producesa signaturepatternthat is transduced in the sentient neural hub into a hot or burningquality. The crampingpain experiencedin the phantom limbs maybe due to messagesfromthe action-neuromatrix to move muscles in order to produce movement.In the absence of limbs, the messages to move the muscles become more frequentand stronger in the attempt to move the limb.42 The same principle,he adds,appliesto the shootingpains. The threetypes of pain are familiarto those who sufferphantom-limbpain: extreme heat, severe cramping, and shooting pains. The heat is a type of neuronal "noise" or false alarm, while the crampingand shooting are equivalentto the ringing of a doorbell when no one answers:it becomes louderand more frequent. Because the neuromatrixis a fundamentalanatomicalstructure,and because it acts as a system that underlies perception and action, it provides a coherent explanation for what the Gestalt theorists called the "similarityof the senses." Humanperceptionof musical structurescan match visual structures,as the case of Chopin's score sheet demonstrates.The cross-modal perceptionof forms and patternsmay be owing to this underlyingneurological mechanism. If this observation seems excessively speculative,it can be tested empiricallyand has already producedclinical tests for the practicalgoal of treatingphantom-limbpain. V. S. Ramachandran, in collaborationwith others,has recently published a reportof an experimentaltreatmentin Nature.43 The authorsnote:
4lWolfgang Kohler, The Task of Gestalt Psychology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969) 66. 42Melzack, "Phantom-Limb Pain," 79-80. 43V. S. Ramachandran et al., "Touching the Phantom Limb," Nature 377 (6549) (1995) 489-90; see also Maomora Muraoka et al., "Psychosomatic Treatment of Phantom Limb Pain with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Case Report," Pain 66 (1996) 385-88.

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When motorcommandsare sent from the premotorand motor cortex to clench the hand,they are normallydampedby errorfeedbackfrom In a phantom,such dampingis not possible, so the proprioception. andthis outflowitself may be experimotoroutputis amplifiedfurther enced as a painfulspasm.44 In order to fool the system into perceiving some type of feedback, the scientists placed a mirrorin such a way thatthe patientwould see the normalhandsuperimhand.They hypothesizedthat"visualfeedback posed on the phantomor amputated this loop" and could thus eliminate the from the mirrormay act by interrupting spasms. The visual feedbackconsisted of viewing the good hand unclench, or in other cases touching that hand. The results were successful, although the entire benefits. It is not clear for any certaintherapeutic programis still too preliminary how many times one can "fool" the brain, and more importantly,how long the synesthesia would last. The tests indicate, however, that visual and tactile inputs can modulatethe outputof a motorneurosystem.They furtherindicatethathuman the sense of embodimentin loftier terms, is bodily sensations (proprioception), by a varietyof senses acting in standardpatterns. phenomenologicallystructured o

Pain Sacred

experience.The pain can be regardedas a type of hallucinatory Phantom-limb pain is real, of course, but the experienceof its localizationin the missing limb is an illusion thatresultsfrom the absence of inputfrom thatlimb. Visual hallucinations are, similarly, common among ascetics and mystics who retreat to environmentswheresensory inputis reducedto minimallevels. Geoffery Schultz, a studentof Melzack, has recently conducteda study, supportingearlierwork in concluding that visual hallucinationsare not caused by psychopathologyor imof sensoryinputamong pairedcognitive functioning,butresultfromthe disruption on Melzack's theory,overfires The neuromatrix, patientssufferingeye damage.45 its outputs in the absence of stimulationfrom external sources, and creates images{)ften fantastic- thatone may experienceas real. It is possible to explain the fact of visual and otherhallucinationsby referring to the systemic propertiesof the nervoussystem, as outlinedby Melzack and others.46Other facts, however, condition the content of the hallucinations, their Limb, 490. 44Touching thePhantom 44Ramachandran, andMental state A Study Visual Hallucinations andRonald Melzack, 45Geoffery Schultz The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Hallucinators, of 14 Charles sonnetSyndrome andgustactile, olfactory, to be auditory, arealsoknown 181(1993) 639-43. Hallucinations tatory. deprivation events. sensory andphysiological arecomplex psychological 46Hallucinations states.see suchmental methods of inducing the deliberate is onlyone cause,evenamong

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phenomenalfeatures.A Christianmystic will not experience a vision of Kali or a throughlearningand memoribodhisattvabut will drawon materialincorporated of incoming stimulation In the absence context.47 or her cultural within his zation of any sense modality, such stored neuronalinformationbegins to overfire and producethe phenomenalexperiences,which may be visual, auditory,or consist of other phantoms.48 It is even possible that such hallucinations,tactile ones for instance, produce somatic effects ranging from raised blood pressureor pulse rate to loss of hair, incontinence,false pregnancies,paralysis,rashes,blistering,and others.The phenomenon of stigmata,most famously associatedwith St. Francisbut documented in such far less exemplaryfigures as JaneHunt or Ethel Chapmanmay indeed be The phenomenalcontoursof a psychogenic event with somatic manifestations.49 (the location of the wounds) correspondsto learning the stigmata"hallucination" andbeliefs aboutthe locationof the injuriesto Jesus, thoughthe etiology is neurological and systemic. To summarizewhat I have said up to this point: Phantompain and hallucinaThe neuromatrix tions areproducedby the absenceof incomingneuronalsignals.50 begins to overfireowing to the absence of modulatingor dampingfeedback from the periphery,thus producingphysiopsychologicalexperiences characterizedby nervousexcitationbut shapedby otherfactorsas well. If inputwere blocked from the entire peripheralbody, the body-self templateas a whole would be effected, resultingin a distortedsense of the phenomenalself. The system, however,acts in the otherdirectionas well. When the organismis bombardedwith incoming signals moving afferently,the neuromatrixbegins to its outputsignals resultingin the minimizationof all mentalphenomena underElre The contrastbetween the two aspects of the system can includinghallucinations.51

PeterD. Slade and RichardP. Bentall,SensoryDeception:A ScientificAnalysis of Hallucinations (Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, 1988) 15-16. range from psychological factors 47Thevariableaffecting the contentsof hallucinations suchas stressandpathologyto intelligenceandlanguageskills, suggestibilityandresponsivestimulation,culturalvalues, and others(ibid., 82-109). ness to instructions,environmental is ontologically neutraland refers in this context merely to 48Theterm "hallucination" producedby the overfiringof neuronaloutput. mentalphenomena SensitizaA Review of Autoerythrocyte 490scarD. Ratnoff,"ThePsychogenicPurpuras: to DNA, 'Hysterical'and PactitialBleeding, and the Religious Stigtion, Autosensitization mata,"Seminarsin Hematology17 (July 1983) 192-213; on Hunt and Chapmansee, Ted Harrison,Stigmata:A MedievalMysteryin a ModernAge (New York:Penguin, 1994). Science VernonandThomasMcGill, "SensoryDeprivationand PainThresholds," 50Jack 133 (1961) 330-31. psychology see RalphNormanHaber,"Informatheoryand perceptual 510n information of Pereds., Handbook and MortonP. Priedman, C. Carterrette tion Processing,"in Edward

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be illustratedby means of the following example: inside a sensory deprivation and salted to enflotation tank (dark,silent, water warmedto body temperature hance floatation)a swimmerquickly begins to experienceextremely vivid mental images and visions. By contrast,when a person is submergedin a cold streamof water- say the Ganges on a Januarymorning- his or her phenomenalfield becomes radicallysimplified and free of mental images; in fact it becomes reduced therapeuticwork is based on this wellRamachandran's to simple embodiment.52 known feature of the nervous system in which, as in all informationsystems, incoming signals tamperwith output.His innovationwas based on the synesthetic A powerfor proprioception. assumptionthatvisual feedbackcould be substituted of incoming signals, in whateversensory modality,can produce ful bombardment a virtualshutdownof outgoing signalsresultingin dissociative states,eithertrance or psychotic breakdowns. to these insights goes beyond the postulationof an anaMelzack's contribution The with functionalproperties(neurosignature). tomical structure(neuromatrix) functions as, interalia,the body-self template, the neuropsychoneurosignature logical foundationof the phenomenalself. The body-self templateis one functional At the basic informationlevel, it is a spatiotemporal aspect of the neuromatrix. organizationof inputs and outputsrelatingto the bases of unified perceptionand of the phenomenalself, a schemaor scheIt providesthe structure proprioception. mata rather than a symbolic or metaphysical construct. Consequently, it is susceptible to ongoing modulationby perceptionand perceptualdistortions.The with Gestalttheobutits correspondence is still hypothetical, neurologicalstructure ingenuity, of the phenomenalself, as well as theirexperimental rists'understanding suggest thata programfor verifying these hypothesescan indeed be devised.53 One could presumablypredictthat an overload of incoming sensory signals, say in the form of ongoing self-inflicted pain, would progressively weaken the

ception (11 vols.; New York:AcademicPress, 1974) 1. 313-31. On the more specific feedEffects,"in back featules of the system see JohnP. Zubek,"Sensory and Perceptual-Motor JohnP. Zubek,ed., SensoryDeprivation:Fifteen Yearsof Research(New York:Appletonis called "hyper1969) 444-46. A similarand perhapsrelatedphenomenon Century-Croft, opiatescausedby This maybe due, however,to the releaseof natural stimulation analgesia." sharppain, ratherthan the disruptionof the body/self templateby constantdull pain. See in Vincent Analysisof Asceticism," andComparative WilliamC. Bushell,"Psychophysiological L. Wimbushand RichardValantis eds., Asceticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 553-75. simplicitydefinesthe verynatureof purity 52Ihavearguedelsewherethatthis phenomenal in Hinduismand conformsto the religous purposeof bathingin India.See Ariel Glucklich, TheSense of Adharma(New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1994) 66-88. 53There are several ways of defining neurologicaland cognitive schemata.They sharea and complex action requiresthat the organismoperateon abrecognitionthat coordinated

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body-selftemplate resulting in thediffusionof the self or its completedisappearance.54 This wouldbe a "reverse phantom," the disappearance not of somaticexperiencebut of the subjective experiencer. Forthe sakeof convenience,I outlinethe two aspectsof theneurosystem in the followingway:(1) sensorydeprivationhallucination(expansion of mentalexperience);(2) sensoryoverload"dis"-hallucination (shrinkage of mentalexperience). I have noted earlierthatthe phenomenalpropertiesof the hallucinationare the resultof a varietyof factors(learning,expectations,andbeliefs). For convenience sake, I call these properties"belief"and note thatthey are relatedto the plasticity of the neurosignature. The effects of "beliefs"on the fimction of the system (and the experience of pain, for instance) are very significant.A soldier and a car passenger who suffer the same injury,one in battle and the other in an accident,may experience their injuries very differently.The soldier may be relieved to be removed from harm'sway, the passengerdevastatedat his loss. The first will feel far less pain and interpretthat pain differently(for instance, as a lifesaver). Similar "belief' or plasticity factors are closely relatedto the phenomenalaspects of the hallucinationor "dis"-hallucination (mentalexperience)in cases of sensory deprivation or bombardment respectively.In graphicrepresentation: (1) hallucination "beliefs"sensory characteristics of mentalexperienceexpand with shrinkageof somaticinput;(2) "dis-"hallucination"beliefs"sensory characteristics of mental experienceshrinkwith expansionof somaticinput.This is a graphicway of saying thatin hallucinationsthe mentalexperience(phenomenal)becomes more vivid as physical embodimentis reduced(sensory deprivation),while in the opposite case

stracted "models" or "frames" rather than direct physical reality. Schemata apply both to physical action (James Jerome Gibson, Ulric Neisser) and to cognitive operations and information processing (Jean Piaget, Marvin Lee Minsky). For a brief summary see Michael A. Arbib, "Schemas," in Richard L. Gregory ed., The OxfordCompanion to the Mind(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) 695-97; see also Lakoff, Women, Fire, andDangerousThings; James Jerome Gibson "The Theory of Affordances," in Robert E. Snow and John Bransford, eds., Perceiving, Acting and Knowing:Towardan Ecological Psychology (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977) 3348; Ulric Neisser, CognitionandReality:Principlesand Implications of CognitivePsychology(San Francisco: Freeman, 1976); Jean Piaget, Biology and

Knowledge: AnEssay on theRelationsbetweenOrganicRegulationsand CognitiveProcesses

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the phenomenalfeaturesof the mentalexperiencearereducedwith the increaseof physical embodiment. In otherwords, the phenomenalfield of the personwho tortureshis or her own body is enormouslyreduced,the self becoming transparent or subservientto the experienceof the pain.The sensoryoverloador bombardment caused by an undergarmentlined with nails (Suso), or even made of a coarse scratchymaterial(St. Francis)is significant.But while hallucinations causedby sensorydeprivationcan be complex and vivid, "dis"-hallucinations are not reducedto absolutesimplicity. The recordfrom the historyof religions reveals thatpain is experiencedin a number of ways, which are ultimatelyreducibleto two principles. The variety of pain experiences includes pain as punishment,penance, medicine, test, passage, andmagical (alchemical)agent. Considerations of space allow threeexamples. First,medievalEuropeanmonasticguides were explicit aboutthe value of pain that monks were to inflict upon themselves:
Brother, it is necessary for thee to be punished in this life or in purgatory: but incomparably more severe will be the penalty of purgatory than any in this life. Behold, thy soul is in thy hands. Choose therefore for thyself whether to be sufficiently punished in this life according to canonical or authentic penance, or to await purgatory.Ss

Second, an equivalentevaluation,expressedin a differentmetaphor, is the following quote of Abu BakrWasitiin The Sea of Precious Virtues:
Within each man's body is enthroned a soul, which rules, commanding and forbidding. Were it not for fear of the sword, it would become aware and claim divinity, just as accursed Pharaoh said, "I am your supreme Lord."56

Third,MirzaAsadullahGhalib is quoted as saying: "Whenpain transgressesthe limits, it becomes medicine."57 The six modes of experiencingpain are ultimatelyreducibleto two fundamental prinsiples in relationship to the disappearing self. (The self disappears in proportionto the rise in the level or pervasiveness of pain or other stimulation 55John Thomas McNeillandHelena M. Gamer, eds., Medieval (NewYork: Columbia university Press,1938)223.
Handbooks of Penance

56The Sea of Precious Virtues (Bahr al-Fava'id): A Medieval lslamic Mirror for Princes

(trans. JuliescottMesami; SaltLake city: university of Utah Press, 1991)13;Itwould betoo easyto multiply thenumber of examples of pain described as sword, penance, bitter medicine, andso forth. Thephenomenology of suchpainexperiences wouldhaveto be the subject of another article. 57Annemarie Schimmel, Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of EighteenthCentury Muslim lndia (Leiden: srillR 1979)197.

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ARIEL GLUCKLICH

411

overload.) In an insightful book that links the physiological aspects of pain to its psychology, David Bakan distinguishespain in relationto two primaryaspects of (the breakupand the and telic-centralization the individual:telic-decentralization A full evaluation reinforcement,respectively,of a system in relationto its goal).58 anddifficultworkbelongs in a completepsychological study of Bakan'simportant of sacredpain;the presentworkis limitedonly to its neurophysiologicalandfunctional aspects. In brief, however,Bakandistinguishesseveral hierarchicalcenters of telos in the individualorganism,rangingfrom mechanistic-biologicalteloi (the nervous system, the immunesystem) to the ego and superego,which containteloi based on intentionalityand purpose. Bakan observes that the experience of pain "is the psychic manifestationof involves a threatto the system eiThis decentralization telic decentralization."59 therfrom externalsources (pathogensor injury)or a breakupfrom a largersystem centersof telos, however,pain need not yet. Because thereare severalhierarchical of pain."The be equatedwith tissue damage,which explains Melzack's "paradox soldier who is injuredin battle may identify with his ego as a higher telos that sacrifices the telos of a subsystem, say a lost leg, and thus experiences little pain by comparedwith the car passenger.In fact, the ego is saved (telic-centralization) pain, which is conceptualizedas a probthe loss of the limb. In religious literature, threatto the telic center(ego). is experiencedas a decentralizing lem (punishment), In contrast,pain thatis conceptualizedas a solution (medicine), assumes a higher telos than ego, which is centralizedor reinforcedby the sacrifice of the ego. The hierarchyof telic centers extends to the superego in Bakan's Freudian scheme. This higher level of telic organizationis reinforcedor centralizedby the type of stimulationthatdiminishesor decentralizesthe lesser telos of the ego. A religious practitionerwho acts in subservience to the highest telic centers experiences overstimulationthat eradicatesthe self as telically centralizing and beneficial. The modernindividual,in contrast,who locates his or her highest purpose in the well-being of the individualteloi (the body and the ego) experiences the same stimulationas somethingto be avoided, or a problemof theodicy. These observationsclearly requirefurtherdiscussion in light of both Freudian psychology. Since telos is a systemic principle, in what sense, and post-Freudian for instance, do the ego and superegoconstitutebroader"systems"that "encompass" the somatic systems? What is the relationbetween biological-mechanistic teloi, and the telos of ego, which involves intentionality?It is possible to answer detailedanalysis.The point thatI am makinghere such questionsonly by a further

58David Bakan, Disease, Pain and Sacrifice: Toward a Psychology of Suffering (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). 59. 59Ibid.,

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412

HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

is thatthe two fundamental aspectsof conceptualizingpain in religious historyare consistent with a systemic view of the neurologicalsystem. The humanability to communicatepainexperienceis a synestheticfeatureof this system;the loss of the sense of self is based on its homeostaticproperties;and the twofold evaluationof the phenomenonof pain is relatedto the psychological perceptionof the system's purpose.

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