ABSTRACT
Sacrifice, self-sacrifice, and expressions of humility are part of veneration and worship of God, the Spirit; it might be that if a part of this archetypal need becomes isolated, it becomes an end in itself. There is one sentence in Carl Gustav Jung’s paper on The Psychology of the Trickster Figure’ that prophetically touches, though in a personalized form, on what the author have set out to suggest—namely, that there is a link between masochism and the search for meaning, for spirit. It is also interesting that while some regard masochism as a means of symbolic self-annihilation; others understand it as a way of resisting the experience of the annihilation of self. Masud Khan’s thesis meets quite naturally the author’s reflections about masochism in religious rites and rituals and in ascetic and mystical practices. There are undoubtedly very many more themes to discuss in relation to masochism.
