ABSTRACT
When William James, in his 1901 Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh, later published as the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, was casting about, in his extended discussion of asceticism, for a figure to exemplify a psychopathic individual, he could come up with none better than Henry Suso (1295-1366).1 Suso’s almost ceaseless dedication to designing instruments and garments with which to inflict wounds upon his flesh has no model for modern comprehension and empathy other than as an expression of mental illness. We could understand and even excuse or forgive a mentally ill person for these harsh self-injurious behaviors; otherwise, James seems to imply, it suggests a masochism that could only be viewed as sick.
