Sex and Religion

Two Texts of Early Feminist Psychoanalysis

Lou Andreas-Salome

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781412856966
• eBook ISBN: 9781351491259
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Human Sexuality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

As a psychoanalyst and author, Lou Andreas-Salome traverses the mystery of sexuality in much of her work. This book, comprised of two texts originally written for adolescents, uniquely explores sexual education and the collision of sexuality and religion across the lifespan.The first piece, "Three Letters to a Young Boy" (1917), is a psychoanalytic fairy tale. The letters offer an interesting version of the evolution of sexual knowledge from childhood through adolescence. The second piece, "The Devil & His Grandmother" (1922), merges sexuality with religion, encapsulating three ages of woman child, to a lost soul and the Devil's bride, to the Devil's Grandmother. Written in charmingly convoluted dialogue, this work has a cinematic, fanciful feel. Both pieces dispense with academic formality and point to a relaxed new phase in Salome's writing life. Interestingly, this tone can also be detected in her blossoming correspondence with Sigmund Freud, which contrasts starkly with her sombre letters to Rainer Maria Rilke.It is with the spirit of free thinking demonstrated in these two selections, perhaps informed by Salome's experimentation with free association, that the reader is transported to a new theatre of Salome's imagination.

The Devil and His Grandmother

Translated by Kristine Jennings

Act One
The Devil and the Poor Little Soul

Devil [yawns]—Boredom,—so boring, boring, all the time,

So this shall be my pleasure for eternity.

Greedily inspecting the freshly dead,

Yet scarcely are they in hell’s murky pit,

Scarcely their fire see before them blaze:

I know already how it darts and licks,

How frightfully their bodies twist and turn.

Rabble of souls! A miserable lot!

Impossible to be amused with such.—

One more poor little soul emerges there; 10

In girlish shift and with long hair. The dung

Nearly blinding its little shadow face.

[stops]—Yet—does it not stretch its hands to me—?

Poor Little Soul [perceiving glowing embers from the fire-dotted devil’s outline, longingly lifting her hands towards them].

Stars—!

Devil. That’s what I call a healthy confidence,

Believing stars to shine above hell’s pit!

You seem to have arrived here quite alive.

Poor Little Soul [dazed].—Perhaps I’m not all dead—?

Devil [instructive]. Hell’s punishment

Wants to be felt and suffered after all.

Therefore, life does survive itself a little.

But only just enough to suffer this, 20

However, you still have an eye for beauty.

[Conceitedly wagging his tail]

And that you find me pleasing, I believe!

Just look at me! Wherever among things

The fiery vessel of my being stands,

Each one transforms into my inner being:

Itself gives up, eagerly fills me out.

Their looks pass through me uninhibited

And yet beyond my circle never go,—

For: unencumbered simply means: possession.

And then there’s you! To whom a shape remains 30

In order to devolve into mere shadow.

How very wretched you are next to me.

Poor Little Soul [contemplative]. In the water down there I did not feel it.

Did not I lie in death-like sleep, as I

Once slept in fluid being of my mother?

Deeply buried I must have been somewhere

But Earth is truly good; still every drop

That in her lap does fall, she sends away

More clear, more pure, and onwards home to life.

Only as I was torn from primal ground 40

—oh, all too easy he must have deemed me!—

T’was only then that all the damp turned dreary.

Becoming filth and slime and mire, until,

O’erpowered by disgust, I pushed on through,

So as not to choke on pestilent stench.

Devil [inviting]. Now warm yourself, and dry yourself a while,

Beside the fire rising up before you,

And burning as your very own soul’s pasture.

Poor Little Soul [next to whom a flame begins to burn high, throws herself backwards, horrified, without, however, freeing herself from the surrounding dung. Mouth and eyes torn wide in terror, she remains wordless and motionless.]

Devil [sympathetic]. It seems your screams are sticking in your throat?

That is because you see yourself reflected. 50

What should scream out of you, since you cast out

Your fire from within in fearful sin?

For this hellish acoustic has the effect,

It keeps those in accord without a voice.

Poor Little Soul [with both hands pulling herself madly back into the dung].

—Get back—: get down! Just not into hellfire

Lit dreadfully by our iniquities!

Devil [calming]. No need for fear; just go ahead and test it!

For does the fire burn? Not enough to

Ignite a single fuse upon its flame.

It is merely the shadow souls’ fancy. 60

Poor Little Soul [frightenedly blinking into the endlessness].

—The shadow souls—? Am I not here alone—?

Nothing illuminates for all the fire.

Devil. Because nothing in nothing can be brightened,

But look right through me: you will see how blue

It seems to shine around the shadow people.

Poetical this hell: as are the heavens,

As when the gaze is nightly lost therein,

In which new stars are ever wont to dawn,

—Those stars, you kindly did compare to me—

Poor Little Soul [tremblingly interrupting him].

This eerie stillness!—sounds to me like screams. 70

Like voiceless screams struck back into the mouth

To nevermore,—never again, scream out:

“Oh why—oh why are we not dead—dead—dead!”

[Again shrinking back before the flame snaking towards her]

—Such ghostly fire in the midst of water!

Devil. Oh, don’t make such a fuss! You never learned

That refuse glows? Its cold light blinks at us

Even from within glowworm’s excrement.

And did you never see lights on the moors?

The legend whispers: that the murdered lie

There sunk in rest. And science does proclaim: 80

That phosphorous ignites this will o’ the wisp.

The brain’s matter: that much at least is true,

For no one comes to hell without a brain.

I’m strict in this! Mind as admission ticket!

Therefore: the company you keep in here

Is quite select. And without knowing you,

I can assume you have some intellect.

Poor Little Soul [sniffing with disgust and suspicion].

—This is no moor--

Devil. O intuitive angel,

Disdainful as you are! No longer then

I’ll chatter on of stars and eerie lights, 90

It’s just an ass against which you all sit.

Grandmother’s backside is what you have chosen.

And no amount of airing out will help:

Each breeze just makes the smell that much more fragrant.

Whoever does not like it would do well

To settle down into Abraham’s lap.

Poor Little Soul [overpowered by despair].

Oh help! Dear God in heaven, please help me!

Devil [reproachful].

To speak the name of God in vain is sure

To anger the Lord God. And it’s no use.

The only place he does not look, you see, 100

Though omnipresent otherwise, is here.

That is the singularity of hell,

Having achieved the utmost godlessness.

So long without an ass himself, God is

More prude regarding shit than even man.

Only once weakened by strong purgatives,

Nearly de-assed, does he admit the blessed.

Poor Little Soul [while shuddering and ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Lou Andreas-Salomé: Three Letters to a Young Boy
• The Devil and His Grandmother
• Epilogue
• Note on the Translation