John the Baptist by Donatello John the Baptist by Martini
John the Baptist; Father and Lover
(An analysis of eating disorders)
Sep. 30, 2004
Modified on May 23, 2005
Some years ago, I was driving on an Alps' pass, between Italy and France,
at 9000 feet above sea level. The highest point of the pass is also the
border.
Borders are always charged with high emotional contents.
A border is the line between an identity and another. A borderline
is the one who is confused as for his own identity. He has not passed the
line to a secure identity, and he regresses to the wrong side of the "border".
On the line of the border between Italy and France, in the middle of
the mountain, there it was a huge statue of a man dressed with an animal
skin: huge, threatening, apotropaic mean of defense against the barbaric
invasions from the "other" side of the border.
The Pass is named "Il Grande San Bernardo", meaning: "Saint Bernard
the Great".
Oddly enough some days later, on my way back from France to Italy,
I changed the route and I took the way some miles to the South. There the
Pass is called "Il Piccolo San Bernardo", meaning: "St. Bernard the Little".
A Great man, dressed in skins, at defense of the border, and some miles
away, the same man, but this time "Little".
How couldn't I associate the little man, announcing the Great, or
the other way around, both dressed by animal skin, with the first chapter
of the Gospel of John?
The Gospel speaks of a man, dressed by an animal skin, a Goat's skin,
who announces the coming of another man "Greater than himself".
John the Baptist is almost always represented dressed with an animal skin.
The beastly representation is the masterpiece
statue of Donatello, in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. The savagery of the
Beast and his pain are expressed in the sacred figure of the Saint.
Similar, is the statue by Francesco Di Giorgio Martini in Siena, and by Michelozzo da Bartolomeo at the "Museo dell'Opera del Duomo", in Florence.
In Florence, in the South gate of the Baptistry called after the name of the Saint, carved
out of the concrete of bronze as if it were clay, is the story
of John and his execution by decapitation, by Herod Antippa's soldiers.
Andrea Pisano represents the Baptist on his knees, bent with his head
almost touching the ground, and the enormous sword of the executioner befalling,
in a tragic acute angle with the arm of the soldier, on his neck. The Saint
is in a position, with his long hair meddling with the skin dress, in which
he seems a real sacrificial goat.
We have here the representation of the murder of the Goat, the Father,
Dionysus, the primal Western god, as had been represented by the Chorus
of the Goats in Aeschylus' tragedy.
The one "who came first", and the version of the Gospel that
belittled him versus Jesus, was the subject of the all affair, the assassinated
Beast.
The Gospel, on one side tells us the whole story, on the other makes
a lot of smoke to conceal the ocus pocus, the magic of the substitution
of the Father with the Son, in the spirit of the Pauline hallucination.
Jesus came in his name, was baptized by him, meaning, He was born from
him, as every baptism is synonymous of birth.
As in any initiation puberty rite, the son is born again from the Fathers
of the tribe.
Even today, the new born is taken from his mother to be born again,
through Baptism, from the Father, as Jesus was re - born from his
Father, John the Baptist, the Holy Goat. In Christian theology, the compromise between the Father and the Son finds its expression in the condensation between the two, and the new- born is baptized "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost".
In prehistoric times, the primal Father of Greek tribes was Dionysus, the Goat, and with the advent of Christianity he transfigured into John the Baptist.
John the Baptist is killed by decapitation, which, like every cutting, is the unconscious synonym of castration. Freud has explicitly drawn an equivalence between decapitation and castration ("The Taboo of Virginity", 1918 [1917], in The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Ed. and Trans. J. Strachey, Hogarth Press, London 1957, Vol.XI, p.207; Medusa's Head,1940). The story of the Baptist's decapitation is the mnemonic trace of the primal patricide and castration of the Father. The Brotherhood Horde killed the primal father, castrated him, and ate his genital, in order to take possession, through the devouring, of his sexual potency, which was so envied. Following Freud's thread, Theodor Reik articulated the subsequence of psychic events in Myth and Guilt (Braziller, New york 1957).
Nietzsche captured the Dionysian substance of John, when he said:
So stirred, the individual forgets himself completely. It is the same Dionysian power which in medieval Germany drove ever increasing crowds of people singing and dancing from place to place; we recognize in these St. John's and St. Vitus' dancers the Bacchic choruses of the Greeks, who had their precursors in Asia Minor and as far back as Babylon and the orgiastic Sacaea [and of Dionysus as the primal God the Father and creator]...No longer the artist, he has himself become a work of art: the productive power of the whole universe is now manifest in his transport, to the glorious satisfaction of the primordial One. The finest clay, the most precious marble—man—is here kneaded and hewn, and the chisel blows of the Dionysian world artist are accompanied by the cry of the Eleusinian mystagogues: "Do you fall on your knees, multitudes, do you divine your creator?" (The Birth of Tragedy, 1).
A story inside the story
However, the Gospels deliver to us an interesting variation (Matt. 14:1-12; Mk 6:17-29). The Baptist's head, equivalent to his genital, is presented on a platter to a woman, who had demanded the death and castration of the Father. If the head - penis is presented on a dish, the unconscious inference is that it was a meal course and, as such, it was meant as a food. Therefore, a woman, identified by Josephus as Salome, Herodias' daughter (Antiquities 18.5.4), demanded the Baptist's head - penis because she craved eating it.
This aspect of the saga of the primal patricide, which has so far been brushed aside, finds its expression in the story handed over by Christian tradition.
As pointed by Freud, the sense of guilt for the patricide had induced the males to turn the woman "into the active seducer and instigator of the crime" (Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, (1921), Postcript, Chap. XII B). The Book of Genesis underlined the point:
"And the man said, The woman whom thou didst give to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:12).
However, it seems that the females of the primal horde did have a vested interest in instigating for the murder of their aging tyrannical father. After all, he could not satisfy them all, and he was preventing their young brothers from having intercourse with them. The females of the primal horde were necessary sexually frustrated, as it occurs in a Harem where one single male keeps many women only for himself. The mnemonic traces of females instigating males to kill each other abound in literature. Even today, half naked women instigate football players: the cheerleaders, who shout and scream limping and agitating arms and legs.
Religious rites represent the exorcism of the senses of guilt for aggressive drives towards the primal father, which are activated again in our ontogenetic experience versus our own fathers. Rites and faith are not shared only among men. There are many pious women in every religion, hinting at a compelling sense of guilt shared by females too. Sexual frustration suffered by a female is the cause for her hatred of men.
In order to add clarity, and to avoid misunderstanding, it should be underlined that I am not speaking of the mechanic sexual act, but of emotional deprivation suffered by the little Oedipal child in her interaction with the father. This early experience of deprivation, later translates into sexual frustration.
The seducing and instigating role of the woman in John's assassination is explicitly underlined in the Gospels' story: Salome seduces Herod into murdering the Baptist. Herod, in this context is not a paternal image, but a "Brother", as the concept is underlined by the Gospels dealing with two brothers who share the same woman (Herod and Philip).
However, the story enlightens another dark corner, telling us that the motivation for the Baptist's assassination had been his condemnation of Herod's marriage to Herodias. John the Baptist fulfills the role of the inhibiting paternal instance, preventing satisfaction of a sexual desire, perceived as incestuous and murderous.
What is strange is that not Herod, who was the main culprit and the target of the Baptist's rage, nurtured vindictive feelings towards the Baptist, but Herodias, the woman:
" And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him" (Mk. 6:19). According to the Gospels, at Salome's request
" The king was exceedingly sorry; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her" (Mk 6:26). The Gospels tell us of a vindictive feeling of the woman towards the paternal inhibiting instance, on the grounds of an instinct inhibition.
Herodias and Salome, mother and daughter, condense in the same image: the female demanding revenge.
So far the Gospels' narrative. However, we are left with a sensation that there is a story inside the story, which has not been explicitly told. There is a latent psychological content, which has not been allowed to emerge to the surface but which is hinted by the very lack of cohesion of the texts. Once is said that the Baptist was killed because Herod was afraid of him, once is said that Herod was fond of him, and then the two women and their unbridled desire of revenge, which was not shared by the king.
Usually, it happens that unconscious contents, which had been repressed in the text, find their way into the surface through later commentaries, legends, and even playwrights, written hundreds and thousands of years after the canonic text was sealed. We are dealing with unconscious collective contents, which are shared by the members of a culture, and transmitted from generation to generation. Freud called it phylogenic inheritance, but it might also simply be that human beings share the same drives and Ego mechanisms of defense, regardless of time. We still keep and share the same psychic interpretation of the narrative, because human needs basically are always the same.
In 1894, Oscar Wilde wrote a playwright: Salome : A Tragedy in One Act. I am reporting below a segment relevant to our enquire:
SALOME
IOKANAAN
SALOME
THE YOUNG SYRIAN
SALOME IOKANAAN
SALOME
IOKANAAN
THE YOUNG SYRIAN
IOKANAAN
SALOME
IOKANAAN
SALOME
IOKANAAN
SALOME
IOKANAAN
SALOME
IOKANAAN
SALOME
I am Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa.
Back! daughter of Babylon! Come not near the chosen of the Lord. Thy mother hath filled the earth with the wine of her iniquities, and the cry of her sinning hath come up even to the ears of God.
Speak again, Iokanaan. Thy voice is as music to mine ear.
Princess! Princess! Princess!
Speak again! Speak again, Iokanaan, and tell me what I must do.
Daughter of Sodom, come not near me! But cover thy face with a veil, and scatter ashes upon thine head, and get thee to the desert, and seek out the Son of Man.
Who is he, the Son of Man? Is he as beautiful as thou art, Iokanaan?
Get thee behind me! I hear in the palace the beating of the wings of the angel of death.
Princess, I beseech thee to go within.
Angel of the Lord God, what dost thou here with thy sword? Whom seekest thou in this palace? The day of him who shall die in a robe of silver has not yet come.
Iokanaan!
Who speaketh?
I am amorous of thy body, Iokanaan! Thy body is white, like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judæa, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses of the garden of the Queen of Arabia, the garden of spices of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea . . . . There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Suffer me to touch thy body.
Back! daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen but to the voice of the Lord God.
Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall, where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest. It is like a whited sepulchre, full of loathsome things. It is horrible, thy body is horrible. It is of thy hair that I am enamoured, Iokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide them by day. The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black as thy hair. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world that is so black as thy hair . . . . Suffer me to touch thy hair.
Back, daughter of Sodom! Touch me not. Profane not the temple of the Lord God.
Thy hair is horrible. It is covered with mire and dust. It is like a crown of thorns placed on thy head. It is like a knot of serpents coiled round thy neck. I love not thy hair . . . . It is thy mouth that I desire, Iokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut in twain with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate flowers that blossom in the gardens of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts of trumpets that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of those who tread the wine in the wine-press. It is redder than the feet of the doves who inhabit the temples and are fed by the priests. It is redder than the feet of him who cometh from a forest where he hath slain a lion, and seen gilded tigers. Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings! . . . It is like the vermilion that the Moahites find in the mines of Moab, the vermilion that the kings take from them. It is like the bow of the King of the Persians, that is painted with vermilion, and is tipped with coral. There is nothing in the world so red as thy mouth . . . . Suffer me to kiss thy mouth.
Never! daughter of Babylon! Daughter of Sodom! never!
I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth.
Oscar Wilde makes an interpretation of the Gospels' story, which explains in a satisfactory way the latent psychological contents of the saga.
The woman is scorned, her love turns into hate, and she craves for the Father's death. Having been scorned and deluded, she regresses from the genital level of interaction with the Father, and her desire translates into an oral sadistic urge. Now the Baptist's penis is no more desired at the genital - Oedipal level, but at the oral sadistic level. The head - penis is presented to her on a dish to be eaten.
This is the story of little Oedipal girls who feel rejected by their fathers: love turns into hatred and they lose their capability of desiring men at the genital level. The male penis is approached at the oral sadistic level. A regression to the oral sadistic stage implies a loss of identity and of the Reality Principle, which are anchored in the Ego, namely, in a successful interaction with the Father. At this point, the road is open to Borderline Personality Disorder and psychosis. At the oral sadistic stage, babies still don't have an identity, a father, or an Ego. Having regressed from those psychic instances, the only thing remaining is the Mother. Henceforth, the symbiosis between Salome and her mother, and the male becomes the enemy, to be decapitated (castrated) and devoured.
Anorexia and bulimia
Now we can better understand the source of some eating disorders: anorexia and bulimia, and why those are diseases mostly spread among women.
Anorexia, in particular, seems to be a mechanism of defense against the regressive drive of eating and internalizing the paternal penis. In bulimia the fantasized paternal penis is eaten, but then is thrown up, as a defense - mechanism against the instinctual drive of retaining it inside. While in Christian rite of Eucharist, the Christ's body (= penis) is eaten in a loving act of identification, and the rite sterilizes the aggressive component of the devouring, in the disease the element of aggressiveness emerges in a way which is unacceptable to the Ego.
Henceforth, the loved - hated object is thrown up, and the sinner punishes herself starving to death. Eating diseases are often deadly. An absent father translates into a sadistic Super - Ego, demanding the sinner's death.
As Freud has shown, religion is a collective neurosis, which usually helps the single preventing a personal neurosis (or psychosis). The single is able to act out his internal needs, through the device of merging into the group.
The believer, performing religious rites, relieves his personal tensions, and, at the same time, he is gratified by the group's approval. He acts out his internal needs, and "he feels good", preventing the internal conflict which is always the trigger for mental diseases.
It might be that many pious women, who daily perform the Eucharistic act internalizing the Sacred Host, they also avoid an eating disorder.
It seems to me that religious rites are much more effective than psychotherapy.
In the West, with the withdrawal from religion and religious rites in the last fifty years, we have less priests, pastors, and rabbis, but also a proliferation of mental disorders and psychotherapists. At least, the former did it for free.
Addendum (Nov.11, 2004)
In Bulimia and Depression, Kate Lovett has summed up the articles dealing with the link between the two mental disorders.
Freud suggested that depression is the internalization of a sadistic Super - Ego, demanding for the patient's death.
Karl Abraham established that a condition of depression represents a regression to the Oral Sadistic B stage of evolution. According to Melanie Klein, it is the Depressive Position. It is the same thing, because a "position" is the result of struggling forces, eventually settling down into a psychosexual level. The final organization is the character of the person.
In Why Islamic Terror Now, I suggested that a sadistic Super - Ego is not the consequence of the introjection of a present sadistic father, but always the introjection of an abandoning Father - imago. It is the absence, which causes the splitting and the hallucination.
If we put together all the elements, the overall picture becomes clear.
P.S. Lately, we are dealing a lot with
decapitations, which is an obvious acting out of castration.
Islamic terrorists castrate their own women by
clitoridectomy, and they castrate the infidels by
decapitation. They just cannot sustain anyone having a penis.
Do they?
Links:
Caravaggio, Clitoridectomy and the Talion of the Woman
Rembrandt and the Prodigal Son. On Elder and Youngest Sons
Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the Harlot of the Horde
Talking
Socrates and Jesus