Gratitude

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  Cryan, eds., Microbial Endocrinology: The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Health and Disease (New York: Springer, 2014); Mayer, Mind-Gut Connection. 27.Doe-Young Kim and Michael Camilleri, “Serotonin: A Mediator of the Brain-Gut Connection,” American Journal of Gastroenterology 95, no. 10 (2000): 2698. 28.Timothy R. Sampson, Justine W. Debelius, Taren Thron, Stefan Janssen, Gauri G. Shastri, Zehra Esra Ilhan, Collin Challis et al., “Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease,” Cell 167, no. 6 (2016): 1469–80. 29.Sadness can certainly disturb health, but positive states such as gratitude appear to have the opposite effect. Gratitude is induced when we receive meaningful aid or support that is motivated by compassion and is associated with significant positive effects on health and quality of life. Recently, an fMRI study by my colleague Glenn Fox defined the neural correlates of gratitude, revealing that the reported experience of meaningful gratitude is correlated with brain activity in regions conventionally recognized as central to stress regulation, social cognition, and moral reasoning. This finding supports previous research showing that developing gratitude as a mental habit can improve health, which in turn underscores the idea of continuity between the mind and the body. See Glenn R. Fox, Jonas Kaplan, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio Damasio, “Neural Correlates of Gratitude,” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015); Alex M. Wood, Stephen Joseph, and John Maltby, “Gratitude Uniquely Predicts Satisfaction with Life: Incremental Validity Above the Domains and Facets of the Five Factor Model,” Personality and Individual Differences 45, no. 1 (2008): 49–54; Max Henning, Glenn R. Fox, Jonas Kaplan, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio Damasio, “The Positive Effects of Gratitude Are Mediated by Physiological Mechanisms,” Frontiers in Psychology (2017). 30.Sarah J. Barber, Philipp C. Opitz, Bruna Martins, Michiko Sakaki, and Mara Mather, “Thinking About a Limited Future Enhances the Positivity of Younger and Older Adults’ Recall: Support for Socioemotional Selectivity Theory,” Memory and Cognition 44, no. 6 (2016): 869–82; Mara Mather, “The Affective Neuroscience of Aging,” Annual Review of Psychology 67 (2016): 213–38. 31.Daniel Kahneman, “Experienced Utility and Objective Happiness: A Moment-Based Approach,” in Choices, Values, and Frames, eds. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000); Daniel Kahneman, “Evaluation by Moments: Past and Future,” in ibid.; Bruna Martins, Gal Sheppes, James J. Gross, and Mara Mather, “Age Differences in Emotion Regulation Choice: Older Adults Use Distraction Less Than Younger Adults in High- Intensity Positive Contexts,” Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences (2016): gbw028.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Richard Leiby has been writing about Scientology since the early 1980s, first for the Clearwater Sun and subsequently for the Washington Post. Richard Behar covered the subject in Forbes and most notably in his 1991 exposé for Time, “The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power.” Janet Reitman had unparalleled access to the church for her 2006 Rolling Stone article, “Inside Scientology,” which became a book of the same title in 2011. Chris Owen, an independent researcher, has written extensively about the church online and has revealed much of the information available about Hubbard’s wartime experiences. Tom Smith has conducted a number of knowledgeable interviews on his radio show, The Edge, broadcast by Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin of the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) have written groundbreaking stories, especially about the abuse inside the church hierarchy. Tony Ortega has been writing about Scientology since 1995, for the Phoenix New Times, and he continued as a valuable resource in the pages and the blog of the Village Voice until his recent resignation. Several of these journalists have been harassed, investigated, sued, or threatened in various ways. I am the beneficiary of their skill and persistence. In the last decade, defectors from the Sea Org have provided a rich trove of personal accounts. These have taken the form of memoirs and blog postings, and they have accumulated into an immense indictment of the inner workings of the church. Among the memoirs I should single out are Marc Headley’s Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (2009); Nancy Many’s My Billion Year Contract (2009); Amy Scobee’s Abuse at the Top (2010); and Jefferson Hawkins’s Counterfeit Dreams (2010). Kate Bornstein’s A Queer and Pleasant Danger (2012) provides an especially interesting account of the Apollo days. Websites devoted to challenging the church have proliferated, beginning with alt.religion.scientology [inactive] in 1991. Some of the most active are Andreas Heldal-Lund’s Operation Clambake at xenu.net; Steve Hall’s scientology-cult.com; Arnaldo Lerma’s lermanet.com; and the Ex Scientology Message Board, which is an online community for former members of the church, founded by “Emma” and now run by “Mick Wenlock and Ethercat.” Exscientologykids.org, started by Jenna Miscavige Hill, David Miscavige’s niece, among others, played an important role in Paul Haggis’s decision to leave the church. Although many of the postings on these websites are anonymous, they provide rich texture to a subculture that few outsiders can appreciate. One blog has become a rallying point for “independent” Scientologists who have renounced the official church: Marty Rathbun’s Moving on Up a Little Higher, which began in 2009.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Mohammed made a scanty living as an attendant on caravans and by watching sheep and goats. The latter is rather a disreputable occupation among the Arabs, and left to unmarried women and slaves; but he afterwards gloried in it by appealing to the example of Moses and David, and said that God never calls a prophet who has not been a shepherd before. According to tradition—for, owing to the strict prohibition of images, we have no likeness of the prophet—he was of medium size, rather slender, but broad-shouldered and of strong muscles, had black eyes and hair, an oval-shaped face, white teeth, a long nose, a patriarchal beard, and a commanding look. His step was quick and firm. He wore white cotton stuff, but on festive occasions fine linen striped or dyed in red. He did everything for himself; to the last he mended his own clothes, and cobbled his sandals, and aided his wives in sewing and cooking. He laughed and smiled often. He had a most fertile imagination and a genius for poetry and religion, but no learning. He was an "illiterate prophet," in this respect resembling some of the prophets of Israel and the fishermen of Galilee. It is a disputed question among Moslem and Christian scholars whether he could even read and write.154 Probably he could not. He dictated the Koran from inspiration to his disciples and clerks. What knowledge he possessed, he picked up on the way from intercourse with men, from hearing books read, and especially from his travels. In his twenty-fifth year he married a rich widow, Chadijah (or Chadîdsha), who was fifteen years older than himself, and who had previously hired him to carry on the mercantile business of her former husband. Her father was opposed to the match; but she made and kept him drunk until the ceremony was completed. He took charge of her caravans with great success, and made several journeys. The marriage was happy and fruitful of six children, two sons and four daughters; but all died except little Fâtima, who became the mother of innumerable legitimate and illegitimate descendants of the prophet. He also adopted Alî, whose close connection with him became so important in the history of Islâm. He was faithful to Chadijah, and held her in grateful remembrance after her death.155 He used to say, "Chadijah believed in me when nobody else did." He married afterwards a number of wives, who caused him much trouble and scandal. His favorite wife, Ayesha, was more jealous of the dead Chadijah than any of her twelve or more living rivals, for he constantly held up the toothless old woman as the model of a wife.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  It was Hal Bennett, a talented writer, editor, and book consultant, who helped me resolve my blockage with his gentle wisdom. He also showed me how to shape complex material into a cohesive, accessible whole. When I ran into snags, he always knew how to nudge me back on track. Then Hal introduced me to Fred Hill, who became my agent. He was another find, a fact I realized when I overheard him describing the book far more succinctly than I could have done myself. Fred thought he knew exactly who would want to publish the book: HarperCollins’s editor-in-chief, Susan Moldow. Indeed she did and proceeded to perform editorial magic with uncommon understanding and respect for an author’s sensitivities. She also selected Nancy Nicholas, a gifted line editor from whom I learned so much about unnecessary words. As we were nearing the final round of revisions, Susan left HarperCollins and entrusted the book to Gladys Carr and Cynthia Barrett, both of whom made an eleventh-hour transition that could easily have been a nightmare into an opportunity. Their suggested refinements were right on the mark. Throughout it all I was blessed with cherished friends and family who, miraculously, maintained enthusiasm for my work in spite of the fact that I was often unavailable or preoccupied. My dearest friend, Scott Madover, both gave and endured the most. I doubt I can ever repay him adequately. Jack Morin, Ph.D. San Francisco ABOUT THE AUTHORJack Morin, Ph.D., has been studying the mysteries of Eros for nearly two dacades. He is a diplomate of the American Board of therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors COPYRIGHTA hardcover edition of this book was published in 1995 by HarperCollins Publishers. THE EROTIC MIND. Copyright © 1995 by Jack Morin, Ph.D. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks. First HarperPerennial edition published 1996. The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Morin, Jack. The erotic mind: unlocking the inner sources of sexual passion and fulfillment / Jack Morin—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-06-016975-3 1. Sexual excitement. 2. Sex (Psychology). I. Title. HQ21.M7945 1995 155.3’1—dc20 95-4944 ISBN-06-098428-7(pbk.) 04 05 06 07 08 [image file=image_rsrc3FK.jpg] /RRD 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062267474 ABOUT THE PUBLISHERAustralia HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia http://www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada http://www.harpercollins.ca

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  Julius Gaius, Praetor, Consul of the Romans, to the magistrates, council and people of Parium [the nearby island of Paros?], greeting. The Jews in Delos and some of the neighboring Jews, some of your envoys also being present, have appealed to me and declared that you are preventing them by statute from observing their national customs and sacred rites. Now it displeases me that such statutes should be made against our friends and allies and they should be forbidden to live in accordance with their customs and to contribute money to common meals and sacred rites, for this they are not forbidden to do even in Rome. For example, Gaius Caesar, our consular praetor, by edict forbade religious societies to assemble in the city, but these people alone he did not forbid to do so or to collect contributions of money or to hold common meals. Similarly do I forbid other religious societies but permit these people alone to assemble and feast in accordance with their native customs and ordinances. And if you have made any statutes against our friends and allies, you will do well to revoke them because of their worthy deeds on our behalf and their goodwill toward us. (14.213–6) Two general and two specific observations. Generally, the infringements on the Jews led them to appeal, and successfully at that, to the very highest level of power. And this letter illustrates Rome’s tolerant attitude toward foreign religions and their ancestral traditions. Specifically, the letter indicates that as part of their practices, Jews ate together, probably on those very benches, like the ones in Sarapeion A, excavated in their own synagogue. Further, the reference to “collecting contributions…for sacred rites,” which brings to mind that Sarapeion’s collection box and inscriptions commemorating benefaction, might well refer to the Jewish Temple tax, paid by Jews on an annual basis for maintenance of the Temple in Jerusalem. Not unexpectedly, that offering to their homeland Temple led some pagans to suspect Jewish loyalties to their local civic-religious duties.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  PREFACE This volume completes the history of the Church in the Middle Ages. Dr. Philip Schaff on one occasion spoke of the Middle Ages as a terra incognita in the United States,—a territory not adequately explored. These words would no longer be applicable, whether we have in mind the instruction given in our universities or theological seminaries. In Germany, during the last twenty years, the study of the period has been greatly developed, and no period at the present time, except the Apostolic age, attracts more scholarly and earnest attention and research. The author has had no apologetic concern to contradict the old notion, perhaps still somewhat current in our Protestant circles, that the Middle Ages were a period of superstition and worthy of study as a curiosity rather than as a time directed and overruled by an all-seeing Providence. He has attempted to depict it as it was and to allow the picture of high religious purpose to reveal itself side by side with the picture of hierarchical assumption and scholastic misinterpretation. Without the mediaeval age, the Reformation would not have been possible. Nor is this statement to be understood in the sense in which we speak of reaching a land of sunshine and plenty after having traversed a desert. We do well to give to St. Bernard and Francis d’Assisi, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine of Siena, Gerson, Tauler and Nicolas of Cusa a high place in our list of religious personalities, and to pray for men to speak to our generation as well as they spoke to the generations in which they lived. Moreover, the author has been actuated by no purpose to disparage Christians who, in the alleged errors of Protestantism, find an insuperable barrier to Christian fellowship. Where he has passed condemnatory judgments on personalities, as on the popes of the last years of the 15th and the earlier years of the 16th century, it is not because they occupied the papal throne, but because they were personalities who in any walk of life would call for the severest reprobation. The unity of the Christian faith and the promotion of fellowship between Christians of all names and all ages are considerations which should make us careful with pen or spoken word lest we condemn, without properly taking into consideration that interior devotion to Christ and His kingdom - which seems to be quite compatible with divergencies in doctrinal statement or ceremonial habit. On the pages of the volume, the author has expressed his indebtedness to the works of the eminent mediaeval historians and investigators of the day, Gregorovius, Pastor, Mandell Creighton, Lea, Ehrle, Denifle, Finke, Schwab, Haller, Carl Mirbt, R. Mueller Kirsch, Loserth, Janssen, Valois, Burckhardt- Geiger, Seebohm and others, Protestant and Roman Catholic, and some no more among the living. It is a pleasure to be able again to express his indebtedness to the Rev. David E. Culley, his colleague in the Western Theological Seminary, whose studies in mediaeval history and accurate scholarship have been given to the volume in the reading of the manuscript, before it went to the printer, and of the printed pages before they received their final form. Above all, the author feels it to be a great privilege that he has been able to realize the hope which Dr. Philip Schaff expressed in the last years of his life, that his History of the Christian Church which, in four volumes, had traversed the first ten centuries and, in the sixth and seventh, set forth the progress of the German and Swiss Reformations, might be carried through the fruitful period from 1050–1517. David S. Schaff. The Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburg. [1]

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  Cohen, “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment,” Science 293, no. 5537 (2001): 2105–8; Mark Johnson, Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science (University of Chicago Press, 2014); L. Young, Antoine Bechara, Daniel Tranel, Hanna Damasio, M. Hauser, and Antonio Damasio, “Damage to Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Impairs Judgment of Harmful Intent,” Neuron 65, no. 6 (2010): 845–51. 10. Cyprian Broodbank, The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015); Malcolm Wiener, “The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC,” Radiocarbon 56, no. 4 (2014): S1–S16; Malcolm Wiener, “Causes of Complex Systems Collapse at the End of the Bronze Age,” in “Sea Peoples” Up-to-Date, 43–74, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2014). 11. Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970). As noted earlier the ideas of social scientists such as Bourdieu, Touraine, and Foucault also lend themselves to translation in biological terms. 12. Assal Habibi and Antonio Damasio, “Music, Feelings, and the Human Brain,” Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 24, no. 1 (2014): 92; Matthew Sachs, Antonio Damasio, and Assal Habibi, “The Pleasures of Sad Music: A Systematic Review,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, no. 404 (2015): 1–12, doi:10.3389/​fnhum.2015.00404. 13. From Antonio Damasio, “Suoni, significati affettivi e esperienze musicali,” Musica Domani , 5–8, no. 176 (2017). 14. Sebastian Kirschner and Michael Tomasello, “Joint Music Making Promotes Prosocial Behavior in 4-Year-Old Children,” Evolution and Human Behavior 31, no. 5 (2010): 354–64. 15. Panksepp, “Cross-Species Affective Neuroscience Decoding of the Primal Affective Experiences of Humans and Related Animals”; Henning et al., “A Role for mu-Opioids in Mediating the Positive Effects of Gratitude.” 16. The contradictions posed by cutting, anorexia, and morbid obesity are simpler to address. It is a fact that people can indulge in the cutting of their skin, a practice that qualifies as cultural because it can spread by imitation and has seemingly random distribution. It is possible that the best explanation for these phenomena concerns the pathological circumstances of the affected individuals made worse by an equally pathological cultural context. The same applies to online communities of so-called gainers, individuals who gather and encourage each other to consume large amounts of food with the purpose of gaining weight, watch the results in each other, and engage in sex. To some extent both examples qualify for an old-fashioned diagnosis: masochism. The practice of masochism does produce pleasure, a situation that corresponds to an upregulation of homeostasis. It so happens that the future, and ultimate costs of upregulation outweigh the gains, a physiological scenario not far from that of substance addictions. Pleasures give way to dependences and suffering. It is unlikely that such bizarre practices will be incorporated in biological evolution or be selected culturally beyond small groups. That the practices and groups even exist today testifies to the risks of fringe Internet communities. 17.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  But I try to set out in the concluding chapter what flows from this story of the emerging modern identity. Briefly, it is that this identity is much richer in moral sources than its condemners Preface • xi allow, but that this richness is rendered invisible by the impoverished p hilosophical language of its most zealous defenders. Modernity urgently n eeds to be saved from its most unconditional supporters-a predicament perhaps not without precedent in the history of culture. Understanding m odernity arig ht is an exercise in retrieval. I try to explain in my c onclusion why I think this exercise is important, even pressin g. This book has been a long time in preparation, and during this time I have benefited greatly from discussions with colleagues at All Souls College, in Oxford generally, and at McGill, Berkeley, Frankfurt, and Jerusalem, includ ing James Tully, Hubert Dreyfus, Alexander Nehamas, Jane Ru bin, Jurgen H abermas, Axel Honneth, Micha Brumlik, Martin Low-Beer, Hauke Brunk horst, Simone Chambers, Paul Rosenberg, David Hartman, and Guy Stroumsa. The invitation of Lawrence Freeman and the Benedictine Priory of Montreal to give the John Main Memorial Lectures provided an invaluable occasion to work out the picture of modernity that I am trying to assemble, a nd the discussions that followed were very helpful. But I could never have completed the project without the year I spent at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. I am very grateful to ·Clifford Gee rt z, Albe rt Hirschman, and Michael Walzer both for this y ear of research and for the valuable discussions we had during that time in the unequalled atmosphere of the Institute. I also want to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provided the funds to make that year possible. I owe a debt of gratitude as well to the Canada Council for granting me an Isaak Killam Fellowship, which made it possible for me to take another year's leave. This proved to be crucial. My thanks go also to McGill University for a sabbatical, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities R esearch Council of Canada for a Sabbatical Leave Fellowship, which allowed me to complete the manuscrip t. I also want to express my thanks to McGill Universi ty for a research grant to help in reformatting the manuscript and in preparing the index. I am very grateful to Mette Hjort for her comments on the manuscript. I woul d like to thank Alba and Miriam for valuable suggestions, Karen and Bisia for putting me into contact with unfamiliar dimensions of existence, and Beata for her refreshing pragmatism. My th_anks go also to Gretta Taylor and M elissa Steele for their help in preparing the final version of the manuscript for publication, and to Wanda Taylor for proofreading and indexing. I a m grateful to Macmillan Publishing Compan y and to A. P. Watt Ltd., on b ehal f of Michael B.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  So we should ask what could move pe o ple in the religious outlook we fi n d expressed in Hutcheson or, mo r e radically perhaps , in Tindal. What wo u l d lead one to praise and be thankful to G od, if one saw hi s work t h e way th e y did? The answer is obviously his goo dness, his benevolence. And thi s w a s expressed in his having made a world in whi ch t h e purp oses of the di ffe re n t beings inhabiting it, and particularly of the rational being s, so perfe c tly .266 The Providential Order • 2 6 7 i nte rlock. The world was designed so that each in seeking his or her good will also serve the good of others. The fullest human hap piness, on Hutcheson's v ie w, is attaine d when we gi ve full reign to o ur moral sentiments and feelings o f benevolence. But it is just then that we do most to c ontribute to the general h appiness. God's goodness thus consists in his bringing about our good. Hi s be nefi cence is explained partly in terms of our happin ess. But what is striking about these Deist views is that the converse relation, so central to the religiou s tradition, seems to be lacking. It is after all a central tenet of the J udaeo Christian religious tradition that G od loves and seeks the good of his creatures. But this good in turn has always been defined as consisting in some relation to God: in our loving him, serving him, being i n his presence, contemplating him in the beatific vision, or somethin g of this kind . What is striking about Deist views is that the human good in terms of w hich God's benev o lence is defined is so self-contained . It is not that the reference to God is wholly absent, but it seems to be subordinate to a c o nception of happiness which is defined purely in creaturely terms. Happi ness is the attaining o f the things we b y nature desire, or pleasure and the absence of pain . The rewards of the next life seem to be considered just as more intense and longer-lasting versions of the pleasures and pains of this.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Heaven, the High God, had humanlike characteristics, but never ac-quired a distinct personality or gender. He did not thunder commands from mountaintops, but ruled through his representatives. Heaven was experienced in the king, the son of Heaven, and the princes, each of whom was the son of Heaven in his own domain. Earth had no human counterpart, but every city had two Earth altars: one south of the palace near the ancestral temple, the other in the southern suburbs, beside the harvest altar. Location was everything in Chinese religion. The position of the Earth altar showed that the cultivation of the soil and the harvesting of crops put people directly into contact with the ancestors, who had tilled the ground before them, and thus established the Way of Heaven. Before and after the harvest, hymns of gratitude were sung around the Earth altar; the Way (dao) of Heaven was “delectable,” linking past and present in sacred continuity: It is the glory of the region . . . It is the comfort of the old! It is not just here that things are as they are here! It is not just today that things are as they are today! Among our most ancient forefathers it was so! 40 When people worked the land, they were not simply interested in their own individual achievements, “as they are today.” Their efforts had united them to the ancestors, the archetypal human beings, and thus with the Way things ought to be. Without the work of human beings, Heaven could not act. 41 Ordinary earthly actions were therefore sacramental, sacred activities, which enabled people to share in a divine process. When they had cleared the forests, pacified the countryside, and built roads, the Zhou kings had completed the creation that Heaven had begun. In the Classic of Odes, the poet used the same word to describe the divine work of Heaven and the earthly activity of human beings. Kings Tai and Wen had become Heaven’s partners, and now their living descendants must continue this holy task: Heaven made [zuo] the high mountain. King Tai enlarged it; He cleared [zuo] it. King Wen made it tranquil, He marched [about] And Qi had level roads. May their sons and grandsons preserve it! 42 Instead of seeing a gulf between Heaven and Earth, the Chinese saw only a continuum. 43 The most powerful ancestors were now with Tian Shang Di, the supreme ancestor, but they had once lived on earth. Heaven could communicate with earth through oracles, and human beings, the inhabitants of earth, could share a meal with the ancestors and gods in the bin ritual.

• From Between Us

  Hazel Markus, my mentor and cultural psychologist at Stanford University, sandwiched her critical feedback on every single chapter with love. She encouraged me to reach out to my American audience, and to connect my research with real societal questions and problems. Gert Storms, linguistic psychologist at my own university, read every chapter, offering reassurance in his understated European way, and pointing out my inconsistencies and errors (as Europeans do when they feel close enough to care). Finally, Owen Flanagan, philosopher of mind at Duke University, generously shared his astute mind, his incredible command of the literature, and his wisdom about the process of writing books. Our continued dialogue and friendship sustained me during the writing of this book and gave me confidence. I thank my parents for teaching me the vital importance of accommodating a diversity of perspectives. Their personal histories showed me that intolerance can kill, and they carried the value of tolerance close at heart, practicing what they preached. I thank them for encouraging me to be an independent, critical thinker. I would have liked to show my dad, Albert Gomes de Mesquita, “that book of yours”; he did not live to see it. I thank my mom, Lien de Jong, for her sustained support, her unconditional love, her interest and involvement in the book, and for showing vicarious pride. I thank my family and close friends for having been not only supportive and curious, but also patient during the writing of this book. I specifically thank Mat Aguilar, Ton Broeders, Sytse Carlé, Waldo Carlé, Ulli D’Oliveira, Debbie Goldstein, Daniël Gomes de Mesquita, Diane Griffioen, Mieke Hulens, Roos Kroon, Renée Lemieux, Arjeh Mesquita, Ada Odijk, Jacqueline Peeters, Reshmaa Selvakumar, Paul Van Hal, Ewald Verfaillie, Michael Zajonc, Daisy Zajonc, Donna Zajonc, Jonathan Zajonc, Krysia Zajonc, Lucy Zajonc, Peter Zajonc, and Joe Zajonc. All my love and gratitude goes to Benny Carlé, who has been on my side during the ups and downs of the writing process. He is not the fictive husband I describe in Chapter 4, who was late for dinner without notifying me. Instead, Benny spiced up my days with delicious dinners and conversations about the world beyond the book. I dedicate this book to my children, Oliver and Zoë Zajonc. I love you so much. The future is yours, and I hope this book can help, if even just a little, to help build a better future—one that accommodates diversity. NOTES PREFACE vii my parents survived the Holocaust in hiding: My mom’s biography is The Cut Out Girl (Bart van Es, The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found [New York: Random House, 2018]). My dad was a classmate of Anne Frank’s and is mentioned in her diary; some of his memories have been recorded in We All Wore Stars (Theo Coster, We All Wore Stars, trans.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  women: and casual sex, 53; cultural constraints on, 164; and fantasy, 137, 149, 160; high value of relationship among, 62; increased assertiveness of, 316; love/lust fusion, 193; and orgasm, 234, 292; resonance m, 334–335; and sexual assault, 314–316; and sexual security, 101 yearning, unfulfilled, 183 Zilbergeld, Bernie, 2, 367n4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTSOnce in a while I hear of a book moving from conception to fruition with enviable rapidity and ease. The Erotic Mind has never been such a project. More than a dozen years have elapsed between the first realization that I had to write this book and its eventual completion. I only hope that the many phases of my work have ultimately added to its depth and usefulness. This much I know: without the encouragement, steadfast support, penetrating insights, and constructive criticisms of a remarkable group of people, I would never have persisted. So it’s especially gratifying to be able to thank them now. I’ll forever be grateful to my clients who courageously examined their eroticism with me in psychotherapy. I also feel profound appreciation for the hundreds of people I don’t even know who responded to my anonymous survey about peak erotic experiences. The willingness of clients and respondents alike to reveal what most people keep hidden made it possible for me to develop a new way of understanding erotic life. As my ideas crystallized I received sustenance from colleagues and friends who seemed to grasp immediately the implications of my viewpoint and pushed me to take it further—especially Toni Ayres, Joani Blank, and Michael Graves, all of whom also gave invaluable assistance in the development of the Sexual Excitement Survey. In addition, Michael focused his impressive analytical skills on at least two versions of the entire book and contributed greatly to its final structure. I also benefited from frequent talks with Marty Klein about the intricacies of both writing and sexuality. Janice Epp, LouAnne Cole, and Gary Zinik probably don’t realize how much I’ve valued their ongoing resonance with my work. Gary also helped me work out some tricky aspects of thematic analysis. And Lonnie Barbach read much of the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. I found a consistently challenging forum for presenting my ideas at meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, an international association of sexologists. Questions, critiques, and long conversations with dozens of colleagues influenced my work more than they can possibly know. Their interest buoyed me, especially during several years of struggle with an unrelenting case of writer’s block. Had I been unable to articulate my thoughts and findings in these lively discussions, I might have given up.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  Moreover , God's having set up this system of recomp e nse in the next world seems to be d esigned at least partly to underpin the interlocking system in this one. Humans are indeed moved to the height of goodness, on Hutcheson's view , o nly by a sense of love and grat i tude to God: Thus as the calm and most exte nsive determination of the soul toward s the universal happiness can have no other center o f rest and joy than the original independent omnipoten t Goodness; so without the knowledge of it, and the most ardent love and resignation to it, the soul cannot attain to it s own most stable and highest perfection and excellence. 1 S o the soul needs God t o be inte grally g o od. This is an entirely traditional v ie w. But what our goodness seems to consist in is a "deter mination ... t o ward s the universal happiness"; and what God's goodness consists in s ee ms t o be his fostering this s ame end. A purely self-contained, non-theocentric n ot ion o f the g ood, happiness, play s a central role in this outlook; an d the lin eament s of our right relationship to God-gratitude , lo ve, resignation a r e al J d efined in terms of it. A similar point should be made about the crucial virtue on Hutcheson's v ie w, namely benevol ence. This takes the place and c o ntinues the function of t h e earlier theol ogical virtue of charity. The notion that the godly pers o n is o ne who gives of himself or herself is continued in thi s new ethic, in which all 2.6 8 • THE AFFIRMAT I ON OF ORD IN ARY LI FE the traditio nal virtues are redefin ed, as we s aw above , and r elat ed to benevolenc e. 2 But the content of this disposition is defined in terms of hu m an happiness. The crucial thing here is thus the focus on the human. It i s hu m a n happin ess that really matters in the universe. It is this which i s the objec t o f God's prodigious efforts (or at least part-object: he is concerned with his other creatures a well}. This is s h eer presumptuo u sness from the st andpoi n t of one important strand of Christian thought-and there were lots of peop le in this century who were more than willing to point this out. Human s a r e there for Go d, not vice versa. 3 In this respect, Deism seems a total br eak w it h the religious tradition.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Aryan life was becoming more settled. The economy was beginning to depend more upon agricultural produce than raiding, and even though we have no documentary evidence, it seems that there was a growing consensus that the destructive cycle of raid and counterraid had to stop. The traditional rites not only legitimized this pattern but gave it sacred significance. The rituals themselves often degenerated into real fighting, and one aggressive sacrifice led inexorably to another.59 The priestly experts decided to make a systematic appraisal of the sacrificial liturgy, taking out any practice that was likely to lead to violence. Not only were they able to persuade the kshatriya warriors to accept these expurgated rites, but their reform led to a spiritual awakening.60 At first sight, it seems that no texts could be further removed from the spirit of the Axial Age than the Brahmanas, which seem obsessed with liturgical minutiae. How could these stultifying discussions of the type of ladle that should be used for a particular oblation or how many steps a priest should take when he carried the firepot to the altar have inspired a religious revolution? Yet the Brahmanas were making a courageous attempt to find a new source of meaning and value in a changing world.61 The ritualists wanted a liturgy that would not inflict harm or injury on any of its participants. The climax of the old sacrifices had been the dramatic decapitation of the animal victim, which reenacted Indra’s slaying of Vritra. But Indra was no longer the towering figure that he had been when the Aryans first arrived in India. His importance had been steadily declining. Now, in the reformed ritual, the victim was suffocated as painlessly as possible in a shed outside the sacrificial arena. “You do not die, nor do you come to harm,” the ritualists assured the beast; “to the gods you go, along good paths.”62 In these texts, the killing of the animal was frequently described as “cruel,” an evil that had to be expiated. The victim should sometimes be spared, and given as a gift to the officiating priest. Already, at this very early date, the ritualists were moving toward the ideal of ahimsa (“harmlessness”) that would become the indispensable virtue of the Indian Axial Age.63

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  To find that our own faith is so deeply in accord with others is an affirming experience. Without departing from our own tradition, therefore, we can learn from others how to enhance our particular pursuit of the empathic life. We cannot appreciate the achievements of the Axial Age unless we are familiar with what went before, so we need to understand the pre-Axial religion of early antiquity. This had certain common features that would all be important to the Axial Age. Most societies, for example, had an early belief in a High God, who was often called the Sky God, since he was associated with the heavens. 2 Because he was rather inaccessible, he tended to fade from the religious consciousness. Some said that he “disappeared,” others that he had been violently displaced by a younger generation of more dynamic deities. People usually experienced the sacred as an immanent presence in the world around them and within themselves. Some believed that gods, men, women, animals, plants, insects, and rocks all shared the same divine life. All were subject to an overarching cosmic order that kept everything in being. Even the gods had to obey this order, and they cooperated with human beings in the preservation of the divine energies of the cosmos. If these were not renewed, the world could lapse into a primal void. Animal sacrifice was a universal religious practice in the ancient world. This was a way of recycling the depleted forces that kept the world in being. There was a strong conviction that life and death, creativity and destruction were inextricably entwined. People realized that they survived only because other creatures laid down their lives for their sake, so the animal victim was honored for its self- sacrifice. 3 Because there could be no life without such death, some imagined that the world had come into being as a result of a sacrifice at the beginning of time. Others told stories of a creator god slaying a dragon—a common symbol of the formless and undifferentiated—to bring order out of chaos. When they reenacted these mythical events in their ceremonial liturgy, worshipers felt that they had been projected into sacred time. They would often begin a new project by performing a ritual that re-presented the original cosmogony, to give their fragile mortal activity an infusion of divine strength. Nothing could endure if it were not “animated,” or endowed with a “soul,” in this way. 4 Ancient religion depended upon what has been called the perennial philosophy, because it was present, in some form, in most premodern cultures. Every single person, object, or experience on earth was a replica—a pale shadow—of a reality in the divine world. 5 The sacred world was, therefore, the prototype of human existence, and because it was richer, stronger, and more enduring than anything on earth, men and women wanted desperately to participate in it.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  It is based on "the palpable truth, that the m ass of ma nkind h a s not been bor n with saddles on their backs, no r a favourf"d few b ooted a nd s pu rred, ready to ride them legitimat e ly, by the grace of God" . 4 396 • SUBTLER LANGUAGES However unsuccessful mankind has been in attaining "the blessings and security of self-government", no other aspiration ultimately incompatible with this is now avowabl e. All these ideas seem to have come into their full force in the twentieth century. They were clearly at work in the Anglo-Saxon societies, however� from the beginning of the last century, Consider the great crusade in Englan <I for the suppression of the slave trade, and later for the abo li tion of slavery itself. The first objective was achieved in I 807, and the second in 1 8 3 3. One has to r ec ognize that the timing of these measures also depended on economi� developments, that Britain benefited from its self-appointed position as guardian of international morality in giving a free hand to its navy to intervene in Africa and Latin America. But takin g all this into account, we still should remark the arrival of a quiet ne w phenomenon which has become almost banal in our contemporary world: the mobilizing of a large- scale citizens' movement around a moral issue, with the intent of effecting political ch ange. People were well aware at the time that something ne w w as happening. In a statement of 182.3, the recently founded Liverpool Society for the Abolition of Slavery attributed its unprecedented succ ess in achieving moral "improvement" to "th e practice of combining society itself in intellec tu al masses, for the purpose of attaining some certain, defined, and acknowl edged good, which is g enerally allowed to be essential to the well-being of the whole". 5 This is a formula which has been repeated continually, through t he U.S. abolitionist crusade, countle ss te mperance movements, to the great American civil rights movement of the 196o's and beyond. These movements reflect, and have helped to propagate and intensify, the imperatives of universal benevolence and iustice and th e sense that a recognition of these is integral to our civilization. This recognition is of great importance, because it appears that the new moral consciousness has been inseparable from a certain sense of our place in history.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In all these cities, life was entirely dominated by religion.39 The cult centered on the person of the king, the son of Heaven, who had inherited the mandate and had been born with a magical power, which he transmitted to the feudal lords of the principalities. Like most other religious systems at this time, that of the Chinese was preoccupied with preserving the natural order of the universe by rituals (li), which would ensure that human society conformed to the Way (dao) of Heaven. The ceremonial actions performed by the king, it was thought, could control the forces of nature and ensure that the seasons followed one another in due succession, rain was sent at the correct time, and the celestial bodies stayed on their prescribed courses. The king was, therefore, a divine figure, because he was the counterpart of the High God on earth. But there was no ontological separation between Heaven and Earth. The Chinese would never be interested in a god who transcended the natural order. Elijah’s experience of a god who was entirely separate from the world would have puzzled them. Heaven and Earth were complementary: divine and equal partners. Heaven, the High God, had humanlike characteristics, but never ac-quired a distinct personality or gender. He did not thunder commands from mountaintops, but ruled through his representatives. Heaven was experienced in the king, the son of Heaven, and the princes, each of whom was the son of Heaven in his own domain. Earth had no human counterpart, but every city had two Earth altars: one south of the palace near the ancestral temple, the other in the southern suburbs, beside the harvest altar. Location was everything in Chinese religion. The position of the Earth altar showed that the cultivation of the soil and the harvesting of crops put people directly into contact with the ancestors, who had tilled the ground before them, and thus established the Way of Heaven. Before and after the harvest, hymns of gratitude were sung around the Earth altar; the Way (dao) of Heaven was “delectable,” linking past and present in sacred continuity: It is the glory of the region . . . It is the comfort of the old! It is not just here that things are as they are here! It is not just today that things are as they are today! Among our most ancient forefathers it was so!40 When people worked the land, they were not simply interested in their own individual achievements, “as they are today.” Their efforts had united them to the ancestors, the archetypal human beings, and thus with the Way things ought to be.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  There is a revealing cri de coeur of Bentha m : "Is there one of th ese my pages in which the love of humankind has for a moment bee n forgotten? Sho w it me, and this h and shall be the first to tear it out". 24 A close connection between ben e volence and scientific reason isn't particularly evident to us in the latter half of the twentieth century. But w e h av e to remember how much easier it was t o believe in i t in the eighteenth. We have to recover the emotional force of Voltaire' s repeated injunction, " Ec rasez l'infame"; to recall the cruelties inflicted by persecutors in the name of religion; and not to forget tho s e inflicted in the draconian punishment s imposed by law in the n ame of or der. In g ivi ng central s ignificance to sensual pleasure and pa in, and in challenging all the different conceptions of order, the utilitaria n s made it possible for the first time to put the relief of suffering, human but also a nimal, at the centre of the social agenda. This has had truly r ev ol utio nary effects in modern society, tr a n s f ormin g not onl y our legal s y st em but the whole range of our practices and concerns. 25 Ano t her ins ig h t, too , seemed to su ppo rt th e conn ect ion be tw e en bene v ol e nc e and sci entific reason. Dis engaged ra ti ona lity seems to sepa rate us from o ur o wn n a rro w, eg oi stic standpo int and ma ke us capable of gra sping the w h ole pi ctu r e. It is wh at allows us t o become "i mpartial spe ctato rs " of t h e h u m a n s ce ne. Th e growth of scie n ti fic ra tio nali ty can theref o r e be experienced a s a kin d of victory over egoism. We ar e no longer imprisoned in the self ; w e a re fre e to p ursue the universal good.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  It was Hal Bennett, a talented writer, editor, and book consultant, who helped me resolve my blockage with his gentle wisdom. He also showed me how to shape complex material into a cohesive, accessible whole. When I ran into snags, he always knew how to nudge me back on track. Then Hal introduced me to Fred Hill, who became my agent. He was another find, a fact I realized when I overheard him describing the book far more succinctly than I could have done myself. Fred thought he knew exactly who would want to publish the book: HarperCollins’s editor-in-chief, Susan Moldow. Indeed she did and proceeded to perform editorial magic with uncommon understanding and respect for an author’s sensitivities. She also selected Nancy Nicholas, a gifted line editor from whom I learned so much about unnecessary words. As we were nearing the final round of revisions, Susan left HarperCollins and entrusted the book to Gladys Carr and Cynthia Barrett, both of whom made an eleventh-hour transition that could easily have been a nightmare into an opportunity. Their suggested refinements were right on the mark. Throughout it all I was blessed with cherished friends and family who, miraculously, maintained enthusiasm for my work in spite of the fact that I was often unavailable or preoccupied. My dearest friend, Scott Madover, both gave and endured the most. I doubt I can ever repay him adequately. Jack Morin, Ph.D. San Francisco ABOUT THE AUTHORJack Morin, Ph.D., has been studying the mysteries of Eros for nearly two dacades. He is a diplomate of the American Board of therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors COPYRIGHTA hardcover edition of this book was published in 1995 by HarperCollins Publishers. THE EROTIC MIND. Copyright © 1995 by Jack Morin, Ph.D. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks. First HarperPerennial edition published 1996. The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Morin, Jack. The erotic mind: unlocking the inner sources of sexual passion and fulfillment / Jack Morin—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-06-016975-3 1. Sexual excitement. 2. Sex (Psychology). I. Title. HQ21.M7945 1995 155.3’1—dc20 95-4944 ISBN-06-098428-7(pbk.) 04 05 06 07 08 [image file=image_rsrc3FK.jpg] /RRD 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062267474 ABOUT THE PUBLISHERAustralia HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia http://www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada http://www.harpercollins.ca

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  I am prepared to defend my current views on the biology of feelings, consciousness, and the roots of the cultural mind, but I am aware that those views may need to be revised before too long. Second, it is apparent that we can talk with some confidence about the traits and operations of living organisms and of their evolution and that we can locate the beginnings of the respective universe about thirteen billion years ago. We do not have, however, any satisfactory scientific account of the origins and meaning of the universe, in brief, no theory of everything that concerns us. This is a sobering reminder of how modest and tentative our efforts are and of how open we need to be as we confront what we do not know. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The development of a book is a long process of planning and reflecting, but the day does come when one needs to sit down and write. I tend to remember vividly when that happens, for each book, and what were the circumstances. I also tend to return to such memories as if they revealed the key on which the text should be written. In the case of this book, it happened in Provence, at the home of our friends Laura and Emanuel Ungaro, and it followed a conversation with Emanuel on the issue of how specific wounds are often prompts for one’s creations. We were talking about a curious book (L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti) written by Jean Genet, a book that Picasso considered the best ever written about artistic creation. Genet’s words—“Beauty has no other origin but the singular wound, different for each person, hidden or visible”— connected well with the idea that feeling is a key player in the cultural process. Now writing could begin in earnest and one year later, in the very same surroundings, I recall explaining the first draft to another friend, Jean-Baptiste Huynh. I wrote early sections of the book elsewhere in France, at the home of Barbara Guggenheim and Bert Fields. I thank all these friends for the inspiration that they and the places they have invented provide so naturally. This is also the place to mention a disclaimer on the book’s title. On first hearing it, several people have asked me if it refers to Michel Foucault. It certainly does not although I know why they ask: Foucault wrote a book whose original French title is Les Mots et les Choses (The Words and the Things), which became, in its English version, The Order of Things.