Origin of penance

Penance is the voluntary self-punishment inflected as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong. It is also a Christian sacrament in which a member of the church confesses sins to a priest and is given absolution. The old world form of penance is still practiced in some remote places, but it is slowly passing away with other ancient religious practices.

A strange and curious cult once practiced their rituals in the back country of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountains during the forty days of Lent. The Sangre de Cristo is a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains located in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico.

In the old days the penitents were devoted to the belief that “without physical suffering there can be no salvation.”  They believed that because most sins are flesh inspired they must be exorcized by way of the flesh.  For that reason they used whips to make themselves suffer, bleed, and sometimes to die. There were also other devices of torture, some of which were mechanical. For example, there was the Caretta del Muerto, the cart of death. It was a heavy plank and timber carrier set on wooden axles and equipped with wobbly, wooden wheels.  Representing death, it was built low and close to the ground. It carried an effigy serving as a black shrouded skeleton with a mask on its face, and bony hands that gripped a bow and arrow that was aimed toward its willing victim who was one of the penitents.  It was believed that God will honor the suffering and understand the heartfelt sorrow for the sins. The pain administered by the cart of death with its arrow is symbolic of every human who must die. The torture is inflicted by a rope affixed to the cart and which passes around the bare chest of the penitent. The cart loaded with stones, is the burden the seeker drags behind him as he trudges barefooted through the hills.  With bruised feet and bleeding breast he constantly laments and pleads “Penitencial! Penitencial!”  

It is a cry echoing back through time and vibrating to the same ancient key found in most of the world’s religions. In 13^th century Europe, Christianity had its men and women who scourged themselves for real or imagined misdeeds.

There were public processions in those days, particularly in Italy, in which the marchers furiously whipped one another as they proceeded to a church or a shrine. The practice later developed into a religious order, a brotherhood of masochistic sufferers called Flagellants, whose symbol was the whip and whose rite was self-castigation.

They did penance for the sins of the world, which in their minds, were replicas of Christ.  The members of the Roman Catholic Church frowned on such actions and sought to put an end to such practices by Papal decree. While penance could be understood and the infusion of a grace was recommended, the idea that ordinary men should torture themselves was beyond the purview of common sense. The action may be condoned in a saint, but such self-torture was never recommended to the laity by church, or state.

The Flagellants believed that tragic visitations were the acts of God. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and storms were manifestations of heaven’s wrath which demanded penitence.  At no time was this clearly demonstrated than during the 14^th century when the Black Death ravaged Europe and parts of Asia. In England the plague ran its course for more than a year. The plague was, to the Flagellants, either a judgment of God or a momentary triumph of the devil. But in either case, it was an indication the humanity needed to appease the One or shame the other.

Penance was one of the sacraments believed needed to be involved with the suffering of Christ.  Physical torture for repentance was practiced in some lay orders in Catholicism, called tertiaries, which consisted of people who, although living in the world, were seeking to be as devout as priests or monks or nuns. The Third Order of Saint Francis was such a group, and it was this Order that brought flagellation into the American southwest in1598, when the conquistador Don Juan de Onate, with his soldiers and friars, protected with the sword and cross, marched up from Old Mexico. In the wake of considerable slaughter of the natives, Don Juan built the first Christian churches in New Mexico. He blessed rivers, and christened villages with the names of saints. As he subjugated the heathen, he gave God the credit for overcoming the enemy who were equipped only with spears. His friars recited their rosaries amid the plundered villages and augmented the kingdom of heaven by great numbers of war-stunned prisoners and tortured slaves.

It was on a night during Holy Week, at the height on conquest, that Don Juan proclaimed a period of fasting and prayer to show the Lord that he was indebted to Him for past victories and to invoke His aid for future conquests. It was near Good Friday, when the wages of sin were usually expected to be paid that Don felt forced to set his own conscience free.

While the soldiers and Franciscan friars knew of Onate’s valor, only he knew his sins. Even in the midst of his conquests, Don Juan longed for the scourge, even when his spirit was being lifted up, he vowed to discipline the flesh. Remarkably, he went out from the camp with only his captain, Gaspar de Villagra, into the moonlit dessert where he fashioned a whip from the cactus and the fiber of the aloe and stripped his body to the waist. Clutching the flagellum in both hands , he struck himself first over his right shoulder and then over his left, whipping and weeping and crying out to God for mercy as he shed his own blood for the remission of his sins.

The Franciscans, when they heard his moaning supplications and cries, went to where he was. They made crowns of cactus and pressed them down on their heads so that they, also, might show their leader how greatly they sympathized with him. They threw off their mantles and bagged for the lash as they chanted and wept.  Then the soldiers came and lacerated themselves. It was said that the women and children walked barefoot over the cactus-covered ground and Captain de Villagra after observing the others, fiercely laid the whip upon his own back. All their cries, mingling in a single word, “Penitencia!” rose as an offering of their pain.

The last of the flagellentes traced their history back to the Third Order and Don Juan who were known as Los Hermanos Penitentes (the Brothers Penitent). They were found in towns along the Rio Grande between Santa Fe and Taos.

It’s been recorded that “the Penitentes are good Catholics, but they have their own peculiar emphasis on worship during lent.”  

Is it love, lust, or addiction?

The topic of love has been mostly in the province of writers, poets, and philosophers than in the minds of scientists. Even though it has been said that "love makes the world go round," few sexologists have addressed this subject in any detail. Nevertheless, we have all felt love in one way or another.Many of us have dreamed it, struggled with it, or basked in it's pleasures. It is also safe to say than most of us have been confused by it.
Trying to define love is a difficult task. Besides loving a spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend,people can love their children, parents, siblings, pets, country, chocolate sundaes, and a favorite sport team. Although the English language has only one word to apply to each of these situations, there are clearly different meanings involved. When we talk about person-to-person love, the simplest definition was expressed; "love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. "  There's a certain love that Shakespeare described in Romeo and Juliet, that popular singers celebrate, and that led Edward VIII  to abdicate the throne of England to marry the woman in his life.
In any type of love, the element of caring about the loved person is essential. Unless genuine caring is present, what looks like love may be just one form of desire. For example, a teenage boy may tell his girlfriend  - "I love you" just to convince her to have sex with him. In other cases, the desire to gain wealth, status, or power may lead a person to pretend to love someone to reach these goals.
Because sexual desire and love may both be passionate and all-consuming, it may be difficult to distinguish between them in terms of intensity. The key feature is the substance behind the feeling. Generally, sexual desire is narrowly focused and easily discharged, and love is a more complex and constant emotion. In pure unadulterated sexual desire, the elements of caring and respect are minimal, perhaps present as an afterthought, but not a central part of the feeling. The desire to know the other person is defined in only a physical or sensual way, not in a spiritual one. The end is easily satisfied. While love may include a passionate yearning for sexual union, respect for the loved one is a primary concern. Without respect and caring, our attraction for another person can only be an imitation of love. Respect allows us to value a loved one's identity and integrity and thus prevents us from selfishly exploiting them. One theory suggests that people can achieve a meaningful type of love only if they have first reached a state of self-realization (feeling secure in one's own identity). This theory defines mature love as "union under the condition of preserving  one's individuality," and noted that the paradox of love is that "beings become one and yet remain two." In speaking about the respect inherent in all love, it is suggested that a lover must feel, "I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his/her own sake, and in his/her own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me."
The insistence that people must be self-realized before having a "meaningful" type of love overlooks the fact that love itself can be a way of attaining self-realization.  People have a great capacity to learn about themselves from a love relationship, although it is agreed that love cannot be a substitute for personal identity.
Another interesting view-point on what happens when respect and caring are missing from a love relationship, is that it can lead people to a form of addiction. The resulting "love" is really a dependency relationship.
When a person goes to another to fill a personal void, the relationship quickly becomes a center of his or her life. It offers a solace that contrasts sharply with what the individual finds everywhere else, so that the person returns to the relationship more and more until it is needed to get through each day from otherwise a stressful and unpleasant existence. When a constant exposure in necessary in order to make life bearable, an addiction has been brought about, however romantic the trappings. The ever-present danger of withdrawal creates an ever-present craving.
Several books dealing with problematic love relationships made it into the national best-seller list in the mid 1980's - for example, Women who Love Too Much (Norwood,1985) and Smart Women/Foolish Choices (Cowan and Kinder, 1985). As a result of this shift in emphasis, many people began to realize that not all love relationships are the idealized, perfect unions we'd like them to be. In reality, some are exploited, desperate, or simply unfulfilled. Some scientists believe that "the only real difference  between liking and loving is the depth of our feelings and the degree of our involvement with the other person." On the other hand, it has also been observed that "it seems quite clear that more and more liking for another does not, in the end, lead to romantic love; more and more liking just leads to a lot of liking."  After much thought on the subject it seems that liking and loving, while interrelated, are distinct phenomena.

Language and dreams

Language is momentous and the most mysterious product of the mind. From the first utterance to the least trivial spoken word, there lies a whole chapter of evolution. In language we have the freedom to use symbolism and articulate conceptual thinking. Without language there is no expression of our thoughts. All cultures of humanity have their own complete and articulate language.

Animals on the other hand, express their emotions by suggestion. Their language is restricted to sounds of a general emotional significance. There is no articulate speech in animals; they vocalize sounds in order to communicate. For example, a dog will growl, whine, or bark.  Even primates such as the ape do not have the power of speech. Descriptions of their behavior in research suggest they use sounds only to signify their feelings and perhaps desires. Their vocal expressions of love are symptoms of an emotion, not the name of it, nor any other symbol that it represents. True language begins only when a sound keeps its reference beyond the situation of its instinctive utterance, e.g. when an individual can say not only: “My love, my love!” but also: “He loves me – he loves me not.” Some animals may meet their food with exclamatory sounds but they are more like a cry for “yum, yum!” rather than: “Milk today,”  “meat today,” or “fish today!”  They are sounds of enthusiastic assent, of a specialized emotional reaction; they cannot be used between meals to talk over the merits of the meal.

The prototype of language can only be found in humans. Therefore, it may be supposed that humanity by nature is a linguistic primate. 

If language is born from the profoundly symbolic character of the human mind, it would be logical to believe that the mind tends to operate with symbols far below the level of speech. Previous research has shown that even the subjective record of experiencing the observation of images is not a direct copy of  an actual experience, but has been “projected,” in the process of copying, into a new dimension, the more or less stable form of the picture. It is not the changeable elusiveness of the real visual experience, but a unity and lasting identity that makes it an object of the mind’s possession rather than a sensation. Furthermore, it is a “free” association of the mind in which it can call up images and let them fill the virtual space of vision between us and the real objects, similar to projecting pictures on a screen and being able to dismiss them without altering the course of events. They are our own product, but not part of ourselves as our physical actions are. We privately compare them with our uttered words which can be contemplated but not actually lived.

Images have all the characteristics of symbols. We attend to them only in their capacity of meaning things and not encountered.

The best guarantee of their symbolic function is their tendency to become metaphorical. They are unable to “mean” things that only have a logical analogy to their primary meanings. For example, people consider a rose as a symbol of feminine beauty so readily that it is harder to associate roses with vegetables than with girls. Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can live. Its mobility and flare, its heat and color, make it an irresistible symbol of all that is living, feeling, and active. Therefore, images are our readiest instruments for abstracting concepts from actual impressions. They are a spontaneous - embodiment of general ideas.

The thing we do with images is to imagine a story; just as the first thing we do with words is to make a statement.

The making of images is the mode of our uneducated thinking, and stories are its earliest product. We think of things happening; we see with the minds’ eye the shoes we would like to buy, and the transaction of buying them. Pictures and stories are the mind’s stock and trade.

Fantasies, like all symbols, are derived from specific experiences. But like the original perception, any item that sticks in the mind is spontaneously abstracted and used symbolically to represent a whole kind of actual happenings. Everything that is perceived is mostly retained in memory and called up in imagination when it occurs again.

The symbolic status of fantasies is genuine by the regularity with which they follow certain basic laws of symbols. Like words and images they tend to convey metaphysical meanings.

Metaphor is the law of growth of every symbol. It is attested by the fact that the lowest products of the brain are metaphorical fantasies which are symbolic of dreams.

Logic of signs and symbols helped Helen Keller

Meaning has both a logical and psychological aspect.  It must be employed as a sign or a symbol to someone and it must be capable of conveying a meaningful purpose. These two aspects, the logical and the psychological can be confused by the use of the ambiguous verb “to mean.”  At times it is proper to say “it means,” and other times “I mean.”  For example, the word “London” does not “mean” a city in the same sense that a person “means” the place.   (When I speak of London, I mean the city).  (London means many things to many people). Both aspects; the logic and the psychological are always present and their interplay produces a great variety of meanings.

There are two distinct functions of terms which have a right to the name “meaning.”  They may be either a sign or a symbol.

A sign indicates the existence of a past, present or future of a thing, event or condition. Wet streets are a sign that it has rained.  A patter on the roof is a sign that it is raining.  A change in the readings of the barometer or a ring round the moon is a sign that it is going to rain. The smell of smoke signifies the presence of fire. They are all natural signs of a greater event.  It is a symptom of a state of affairs.

The logical relation between a sign and its object is that they are associated to form a pair. Each sign corresponds with one definite item which is its object (event) signified. All the rest of the function and signals involves a third term, the subject, which uses the pair of items; and the relationship of the subject to the other two terms. The subject is related to the other two terms as a pair. What characterizes them is the fact that they are paired.  For example, a scratch on a persons’ arm would probably not be interesting enough to even have a name, but such a datum in its relation to the past is noted and called a “scar.”  Note, however, although the subject’s relationship is to the pair of other terms, the person also has a relationship with each one of them individually, which makes one of them the sign and the other the object. The difference between a sign and its object is that they are not interchangeable.

The difference is that the subject for which they constitute a pair  must find one more interesting than the other, and the latter more easily available than the former. If we are interested in tomorrow’s weather for example, the present events coupled with tomorrow’s weather phenomena, are signs for us.  A ring around the moon is not important in itself; but as a visible item coupled with something not yet present has meaning.  If it were not for the subject, the sign and object would be interchangeable.

In nature certain events are correlated so that the less important may be taken as signs of the more important. We may also produce arbitrary events purposely correlated with important ones that are to be their meaning. A whistle means the end of a shift at work, or something is about to start or end. A siren from an ambulance means an emergency. These are artificial signs that are not natural signals. Their logical relation to their objects however, is the same as that of natural signs.

The interpretation of signs is the basis of intelligence in all animals.  In humans both kinds of signals are used to guide practical activities.  We do the same thing all day long. We answer bells, watch the clock, obey warning signals, follow arrows, come at the baby’s cry, and close the window when it rains. The logical basis of all these interpretations show there is no limit to what a sign may mean.

Because a sign may mean so many things we may also misinterpret it. The misinterpretation of signs is the simplest form of mistake. A mistake is the most important form for a purpose because it creates disappointment, which is the simplest form of error and its correlate, the simplest form of knowledge. This is the truest interpretation of signs. It is the most elementary and the most tangible kind of intellect. It has obvious biological uses and equally obvious criteria of truth and falsehood.

In regards to signs and symbols, there is a famous passage in the autobiography of Helen Keller which describes the dawn of language upon her mind. She had used signs before, formed associations, learned to expect things and identify people or places; but there was a great day when the meaning of signs was eclipsed and dwarfed by the discovery that a certain datum in her limited world of sense had explicit meaning that a particular act of her fingers constituted a word. This event had required a long preparation; the child had learned many acts with her fingers, but they were meaningless play. Then one day her teacher took her out to walk  - and there the great advent of language occurred.

“She brought me my hat,” the memoir reads, “and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

“We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.  As the cool stream gushed over my hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly, I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free. There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers in time could be swept away.

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.”

This passage is the best testimony anyone can give for finding  the  genuine difference between sign and symbol.

Limitations in research (Sexology)

Biases in sex research (and research in general) come from many sources. The treatment success in an uncontrolled clinical trial may be due to the attention paid to subjects and the power of positive suggestion - scientifically known as the placebo effect - rather than the treatment itself. The attitudes and preconceptions of the researcher influence the study methods, the scientific questions asked, and the interpretation of data. Researchers may fail to "see" events that do not match their theoretical view of the problem or they may "see" nonexistent events that neatly fit their model of thought.
Individual characteristics of the researcher such as personality, sex, appearance, friendliness, age, may also cause distortions in the data. For example, a study of sexual function in young spinal cord-injured men used female nurses as interviewers. Therefore, giving rise to the possibility that subjects might have exaggerated their reports of sexual ability to impress the nurse or not to embarrass themselves. It is possible that different information might have been obtained if those conducting the interviews were male. Another example: subjects interviewed by black experimenters may give different answers to questions about racial prejudice than do subjects interviewed by white experimenters, and vice versa.
Questionnaires are useful from the viewpoints of economics and time efficiency. However, they have several limitations. They can be used only with subjects who can read and write; they must be constructed in such a way that respondents do not lose interest  or become fatigued; and there is no opportunity for in-depth examination of the meaning or nuance of answers. Survey studies in general - whether done by questionnaire or interview  - share another limitation: In many cases, the questions asked elicit opinions, attitudes, or perceptions of behaviour, but these do not necessarily reflect the actual behaviour under study. There is nothing wrong with studying attitudes or perceptions, but scientific accuracy is not served confusing fact and feeling.
Observational and experimental studies are usually more expensive and time consuming than surveys. In both of these methods, the setting of the study may influence the observed behaviour. Even after subjects become acclimated to a laboratory environment and the equipment used to monitor or measure their responses, it is unlikely that they will be as relaxed and spontaneous as if they were at home. All observational research in which subjects know that they are being observed exerts some influences on subsequent behaviour. The same is true for experimental  research; subjects may try to respond in ways they believe the experiment "wants" them to or in ways dictated by how they want the experimenter to perceive them. The change in people's behaviour caused by knowing they are in an experiment is called the Hawthorne effect.
Many reports use statistical tests of significance, with significance in this instance meaning a result not likely to have happened by chance. Most commonly, a probability level of 5 per cent or less ( p s .05) is chosen to define significance: this means that the probability of the research findings arising from chance alone is 1 in 20 or less. Although the formulation sounds impressive, results showing statistical significance are not infallible and absolute. More important than such statistics alone are the questions of whether the research design is appropriate, the types of bias minimized, and whether the findings have been independently replicated. When research findings are closely duplicated by a separate investigator using similar methods , it is much safer to conclude the findings are valid.
One cautionary note about replication is important however. If two independent researchers use the same methods and perpetuate the same biases, the conclusions they come to may be identical but may still be wrong. For example, in 1957 a study of gay people had been repeatedly studied from poorly selected samples  taken from prisoners and psychiatric hospitals. The researchers concluded that gay people were often maladjusted and sick. Later studies, without the same sampling bias and outside prisons and psychiatric hospitals came to very different conclusions about gay people.
A research perspective is only one way of looking at they world. It is not the only way and not necessarily the best way. Research is only an approximate way of getting at facts. Studying sex research can be informative but also is knowledge gained from clinical situations, personal experiences, literature, art, and culture. no single perspective on human sexuality has a monopoly on truth.