Religious neurosis#
Summary#
Religious neurosis appears connected with three dangerous prescriptions: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence, though whether these are causes or effects remains uncertain. Its most regular symptom is a sudden swing between excessive sensuality and penitential paroxysms of world-renunciation. Nietzsche suggests this phenomenon has attracted philosophers like Schopenhauer, whose central question about how the negation of will is possible stems directly from this “religious crisis.”