When being holy hurts

An historian talks about the modern face of "sacred pain," which religions use it the most and how self-cutters carry on the tradition.

By Suzy Hansen

Nov. 26, 2001 | The Catholic mystic Sister Maria Maddalena de Pazzi sometimes wore a tight crown of thorns; other times she firmly strapped a girdle to her body so that its sharp nails dug into her flesh. She walked barefoot in winter, burned her skin with hot candle wax and resisted the desire to eat and sleep. When spirits invaded her, she would hurl her body against the ground until her face swelled, all in the hope that her pain would drive the devil away.

Sister Maria embraced these various forms of self-torture over 400 years ago, but voluntary religious pain still exists today. Some of those who endure sacred pain believe that when they hurt, they come that much closer to God. Others feel cleansed of spiritual maladies. To a secular person, these views might seem superstitious and pointless; after all, modern society devotes time, energy and tons of money to healing, finding cures for and eliminating suffering. Pain, in our eyes, is a problem to be solved. But to Ariel Glucklich, an associate professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, who has studied forms of sacred pain in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, pain can have spiritual and emotional benefits. Sometimes in order to heal, we have to hurt -- physically -- first.

In "Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul," a wide-ranging investigation and history of the topic, Glucklich attempts to make sense of pain as a transformative experience, a biochemical phenomenon and, sometimes, a secular remedy. One of his more controversial arguments -- that self-mutilators aren't necessarily afflicted by psychological malaise or radical self-hatred -- goes beyond the realm of the religious and into the minds of seemingly troubled young women (called "cutters") who often have been sexually or mentally abused. But can acts that appear entirely destructive really have benefits?

Salon spoke to Glucklich by phone about the role of pain in mysticism, which religions ritualize suffering the most and how people in secular societies try to make sense out of being hurt.

What form of sacred pain goes on today? What kind of sacrifices are religious people making, and for whom?

They're not necessarily sacrificing themselves and it doesn't really feel like a form of destruction. It feels more like a fulfillment. Unlike the man who steps on a landmine and feels explosive pain, these mystics and saints hurt themselves in a gradual way. They don't start off by tormenting themselves. There's a ratcheting up of their pain. They do this while worshiping a God or committing themselves to a community and they start thinking of this as an act of self-sacrifice. It's very fulfilling.

What is the most convincing example of sacred pain that you've encountered?

A pilgrimage is a journey to the sacred -- geographically. For the pilgrim, it's also a journey to that more important center of being. A lot of pilgrimages involve pain: walking barefoot on hot ground for long distances, or lying down prostate every few steps and getting back up, or not eating or drinking as you would, or sleeping on hard ground. There's self-flagellation. Pilgrims are taking their secular self and making it more like their divine self through this path of deprivation and pain. From what I understand though, some Muslim pilgrims going on the Haj will go on five-star air-conditioned buses and fly first-class. Times have really changed.

Next page: Which religion ritualizes suffering the most?