Lastly, we may consider two great historical figures who, even though they were bitter enemies, had much in common. Both marked turning points in 1521: Luther was condemned by the Catholic Church as a heretic; and Ignatius of Loyola experienced religious conversion. Both men started great movements: Luther, the Reformation; and Ignatius, the Jesuits. Both men, too, suffered obsessions.Martin Luther underwent severe mental turmoil with obsessions and depression. In Young Man Luther, the psychiatrist Erik Erikson notes that during his first years in the monastery, Luther’s mental state was so disrupted that “it seems entirely probable that young Luther’s life at times approached what today we might call a borderline psychotic state.” Ignatius endured similar, if not quite so severe, afflictions. W. W. Meisner, M.D., writes in his biography Ignatius of Loyola that Ignatius’s early life was “filled with inner torment” due to “intense, destructive obsessions.”Luther and Ignatius both endured tormenting obsessional doubts and, to a lesser degree, other types of obsessions as well. Religious doubts, a form of scruples, were indeed a common problem in past centuries; they qualify as obsessions when they are persistent, tormenting, and recognized as inappropriate. Luther writes in his Commentary on Galatians:
When I was a monk I thought that I was utterly cast away. If at any time I felt fleshly lust, wrath, hatred, or envy against any brother, I assayed many ways to quiet my conscience, but it would not be; for the lust did always return, so that I could not rest, but was continually vexed with these thoughts: This or that sin thou hast committed: thou art infected with envy, with impatiency, and such other sins.
Because of these excruciating scruples, Luther could not feel certain that he had confessed all his sins. He would confess for hours and hours, splitting his transgressions smaller and smaller. He would go back to childhood and endlessly enumerate possibly sinful acts. After finishing he would ask for special appointments to correct previous statements. His preceptors, confused by his possessiveness, threatened to punish him for obstruction of confession. As quoted in The Way of Interior Peace, one of them told Luther: “You have no real sins with which to reproach yourself. . . give up your nonsensical and ludicrous notions.”Ignatius suffered similar battles with confessional scruples. He writes in his autobiography St. Ignatius’ Own Story:
Even though I had confessed . . . my scruples returned, each time becoming mote minute, so that I became quite upset, and although I knew that these scruples were doing me much harm, and that it would be good to be rid of them, I could not shake them off. … I continued with my seven hours of prayer on my knees, rising faithfully every midnight, and performing all the other exercises. But nothing provided me with a cute for my scruples.
Luther and Ignatius also suffered violent and blasphemous obsessions. Luther once declared at the dinner table that the sight of a knife conjured up “painful pictures” before him. He writes: “For more than a week I have been thrown back and forth in death andHell; my whole body feels beaten, my limbs are still trembling. I almost lost Christ completely, driven about on the waves and storms of despair and blasphemy against God.” Ignatius notes: “While these thoughts were tormenting me, I was frequently seized with the temptation to throw myself into an excavation close to my room. But, knowing that it was a sin, I cried again: ‘Lord, I will do nothing to offend you,’ and I frequently repeated these words.”Who knows how many other great historical figures suffered obsessions? Charles Darwin, arguably the single most influential scientist who ever lived, suffered frequent attacks of heart palpitations, shortness of breath, fainting, a buzzing noise in his head, stomach pains, and eczema. Most of his recent biographers agree that he had panic disorder. Darwin’s letters and diaries suggest he may have also been plagued by obsessions. Darwin mentions having “much involuntary fear” and sudden “insane feelings of anger.” He reports: “I awake in the night and feel so much afraid, though my reason laughs and tells me there is nothing to fear. … By habit the mind fixes on the same object.” In the 1977 medical biography of Darwin, To Be an Invalid, Ralph Cope, Jr., M.D., concludes that Darwin was “tortured by obsessional thoughts.”*19/338/2*
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