(Deities, notably Baal-Phegor, were sometimes supposed to eat
excrement, so that it was natural that their messengers and
representatives among men should do so. As regards Baal-Phegor,
see Dulaure, _Des Divinites Generatrices_, Chapter IV, and J.G.
Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites of All Nations_, p. 241. See also
Ezekiel, Chapter IV, v. 12, and _Reports Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 321.)
It must be added, however, that while the masochist is overcome
by sexual rapture, so that he sees nothing disgusting in his act,
the medicine-man and the ascetic are not so invariably overcome
by religious rapture, and several ascetic writers have referred
to the horror and disgust they experienced, at all events at
first, in accomplishing such acts, while the medicine-men when
novices sometimes find the ordeal too severe and have to abandon
their career. Brenier de Montmorand, while remarking, not without
some exaggeration, that "the Christian ascetics are almost all
eaters of excrement" ("Ascetisme et Mysticisme," _Revue
Philosophique_, March, 1904, p. 245), quotes the testimonies of
Marguerite-Marie and Madame Guyon as to the extreme repugnance
which they had to overcome.
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