The structure of erotomania mirrors the structure of mystical devotion

Evidence

Having difficulty separating reality from play, the act from magical behavior, the object from imagination, woman is singularly likely to presentify through her body an absence. What is much less humorous is confusing mysticism with erotomania, as has sometimes been done: the erotomaniac feels glorified by the love of a sovereign being; he is the one who takes the initiative in the love relationship, he loves more passionately than he is loved; he makes his feelings known by clear but secret signs; he is jealous and irritated by the chosen woman’s lack of fervor: he does not hesitate then to punish her; he almost never manifests himself in a carnal and concrete form. All these characteristics are found in mystics; in particular, God cherishes for all eternity the soul he inflames with his love, he shed his blood for her, he prepares splendid apotheoses for her; the only thing she can do is abandon herself to his flames without resistance. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1902

It is accepted today that erotomania takes a sometimes platonic and sometimes sexual form. Likewise, the body has a greater or lesser role in the feelings the mystic devotes to God. Her effusions are modeled on those that earthly lovers experience. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1903

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the erotomania schema — sovereign lover, initiating passion, secret signs, jealousy, punishment — and shows it is exactly the God-relationship of the mystic.
• XREF: Connects to de Clérambault’s erotomania concept and to Beauvoir’s earlier chapters on woman’s propensity to presentify absence through the body (‘The Lover’). — connects to: In erotomania the delusion hinges on a superior figure loving without being loved; Secular and sacred narrative traditions interpenetrate and never diverged — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 30; Habit enables the incarnation of the divine in the human — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1257
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1902; Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1903

Broader Connections

• Habit enables the incarnation of the divine in the human #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1257
• Secular and sacred narrative traditions interpenetrate and never diverged #expands (0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 30