between God and humanity as mediator, intercessor and saviour.

Both Dante, the inspired woman-worshipper of the Middle Ages, and the
more modern Goethe, saw in metaphysical love the triumph over all things
earthly. And far above either of these intellectual heroes looms the
awe-inspiring figure of Michelangelo, the scoffer, to whom love came
late in life; in his ecstatic adoration of Vittoria Colonna, the
enthusiasm of Plato and the passion of Dante are blended in a more
transcendent flame.

Sexual Mystics and the Brides of Christ present the darker aspect of
metaphysical love. All the latter, including even Catherine of Siena (a
clever politician who kept up a correspondence with the leading
statesmen of her time), Marie of Oignies, and St. Teresa, are
stigmatised as victims of hysteria and consigned to the domain of
pathology.

While the first stage was characterised by the reign of unbridled sexual
instinct, the second by the conflict between spiritual and sensual love,
the third stage represents our modern conception, the blending of
spiritual and sensual love, which is "not the differentiated sexual
instinct, but a force embracing the psycho-physical entity of the
beloved being without any consciousness of sexual desire." It shares
with the purely metaphysical love the lover's longing to raise his
mistress above him and glorify her without any ulterior object and
desire. "In this stage there is no tyranny of man over woman, as in the
sexual stage; no subjection of man to woman, as in the woman-worship of
the Middle Ages; but complete equality of the sexes, a mutual give and
take. If sexuality is infinite as matter, spiritual love eternal as the
metaphysical ideal, then the synthesis is human and personal." The