Note 152.2 — The Evolution of Religion

Enough has been said to illustrate the intimate association of the idea of purity with legal progress,152.2 and it only remains to indicate very briefly its impress and effect on religious institutions. One of the methods most frequently employed to attain mental purity or freedom from the evil spirit is fasting; from all human societies, primitive and advanced, we could gather a copious stock of illustration. And mankind has, on the whole, agreed as to the occasions at which the ritual is desirable; in spring before the crops and the first-fruits appear, before the warriors go forth to battle, before any kind of intimate communion with God, when the family is in mourning for a kinsman and evil influences are abroad, fasting has been practised as a mode of purging the body and safeguarding it against spiritual harm or preparing it for the privilege of divine intercourse. It has been held necessary before any mystic initiation,154.1 the early Christian Church prescribing it for the days preceding the Easter communion; also before the individual can attain the divine afflatus of prophecy or the supernatural potency for expelling evil spirits or working wonder-cures. “Such kind goeth not forth save by prayer and fasting.” The psychological basis of the ritual is the belief that certain foods, and finally all food, are liable to engender evil influences in the body; and, moreover, the experience that the abstinence generates a peculiar mental condition of exaltation, ecstasy, and supra-normal self-confidence: other ideas, such as the discipline of self-denial, that come to gather round the practice are of later growth.