In preparation for ritual activities of a particularly sacred nature, such as initiation, marriage, or sacrifice, participants rid themselves of impurity by engaging in often austere acts of self-denial. The objective of primitive prohibitions may also be purification. To avoid this, one fasts for certain periods or abstains from certain foods altogether. There is, for example, a prevalent belief in primitive societies that evil forces may enter the body while one is eating. The purpose of such prohibitions or taboos is very frequently to escape or avoid the influence of demonic powers. Many of the major ascetic forms such as fasting, sexual continence, and seclusion appear universally among present-day primitives or nonliterate peoples. The origins of asceticism are found in primitive or archaic society, that is, in prehistory. Because religious man ( homo religiosus ) seeks a transcendent state, asceticism -in either rudimentary or developed form -is virtually universal in world religion.
In time, however, the word began to assume philosophical, spiritual, and ethical implications: one could "exercise" and "train" not only the body in the pursuit of a physical goal but also -systematically and rigorously -the will, the mind, and the soul so as to attain a more virtuous life or a higher spiritual state.Īlthough the modern word asceticism has eluded any universally accepted definition, the term, when used in a religious context, may be defined as a voluntary, sustained, and at least partially systematic program of self-discipline and self-denial in which immediate, sensual, or profane gratifications are renounced in order to attain a higher spiritual state or a more thorough absorption in the sacred. The word asceticism is derived from the Greek noun ask ēsis, meaning "exercise, practice, training." The Greek athlete, for example, subjected himself to systematic exercise or training in order to attain a goal of physical fitness.
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