The Rambler

The spiritual hero|ine #5

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I went through the ascetic phase of my spiritual journey.

I was deeply involved in Christianity through my local church. This church was filled with a rather radical kind of evangelical religion. These were people in hot pursuit of spiritual experiences and, ultimately, salvation. At some point this took a dark turn. It morphed into a spiritual practice that demonised life in a human body.

This is what asceticism is - an approach to spirituality that is hostile to ordinary human embodied life. During this phase I slept very little and I prayed a lot. I gave all my money to others. I dressed in rags, ate very little and practiced celibacy.

It is not uncommon for people on the spiritual path to find themselves practising asceticism. It’s usually not as extreme as my case but there are many examples of religious and spiritual movements who promote this kind of extremism.

But even if we put the extreme examples aside, you can hear this kind of at…