(December 1, 2022 at 1:48 pm)Ranjr Wrote: If I remember Josephus correctly, going into the wilderness was a right of passage for the Essene sect.
Like Brewer, I view Jesus story as a Castaneda experience. He was tripping.
Tripping by not eating. Fasting has been a common religious ritual ever since people discovered (probably involuntarily, in periods of famine) that hunger produces hallucinations. Hallucinations, like dreams, have always been regarded as forms of communication with the supernatural.
Some American Indian tribes send young men into the wilderness to fast until they see visions, which were supposed to show them their personal spirit guides.
Similarly, medieval saints too were much given to fasting, which made them "encounter" angelic or demonic beings. Therefore fasting was considered to have magic powers. Some people fasted in order to encounter demons and use them to cause harm to others - that was known as the BLACK FAST. A woman named Mabel Brigge was executed in 1538 for carrying out a black fast against Henry VIII and the Duke of Norfolk. The bishop of Durham officially forbade black fasting in 1577.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
