Yes, the fasting rules applied to laypeople. Exceptions could be made by permission of the parish priest (or possibly it required the bishop, I can't remember) for men who did manual labor-- it's very hard to both observe a full fast of one small meal a day and to work in a coal mine! But you also have to remember that the old fasting rules were dissolved before modern family life, in the form of two working parents, came into being. On the other hand, Orthodox laypeople manage to fast 3 times a week, even in the United States.
There's something else I'd add, though. I didn't get to this in the original post, because I decided it had gone on long enough, and I'll get to it another time. I strongly suspect that at our present moment, fasting from food is less important than fasting from technology.
There's a metaphysical reason for that, too. If you look at the older writings that I draw on, from Plato on through the Christian tradition, their concern is to be liberated from the world of matter, which is to say, from the natural world. But there is an idea in occult philosophy that there is a level of existence below the Natural, sometimes called the Sub-Natural. The Sub-Natural is the native habitat of the demons. Now, consider that the virtual environment of the Internet is a creation of human beings which mimics nature while 1. lacking all of its beauty and 2. bringing out the worst sorts of behaviors in human beings-- especially combativeness, emotional reactiveness, and a refusal of reflection. To the extent that it is rooted in the physical world, it consists of colossal server farms, open pit mines, and currents of harmful radiation. And it is increasingly the environment in which we all spend most of our time.
So I've been wondering if the course of modern technology, beginning with the industrial revolution but especially punctuated with the birth of the internet, doesn't represent a kind of Second Fall of Man. This time we've fallen not to the natural world, but to the Sub-Natural which is even lower. If this is the case, it makes sense that nature-based spirituality should emerge in the Western world simultaneously with the industrial revolution-- Prior to the 18th century, we didn't need nature spirituality, as nature was the ground on which we stood. Now we stand lower than nature, and to return to nature is an enormous step upward.
If this is the case, then we should focus on disconnecting from technology before attempting regular food-fasts. For that reason, if the Druid Church I've been periodically discussing for more than a year ever gets off the ground, regular fasting from technology, especially digital technology, is going to be one of the requirements of members. Of course, I can't imagine modern teenagers will take to that any more easily than to other sorts of fasting....
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timeasmymeasure
Re: another keeper!
Date: 2021-09-14 11:32 am (UTC)There's something else I'd add, though. I didn't get to this in the original post, because I decided it had gone on long enough, and I'll get to it another time. I strongly suspect that at our present moment, fasting from food is less important than fasting from technology.
There's a metaphysical reason for that, too. If you look at the older writings that I draw on, from Plato on through the Christian tradition, their concern is to be liberated from the world of matter, which is to say, from the natural world. But there is an idea in occult philosophy that there is a level of existence below the Natural, sometimes called the Sub-Natural. The Sub-Natural is the native habitat of the demons. Now, consider that the virtual environment of the Internet is a creation of human beings which mimics nature while 1. lacking all of its beauty and 2. bringing out the worst sorts of behaviors in human beings-- especially combativeness, emotional reactiveness, and a refusal of reflection. To the extent that it is rooted in the physical world, it consists of colossal server farms, open pit mines, and currents of harmful radiation. And it is increasingly the environment in which we all spend most of our time.
So I've been wondering if the course of modern technology, beginning with the industrial revolution but especially punctuated with the birth of the internet, doesn't represent a kind of Second Fall of Man. This time we've fallen not to the natural world, but to the Sub-Natural which is even lower. If this is the case, it makes sense that nature-based spirituality should emerge in the Western world simultaneously with the industrial revolution-- Prior to the 18th century, we didn't need nature spirituality, as nature was the ground on which we stood. Now we stand lower than nature, and to return to nature is an enormous step upward.
If this is the case, then we should focus on disconnecting from technology before attempting regular food-fasts. For that reason, if the Druid Church I've been periodically discussing for more than a year ever gets off the ground, regular fasting from technology, especially digital technology, is going to be one of the requirements of members. Of course, I can't imagine modern teenagers will take to that any more easily than to other sorts of fasting....