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The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 16-18 reads
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
Epithymia
Why fast?
Remember the three components of the soul, according to the Platonists: Nous, Thymos, and Epithymia. Nous is the mind, but especially that part of the mind which extends beyond thought, becoming a window into the Eternal World. Thymos is the spirited part, the will or energy. And Epithymia is the appetite.
Now, when we start on the path, each part of the soul must be brought into balance-- and as they have different functions, there is a discipline and a balance proper to each.
When the appetite is unrestrained, it leads the soul to disaster, and is the root of our entanglement with matter-- and that which is worse than matter. As Plato writes in the Phaedo, his account of the execution of Socrates:
Now, Jesus has already told us the proper function of the epithymia, way back in the Beatitudes:
Our appetite has an ultimate purpose, which is to lead us heavenward. It isn't that we should totally eschew the things of the material world-- we're here, after all, and to never to obey out appetite would be to commit suicide. But we must discipline our appetites.
And that's where fasting comes in.
Traditional Fasts
Traditionally, Catholics fasted Wednesdays and Fridays, and during select days and seasons throughout the year. These days, the Modern Church in its wisdom has abandoned the traditional fasts and today enjoins its members only to give up a random goody during Lent and to fast for real during one day of the year, Good Friday. Eastern Churches, who possess actual wisdom, have preserved the older custom; they continue to fast through all of Lent and Advent, and during Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all year round. Tellingly, the Eastern churches preserved their traditions and have managed to undergo a rebirth despite suffering almost unimaginably brutal repression under the Communist regimes of Russia and Eastern Europe, while membership in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as participation in the masses and belief in its doctrines by its nominal members, has plummeted during the same period.
Let's leave that aside for now, though-- though it's relevant to our discussion. I want to say a bit more about the traditional fasts.
Before the wisdom of the '60s put an end to it, there were four three-day fasts set at each of the cardinal points of the year. These were called the Ember Days, and there was one for each season. It's very interesting to note some of the traditional justifications for these fasts. The Golden Legend, compiled by Blessed Jacopo de Voragine in the 13th Century, tells us:
Lent was also kept as a fast, and in theory is to this day, though not in practice. Advent, the period of 4 Sundays before Christmas, was also kept as a very strict fast, though today, of course, it's an extended shopping season. The important thing to note, here, is that each fast ends with a feast. In earlier times, the 3-4 weeks of Advent ended in a very strict all-day fast on Christmas Eve. This was finally broken with a special meal at midnight, after which a 12-day party ensued, ending only on January 6th with the Feast of the Epiphany. And here's the point: It's hard, if not impossible, to imagine modern Americans fasting for 4 straight weeks.
But it's even harder to imagine them partying for 12 straight days.
And, indeed, it's the fast that allows for the feast, and the feast that allows for the fast. In magical terms, this is a very traditional principle. It is discussed in the late 19th century magical work called the Kybalion under the names "The Principle of Polarity" and the Principle of Rhythm":
It is the fast which creates the feast, and the feast creates the fast. Lacking one, we can have neither.
It is for this reason that Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedo that he expects to awaken to another life after his death.
...
Preparation for Death
In the Phaedo, Socrates then goes on to tell his followers that the true work of Philosophy is to prepare for death. This is done, in part, by detaching from the body and its needs, its pleasures, and its pains. This withdrawal is what we call fasting, to which Jesus enjoins us here.
Now the Laws of Rhythm and Polarity comes back into play. In traditional practice, the Fast is followed by the Feast as Life is followed by Death. In the fast, we prepare for death, by withdrawing ourselves from the appetites of our body. But the feast too is a preparation for death! Just as the long fast of Advent is followed by the joy of Christmas, and the long fast of Lent by the joy of the Easter Season, so the long and weary earthly pilgrimage is followed by the awakening to Eternal Life.
Why Fast in Secret?
Let's close by reminding ourselves that Jesus tells us to fast in secret, as we are to pray in secret-- and for just the same reason. If we fast to win points from our fellow men, we'll achieve that goal. If we fast to be rewarded by our Father in Heaven, we'll achieve that, as well.
16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
Epithymia
Why fast?
Remember the three components of the soul, according to the Platonists: Nous, Thymos, and Epithymia. Nous is the mind, but especially that part of the mind which extends beyond thought, becoming a window into the Eternal World. Thymos is the spirited part, the will or energy. And Epithymia is the appetite.
Now, when we start on the path, each part of the soul must be brought into balance-- and as they have different functions, there is a discipline and a balance proper to each.
When the appetite is unrestrained, it leads the soul to disaster, and is the root of our entanglement with matter-- and that which is worse than matter. As Plato writes in the Phaedo, his account of the execution of Socrates:
Every pleasure or pain has a sort of rivet with which it fastens the soul to the body and pins it down and makes it corporeal, accepting as true whatever the body certifies. The result of agreeing with the body and finding pleasure in the same things is, I imagine, that it cannot help becoming like it in character and training, so that it can never get entirely away to the unseen world, but is always saturated with the body when it sets out, and so soon falls back again into another body, where it takes root and grows. Consequently it is excluded from all fellowship with the pure and uniform and divine.
Now, Jesus has already told us the proper function of the epithymia, way back in the Beatitudes:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Our appetite has an ultimate purpose, which is to lead us heavenward. It isn't that we should totally eschew the things of the material world-- we're here, after all, and to never to obey out appetite would be to commit suicide. But we must discipline our appetites.
And that's where fasting comes in.
Traditional Fasts
Traditionally, Catholics fasted Wednesdays and Fridays, and during select days and seasons throughout the year. These days, the Modern Church in its wisdom has abandoned the traditional fasts and today enjoins its members only to give up a random goody during Lent and to fast for real during one day of the year, Good Friday. Eastern Churches, who possess actual wisdom, have preserved the older custom; they continue to fast through all of Lent and Advent, and during Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all year round. Tellingly, the Eastern churches preserved their traditions and have managed to undergo a rebirth despite suffering almost unimaginably brutal repression under the Communist regimes of Russia and Eastern Europe, while membership in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as participation in the masses and belief in its doctrines by its nominal members, has plummeted during the same period.
Let's leave that aside for now, though-- though it's relevant to our discussion. I want to say a bit more about the traditional fasts.
Before the wisdom of the '60s put an end to it, there were four three-day fasts set at each of the cardinal points of the year. These were called the Ember Days, and there was one for each season. It's very interesting to note some of the traditional justifications for these fasts. The Golden Legend, compiled by Blessed Jacopo de Voragine in the 13th Century, tells us:
The fourth reason is because the man is composed of four elements touching the body, and of three virtues or powers in his soul: that is to wit, the understanding, the will, and the mind. To this then that this fasting may attemper in us four times in the year, at each time we fast three days, to the end that the number of four may be reported to the body, and the number of three to the soul. These be the reasons of Master Beleth.
The fifth reason, as saith John Damascenus: in March and in printemps [that is, Spring] the blood groweth and augmenteth, and in summer coler, in September melancholy, and in winter phlegm. Then we fast in March for to attemper and depress the blood of concupiscence disordinate, for sanguine of his nature is full of fleshly concupiscence. In summer we fast because that coler should be lessened and refrained, of which cometh wrath. And then is he full naturally of ire. In harvest we fast for to refrain melancholy. The melancholious man naturally is cold, covetous and heavy. In winter we fast for to daunt and to make feeble the phlegm of lightness and forgetting, for such is he that is phlegmatic.
The sixth reason is for the printeps is likened to the air, the summer to fire, harvest to the earth, and the winter to water. Then we fast in March to the end that the air of pride be attempered to us. In summer the fire of concupiscence and of avarice. In September the earth of coldness and of the darkness of ignorance. In winter the water of lightness and inconstancy.
Lent was also kept as a fast, and in theory is to this day, though not in practice. Advent, the period of 4 Sundays before Christmas, was also kept as a very strict fast, though today, of course, it's an extended shopping season. The important thing to note, here, is that each fast ends with a feast. In earlier times, the 3-4 weeks of Advent ended in a very strict all-day fast on Christmas Eve. This was finally broken with a special meal at midnight, after which a 12-day party ensued, ending only on January 6th with the Feast of the Epiphany. And here's the point: It's hard, if not impossible, to imagine modern Americans fasting for 4 straight weeks.
But it's even harder to imagine them partying for 12 straight days.
And, indeed, it's the fast that allows for the feast, and the feast that allows for the fast. In magical terms, this is a very traditional principle. It is discussed in the late 19th century magical work called the Kybalion under the names "The Principle of Polarity" and the Principle of Rhythm":
4. The Principle of Polarity
"Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."—The Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that "everything is dual"; "everything has two poles"; "everything has its pair of opposites," all of which were old Hermetic axioms. It explains the old paradoxes, that have perplexed so many, which have been stated as follows: "Thesis and antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree"; "opposites are the same, differing only in degree"; "the pairs of opposites may be reconciled"; "extremes meet"; "everything is and isn't, at the same time"; "all truths are but half-truths"; "every truth is half-false"; "there are two sides to everything," etc., etc., etc. It explains that in everything there are two poles, or opposite aspects, and that "opposites" are really only the two extremes of the same thing, with many varying degrees between them.
5. The Principle of Rhythm
"Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates."—The Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, to and fro; a flow and inflow; a swing backward and forward; a pendulum-like movement; a tide-like ebb and flow; a high-tide and low-tide; between the two poles which exist in accordance with the Principle of Polarity described a moment ago. There is always an action and a reaction; an advance and a retreat; a rising and a sinking. This is in the affairs of the Universe, suns, worlds, men, animals, mind, energy, and matter. This law is manifest in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations; in the life of all things; and finally in the mental states of Man (and it is with this latter that the Hermetists find the understanding of the Principle most important).
It is the fast which creates the feast, and the feast creates the fast. Lacking one, we can have neither.
It is for this reason that Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedo that he expects to awaken to another life after his death.
Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust—and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that in all opposites there is of necessity a similar alternation; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.
True.
And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have become less.
Yes.
And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower.
Very true.
And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.
Of course.
And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are generated out of opposites?
Yes.
And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?
...
Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other waking. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Do you agree?
I entirely agree.
Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not death opposed to life?
Yes.
And they are generated one from the other?
Yes.
What is generated from the living?
The dead.
And what from the dead?
I can only say in answer—the living.
Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?
That is clear, he replied.
Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?
That is true.
Preparation for Death
In the Phaedo, Socrates then goes on to tell his followers that the true work of Philosophy is to prepare for death. This is done, in part, by detaching from the body and its needs, its pleasures, and its pains. This withdrawal is what we call fasting, to which Jesus enjoins us here.
Now the Laws of Rhythm and Polarity comes back into play. In traditional practice, the Fast is followed by the Feast as Life is followed by Death. In the fast, we prepare for death, by withdrawing ourselves from the appetites of our body. But the feast too is a preparation for death! Just as the long fast of Advent is followed by the joy of Christmas, and the long fast of Lent by the joy of the Easter Season, so the long and weary earthly pilgrimage is followed by the awakening to Eternal Life.
Why Fast in Secret?
Let's close by reminding ourselves that Jesus tells us to fast in secret, as we are to pray in secret-- and for just the same reason. If we fast to win points from our fellow men, we'll achieve that goal. If we fast to be rewarded by our Father in Heaven, we'll achieve that, as well.
