Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The 'Fasting Body' and the Hunger for Pure Immanence Author(s): Jo Nash

Source: Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 310-327 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27512941 . Accessed: 29/04/2013 04:45
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Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 45, No. 3, Fall 2006 (? 2006) DOI: 10.1007/sl0943-006-9035-8

Mutant in The and for

Spiritualities a Secular Age: Body' Tasting the Hunger Pure Immanence

JONASH
ABSTRACT: form of 'mutant spiritualities', an accepted of ascetic product of secular materialism, in the the 'return of the repressed' explore a particular with of the fasting focus on the significance body, once and now cultivated a range of practice, by those seeking spiritual or celebrity in beauty the anorexic, the model and and elegance, including experiences; trading in search those of a new age spiritual I argue that further of the range enlightenment. exploration in which the fasting is desired is a lost experience of contexts that what reveal of body is cultivated an assemblage in the manner the body as an expanded field of energetic of aects of confluences, This article and expanded, will

an experience as Guattari's Such of the body is termed 'body without organs'. in that ecstatic it overcomes the light and even by those fasting regimes, following or limiting. of the body as 'heavy', burdensome The word derives from the experience ecstasy a textual to stand outside oneself. Greek of web of content 'ekstasis', meaning Through analysis a hunger to these food practices, I suggest dedicated that fasting for expresses cyber communities as pure immanence, 'self transcendence' of secular materialism that is both subversive and limited by narcissistic pathology. Deleuze

KEY

WORDS:

fasting;

spirituality;

ecstasy;

Deleuze;

psychoanalysis.

Introduction I propose is the 'return This article will explore what in the form of 'mutant spiritualities', secular materialism, of the repressed' of a particular with

Jo Nash, PGDip Ed, PhD (Psychotherapy Studies), MA., BA (Hons) has taught on theMasters in
at the University of Sheffield since 1998 and became Course in Studies Director Psychoanalytic an academic in mental 2001. health Before she worked October services for over becoming as a student social worker, trainer and researcher. She is currently 15 years nurse, advocate, on the application on a series to the study of psychodynamic of essays of social theory working in relation to new spiritualities, and political and gender and mental processes, processes, religion to Dr Jo Nash, of Health Mental and Related health. Health School Section, Correspondence

Research, University
J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk.

of Sheffield. Regent Court, 30 Regent Place, Sheffield, UK: SI 4DA.

310 ? 2006 Blanton-Peale Institute

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Jo Nash

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of the fasting body, once a product of ascetic spiritual a range 1987), and now cultivated by those seeking (Walker-Bynum, practice or in beauty the model the anorexic, of experiences; trading including celebrity I will and those in search of a new age spiritual and elegance, enlightenment. in which of the range of contexts the fasting argue that further exploration is a lost experience is desired of the body as reveal that what body is cultivated focus on the significance an expanded affective field of confluences, (Deleuze & Guattari, 1971, 1980) limited and burdensome. rather than as alienated, in these of people of interest involved that the communities It is a matter via the to choose communicate web, computer using practices primarily the physical of the repellent that prevent mediated presentation technologies of communication networks emaciated body. In that sense the disembodied for those involved further enhance these practices surrounding opportunities to sustain that may invite censure, behaviour otherwise socially marginal or judgement I do not wish to in a face to face setting. However, rejection, or the social pre of the cyber community, dwell upon the social dynamics in this essay. Here in the I am primarily of the 'cyberself interested sentation in at work these of like minded communities processes making meaning to sustain their desires, who share their individuals values, experiences to extreme, and socially marginal, food practices. I suggest, that commitment an textual of the exploratory analysis hypertexts produced by cyber through we can observe how fasting enables communities to these practices, dedicated the body as an energy field, an this shift in existential towards experience manner of and Guattari's affects in the Deleuze of assemblage 'body without a or BwO rather than boundaried (1971), discrete, entity. organs' corporeal Such overcomes an experience of the body is termed as expanded, light and even

ecstatic by those following fasting regimes (Rahn, 1928;Wulff, 1997), in that it

word the experience of the body as 'heavy', burdensome a Greek word meaning derives from ecstasy 'ekstasis', It is this desire for 'self transcendence' oneself. involving between attendant or limiting. The to stand outside the dissolution of

inner and outer, body and mind (and the proliferating on this primary existential dualisms is sought, I suggest, that split) those in extreme the by engaged fasting practices. During fasting, experience of the body in time and space is altered so one becomes located predominantly in the present moment. is what Deleuze is desired What called an experience boundaries immanence' and being at one with (Deleuze, 1995), a sense of lightness of'pure is usually the here and now, which reserved for the contemplatively gifted us. This is why fasting has been advocated as a amongst by many religions means of enhancing and contemplative meditation prayer practice, by pro a sense of attentiveness to the present which is inevitable if we are moting

battling with hunger (Rahn, 1928).

I will also inscription functioning explore how of a depleted (Symington, and a site the fasting body has become inner life characteristic starved 1998), such that the exterior for the body cultural or of narcissistic image,

1993,

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of affect, the inner world and lan surface has usurped corporeal cognition a a as of and chosen vehicle 1997). guage signifier self-expression (Kirkby, to the is an emerging Body dysmorphia particular psychosomatic pathology et al., 2004). In this paper I suggest that when West (Thompson postmodern our to communicate fail then words alienation, disintegration, fragmentation, our feelings these dissatisfactions of, our bodies write about, and experiences large, means as a of body enhancement the cultural inscription practices through affect and of mediating This includes experience. intersubjective to satisfy the hunger for a the body of food and/or over exercising depriving in out immanence' inscribed the lines of that 1995) map (Deleuze, 'pure flight terms the fasting body is also a the desirability of the 'fasting body'. In political to the cultural site of resistance of the consumption sub ethic, hegemony a or as to excrete the and cultural verting imperative ingest, process primary natural

in what Kroker calls our 'excremental' West activity post modern a writes at & The heart of the (Kroker Cook, 1986). fasting body large paradox Western control and yet driven by excess culture that is obsessed with weight It is at once a powerful to resist consumption. ability symbol of the human case of desire, in this the consumption ethic, and yet it hegemonic inscriptions as Western in the received of 'thinness' culture's acquiesces inscription The fasting body writes ideal of the body beautiful. large this cultural paradox and control the transformation of the constitutive of consumption through a body that becomes affects from inside out, to create a body-without-organs, a subjectivity much more than the sum of its parts. This body signifies that and subverts the confines and limits of language, exceeds by defying yet also dominant the wordless desires, culturally through inscribing cipher of the also (Kirkby, 1997). an understanding to use psychoanalytic ideas to approach of the as mean a a I of dominant which the emergence aesthetic, body fasting by a as as for sublime affective well the achieve striving subjective experience ment aesthetic form. To do this I will review the cultural of a particular sig nificance of the ancient of for (which westerners, spiritual practice fasting an accepted remains in the main world religions of Judaism, practice spiritual the historical work of Walker Islam, and Hinduism) Christianity, through a practice, will This article of such and the (1987). explore Bynum psychology a under dualistic this secularisation of how has mutated process through or as a health into what has been reconstructed denying practice polarisation, a as as and of health dietic such known anorexia; practice benefit, pathology, or health is based upon a yogic the extreme end of which fasting, cleansing inedia suggest called that 'breatharianism' voluntary into a polarised as both pathological inedias on light' (Jasmuheen, or living have been transformed through I will 1998). a process of 'telling flesh' I also wish

secularisation, reconstructed the social enables

reconstruction it to be construed

set of food practices that have been socially It will also be argued that it is and curative. that of fasting as a new age health/spiritual practice as 'other' to anorexia, but not as an eating disorder,

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Jo Nash

313

as a reordered that these 'mutant

food practice, inedias voluntary

spiritualities', of these voluntary to try and I wish In exploring the psychology inedias answer Is of experi the following there any commonality question. primary terms the in and in various forms of involved of fasting ence, objectives, goals a overcome can to of from that desire the ancient hunger, help trace lineage a to set of diseased ascetic and cross-cultural polarised religious practice, food practices curative, yet secularised, today? I propose that the use of Deleuzian with Bipnian ideas theory, in conjunction of how this secularisation will aid an exploration of spiritual (Bion, 1967,1970) to use Deleuze to per takes place. I want and Guattarri's concepts practices form a preliminary theoretical of the health of exploration pathology denying as anorexia and the health of fasting enhancing therapy I mean will also be in the breatharians. what this adopted by exploring might context of advanced western societies obsessed of food the role increasingly by in the construction of body image, particularly to size, beauty in relation and the of world existing alongside persistent problem ageing, hunger. fasting known

of health As such, I argue benefit to adherents. on a continuum to curative of pathological in the flesh of the fasting body. inscribed exist

Mind,

body and

spiritual

fasting:

from Freud

to Deleuze

In a post-Nietschean of truth, and age, now that 'God is dead' as the arbiter the measure of all things, Deleuze and Guattarri show us how Freud substi tutes the triune Judao-Christian constellation of godhead with the triangular Oedipus mommy with what (Freud, S. 1915-17), they call the 'holy family' of 'daddy me' (Deleuze and Guattarri, accounts of how we 1971). Pre-industrial were into human and faith the persons by religion, divine, develop regulated the highest state being holiness meaning human literally, wholeness (Malony, 1983). This was characterised person attaining by the human spiritual unity

with the godhead, which in Christian western of the tri societies, comprised une godhead of the father, the son and the holy spirit. In a godless universe Freud's us to secularised I want (and I use that term because 'revelation', remember us that his theory came to him in a dream), shows that instead, we are moulded the on the of the by Oedipal trinity 'holy family', which passes policies, neurotic morality culture milieu and socio-cultural in which it thrives. of the patrifocal, quasi-incestuous,

most and his followers, of the ills of Western society can all be an traced back to internalised in the lives of individuals, inadequately Oedipus who then go to act-out this unresolved in their wider familial rela complex in the institutions and groups of the wider world. This tionships with others, internalised leads to neurosis, it is the job of the which inadequately Oedipus uncover to and correct. This of the Oedipus psychoanalyst working through takes the transferential between complex place through relationship analyst

For Freud

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with the clinician the position of 'locus parentis', analysand, occupying return of unconscious the unresolved The vicissi material. evoking Oedipal are tracked and analysed tudes of the transference in order to resolve the at This analytic aims the neurosis. and full internalisation process acceptance of Oedipal of incest, and the redirection of this Law, that is the prohibition a cure. as desire into sexual the this 'original' genital pro relationship, Only cess can transform into ordinary unhappiness', the explicit 'hysterical misery aim of psychoanalysis, for Freud, is the norm. because, ordinary unhappiness and Marcuse and/or (1942, 1962), and other revolutionary not disagree would that this is the most thinkers, we can expect in secular, bourgeois, efficient equilibrium capitalist society, but to this later. In another then we will return kind of society, there perhaps would be other possibilities. are destined those who For Freud, evade Oedipus, to however, thereby (1956, 1972), socialist psychoanalytic as perhaps of marginal social positions mystics, psychotics, or a combination and artists of these. Such revolutionaries, ecstatics, poets and people, may not know why they are the way they are, but, say Deleuze us an to it due that is of Freud evasion the shows demands of Guattarri, occupy Oedipus, to a failure to love and work as others do, and accept that as as are or is it Those who unable good gets. ordinary unhappiness unwilUng to conform to Oedipal and most law are the craziest of us all says immature leading a range Fromm

Freud.

I want this paper, to suggest within that the non-Oedipalised However, different to the dominant entertain desires social political moraUty perhaps and Uve. The outright within which of these anti they develop pathologising seams desires risks the creative mined diminishing richly Oedipal by those on I contend, of society. the margins Deleuze and that such using Guattarri, are compelled a of different kind desires embodied by knowing, archaically other than ordinary unhappiness, which (Nash, 2000), that there is something even if there are psychological is worth having and social costs involved. Al the price may be high at times, perhaps the non-Oedipalised though prefer even if the creative is intermittent sometimes about hysterical ecstasy price Deleuze intellect who may be a case in point here, as a man of gifted misery. battled of his life, then ended up commit drink problem most some run to such risks, than settle for the may prefer However, ting erotic wasteland that Marcuse describes of a life of con (1956), comprised of social atrophy ventional and the soulless toil This 'ordinary unhappiness'. to evade the demands of Oedipus, as the source of all is understood preference suicide. individual with a serious

in classical and social psychopathology psychoanalytic thinking. the evasion of Oedipal in a society be because that may imperatives a to will result in of rewards them, degree marginalisation, only conformity outcome about of hysterical with the potential for and/or scapegoating, misery However this description of what happens concerned. when the individual(s) be so. is evaded does not explain why this should necessarily Oedipus This

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I suggest, following Deleuze and Guattarri (1971,1980) that Oedipalisation

is an effect of a cultural society, an adaption but ecstasy, mean an experience bliss, body, wherein and that to a capitalist secular, bourgeois particular prohibition 'cure' of accepting Oedipus the psychoanalytic only serves as What is prohibited in this cure is not incest, to this prohibition. or what Lacan would I call 'jouissance' (Lacan, 1972), by which (or rather unsymbolised) unity, of 'unthought' mind and and boundaries between self and other, dualisms as pre be defined and feeling dissolve. Such ecstasy may of monadic

thought in psychoanalytic that 'oceanic state' (Freud) psy in that it recalls Oedipal at the mother's believe was experienced breast, before entry into choanalysts to convey the sense of having moved I prefer to call it trans-Oedipal, language. the confines of Oedipus, of beyond triangulation, beyond beyond the demands we once the have been into fully interpolated linguistic symbolic language I suggest of a subjectivity that has is a function order. Trans-Oedipal bliss, exorcised the desires and invest associated instead desire de-oedipalised, that does not pure immanence with Oedipus, has become deterritori?lised, a nomadic becomes of singularities assemblage in an object as such, but in a life, here and now, in 1995).

(Deleuze,

We will say of pure immanence that it is A LIFE, and nothing else. It is not immanence to life, but the immanent that is in nothing is itself a life. A life is the
immanence of immanence, absolute immanence: it is complete power, complete

is an absolute bliss.[...] no longer dependent on a Being or submitted to an Act?it immediate consciousness whose very activity no longer refers to a being but is ceaselessly posed in a life [...] Small children, through all their sufferings and are infused with an immanent Ufe that is pure power and even bliss. weaknesses, to the degree that they fill The indefinite aspects in a life lose all ind?termination out a plane of immanence or [...]to the degree that they constitute elements of a field (Deleuze, 1995: 27-30). emphasis in original transcendental The bliss of pure immanence is a consequence to the of a commitment can only be lived by embracing which continuous present moment, change at the core of subjectivity from a place of paradoxical the opening stillness, desire of a transversal that can sustain the 2000) (Buchanan, comprised connective and Guattarri flow of what Deleuze termed nomadic intensities, and plateaus (1972, 1983). In short, trans-Oedipal subjectivity the false hierarchies and dualisms Law and relates of paternal fra collapses a on rhizomatic lines of that exist of ternally, along flight plane immanence, once Oedipal more or less has been 'tried on for size', negotiated subjectivity confluences and overcome. successfully, The trans-Oedipal even on the social margins, subject can evade pathology as they remain aware that the Oedipal is in the majority, but instead subject a 'surf the Oedipal that compel mode of social organi trajectories particular sense of hierarchical that instil a strong in it's social sation, functioning

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functioning subjects. This hierarchical that meets the needs of the dominant Oedipal through

reproduces class under

a form of social production and so the trans capitalism, system the

the continued subject threatens of revolutionary the enactment

mode invests desire invests

of the capitalist reproduction writes desires. As Buchanan

with the interests manner...

'...reactionary nant class....

in conformance desire in...a

of a domi to cut

revolutionary

transversal

across barriers

of race, class and gender.'

(Buchanan,

2000: 29)

sex The Oedipalised subject can attain bliss too of course, by experiencing one with other that albeit before connective flow is orgasm person, briefly, one is to the of returned which and Freud broken, unhappiness ordinary a range of crea can be attained Or ecstasy writes. through trans-Oedipally, These practices, and ascetic practices. aim to tive, mystical including fasting, subvert the dualistic of triangulated economy splits necessitated by a psychic ual alienation, concomitant to remedy of Oedipalisation, and Newtonian view and false dualisms the alienation Cartesian characteristic industrial and their capitalism, of the cosmos. As Deleuze writes, in such a world inherent view,

'The collective problem then, is to institute, find, or recover a maximum of con nections. For connections (and disjunctions) are nothing other than the PHYSICS OF RELATIONS, THE COSMOS (Deleuze, 1993: 52)' emphasis in original. to another, more In short, if people were able to attune view of ecological to connect with their radical (root) relationality 1992) with (Brennan, reality, and inorganic) then the political the entire (human, environment, organic economy and cultural ethic of competitive upon which consumption capitalism a sensual thrives form of ecstasy (which is the only means we have of attaining a 'spiritual in secular fall. I call this facility for connectedness society), would a as with of invested Eros pure immanence, modality' being trans-Oedipal which the purely matrix of objects, human extends and partakes beyond calls the univocity of what Deleuze of desire. Eros Trans-Oedipal the human matrix of relations of, yet supercedes, partakes purely object common to what Deleuze and Guattarri call the 'holy family', and inaugurs the Eros bour affective BwO as a nomadic, corrupts assemblage. Trans-Oedipal instead and the compartmen limits, requisite boundaries, ontological geois Oedipal to fuel the consumption of desire necessary ethic. It deterritorialises taUsation a lived reality so it instead becomes of consumption, desire from the matrix relational nomadic connectivity, and deterritorialisations. territorialisations However, Oedipus, explored necrosis of continuous and rhizomatic becomings,

of of

that defy the cultural of it is the cultural phenomena imperatives in this paper, that are probably best such as those highlighted the omnipresent subvert by a social theory that also aims to actively of familial Deleuze neurosis?) triangulation. (causing an omnipresent

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has show us how a spiritual and Guattarri theory of origin and development I suggest with what been replaced by a sexual one in the form of Oedipus. that, consumer of secular Marcuse (1956) calls the sexual society 'de-repression' a on demand of sensual (with its promise ecstasy continuously represented), are numinous sacred and the the the of social repression spiritual, retaliatory in a range of nevertheless This repressed returns, spirituality inaugurated. 'perverse' adultery, of Victorian to psychoanalysis...to gave rise bind' of Oedipus, 'double present forms, disease culture of promiscuity, just like sex did in the underground culture in the sexually and prostitution repressive prevalent it is this culture of sexual repression which Interestingly England. what

and Guattarri Deleuze call the omni as the current has age given rise to the just renounces the which God and double secular yet bind, promotes new-age a of of and range (boggling?) consumption mind-body spiritual purchase are what I call at one and the same time. These new age practices therapies of the most than mutant (rather perverse sexualities), though spiritualities of what their soul is, and consumers of such produce have no clear conception or not God exists. are not interested in whether in the life of the godless bind sustained Is the double spiritual junkie an can or one a nurture the soul How indication of hopeless spirit in a enterprise? con think that it is the inherent Deleuze and Guattarri universe? godless so the and releases in this double bind that forestalls tradiction foreclosure, can in turn only be which born of creative disjuncture, 'desiring-production' In a term via the non-reductive understood schizoanalysis. they exploration a sense the ten subversion is total of dualistic Newtonian, schizoanalysis in a is In the schizoanalytic which located of psychoanalysis. dencies schema, in not cosmic of is fabric discrete the universe, comprised objects quantum of of plateaus of intensities, comprised of between the space energy, apparent objects composed the contrasts and This with psy Newtonian, markedly light boundaried cathected universe of ontologically choanalytic by the objects, or absent. as either In the schizoanalytic human mind present quantum in both is and all continuous nomadic shifts of ter universe, absent, present are termed with what and deterritorilisation, 'lines of flight' ritorialisation on a of this desiring tracing the nomadology production plane of immanence. space, but with both solid dark matter. and cos of the old dualist subversion revealed polarities binary by recent new and also lends itself to about bodies, ways of thinking mology subjectivity and Guattarri have taken on board in their anti culture. This is what Deleuze as the of intersubjective, rhizomatic Oedipal, philosophy 'desiring production' The source and destination that I suggest being that number orthodox acts of living, that is living as a life of pure immanence. Imean the spiritually that aspect of our repressed, (by which is able to experience this plane of immanence) in a has returned or more of practices to be less secular and/or the judged 'perverse' by In this case, regulated looking on from the outside. religious majority motivated fasting, commonplace in religious societies, has of a continuum of matter

of spiritually

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Iwish to argue remains with the associated into a food practice which mutated as 'self-transcendence, as pure immanence, cultivation of ecstasy understood of the physical that enables practice body to become the BwO. The secularised or as a one at extreme has reconstructed been dangerous pathology fasting fad dieting, health fad at the other, and includes anorexia, as such and that cleanses and purges, cultivated 'inedia', fasts, detoxifying new in order that they attain a undertaken movement, age breatharian by the I suggest the widespread that this is because despite self-sufficiency. godlike desire for an experience of uni of culture, the age-old human secularisation our of dualities and the of obUteration existential and the fication, ecstasy, eccentric health sense of alienation (Johnson, which 1987). block this, persists and will be pursued, however perversely

From

religious

fasting study

to Pro-Anorexia of fasting

(Pro Ana):

Inedia

and

the BwO

In her historical Ages, Caroline practices

common (1987) fasting

Walker-Bynum of religiously motivated

traces and

women of the Middle to religious the lineage the food between contemporary anorexia.

The early 1980's saw a flurry of interest both in the popular press and among of the doctors in so-called female eating disorders -without the least awareness in similar behaviours occurred' context until very recently, which, reUgious

(1987: 75)
on the absence of the historical of knowledge in continuum She remarks in the treatment of anorexia, involved clinical professions the contemporary new into the links may these that making and proposes provide insights women of of medieval food The reUgious practices Europe phenomenon. a very concern were at that serious time. The of Catholic theologians in fact to be a cross-cul of food for women appears religious significance in the late nineteenth that remarks She transhistorical tural, phenomenon. a were number of medical doctors and there 20th centuries and early in the ability of certain who were interested very theologians case in of Teresa the to live without stimulated part by eating, as an to the breatharian Neumann (now claimed (d 1962) inspiration to ascertain wished whe and clinicians Teams of theologians movement). could be a to Uve without ther an ability alone, food, or on the eucharist a medical or a special of supernatural result grace. condition, powers, were dis Catholic that also remarks Walker theologians deeply Bynum so to of these wished find and turbed by other behaviours 'fasting girls', often spoke out These that there was no such connection. girls and women name of the in the the of church and the of men, holy hypocrisy against CathoUc women holy spirit, and were able to discern consecrated from unconsecrated bread

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the eucharist. offered them during in charge the 'holy men' Unsurprisingly, were of proceedings wished to find that these abilities influenced by the or both, rather than God. She writes; devil, or madness Just as doctors and psychiatrists tend to treat fasting under such rubrics as fear and battle for control?forgetting of mutilation, that rejection of the mother, whatever else it is, it is a food practice ?so theologians and historians have failed to notice that food miracles, eucharistie piety, and abstinence are all food prac tices. Once one notices that eating and not eating are central themes in medieval European culture, as in many cultures, much of the long available evidence on spirituality appears in new patterns, and new evidence begins to emerge (1987: 75). on the 'pro-ana' movement, research of (Ward, 2004) a cyber-culture as a to aim who anorexics normalise anorexia 'lifestyle option', rather than a medical reveals how spiritual metaphors inform their activities and condition, are used to explain the phenomenon of 'pro-ana' anorexia. The pro-ana phi as follows by the authors is explained of web pages on one site, losophy Recent Volitional, proactive anorexia is not a disease or a disorder. It is not to be con fused with EO-anorexia; it is not something invasive which one "suffers from." There are no VICTIMS here. It is a lifestyle choice that begins and ends with a short supply of today: the particular faculty human beings seem in drastically will. (2004: http://www.plagueangel.net/grotto/idl.html) a forthcoming also promised extension of the pro-ana manifesto 'Pro-Ana as Spiritual Path and Discipline: in Conformity Change (2004: http://www.plagueangel.net/grotto/idl.html) The above quote emphasising the will certainly has a Nietzschean to flavour it. In her paper, Ward describes how famous 'waif celebrities as such Kate are held up as 'thinspiration' Moss and Clarista Flockhart by the pro-ana movement. Also, the images of celebrities posted on the site bear comparison to the ethereal, creatures of angels and fairies depicted in 'pro otherworldly ana art'. These as examples icons are cherished of the perfection, purity and We entitled: with Will' control strate bodies, coveted their superhuman a range through that these people The icons of thinspiration demon by the pro-ana movement. a quasi- divine control over their status by exercising of diet fads, extreme etc. I exercise, fasts, cleanses, are employing secularised of ancient ascetic versions are

suggest strenuous control of fleshy desires, which evoked practices involving similarly the admiration of the followers of saints, mystics, and visionaries, and led to them being conferred with divine status for their ability to exercise extreme levels of control over 'lower' animal appetites. we dare to regard When the food practice of fasting non-pathologically, outside the bio-medical model then I (Ward), suggest we can see a common

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motivation tional

the human them. Each involves in the inten subject of desires, and we can trace an historical shift in the of these desires and their source motivation, from the religious conception or a 'divine source' of desire for change, towards a sense concept of inspiration, of individual will, or a 'will to power', that such changes are reaUy a matter in a Nietzchean of icons would to I like sense, modelled propose by thinspiration. connecting transformation that Deleuze unconscious' and Guattarri's is a useful

or 'transcen ontological plane of immanence, for the of volitional transfer concept explaining sec transhistorial food practices, between these transcultural, and religious in a mutant to re-emerge form. The notion of the transcendental ular societies, to cultivate a certain human for example unconscious desires, explains why a sense of a body that supercedes without do not die out flesh, 'body organs', dental with as a result An ancient on the but becomes continues re-contextualised spiritual practice radically new as a consequence of relational confluences with new plane of immanence, mutant of something but long ancient generating categories technologies, as In a secular context the fasting body has an 'uncanny' presence, forgotten. reus new connects and familiar in old with 1919)) (Freud, long something to transform the expression of 'de-repressed' (Marcuse, 1956) desires. but rather 'mutate' on the plane of immanence secularisation, in of rhizomatic the intensities and flows of desire. relational shifts

ways

From

to living Pro-Ana immanence. for pure

on light: mutant

spiritualities

and

the hunger

'Like a plant, surely the body can be trained nourishment from the air. When

to exist

on nothing,

to take

it's

you coast without eating for a significant period of time, and you are still alive, you begin to scoff at those fools who believe they must eat to live. It is blatantly obvious to you that this is not true. your progress.' (2004: http://www.plagueangef.net/grotto/id7.html)

Food hinders

as an inspirational The above quote was again taken form the pro-ana website, of a desire to live the practice. This expression affirmation used to help sustain as a food practice on air alone has also been actively cultivated by the as a not reclaimed but breatharian rather as a movement, eating disorder, to adherents. of health This inedia reordered benefit is a food practice, food practice mutation of an ancient Eastern by yogis, who profess developed and live on 'prana' or light', ageing the ingestion the body through sustaining to defy plants, if they transform their 'addiction' (loosely of food to food translated) and liquid and eating rather than (Jasmuheen, through the

1998). The belief is that human beings can indeed live on light and air just like

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of a twenty-one The self process. voluntary undertaking day attunement an for her of this internet base has movement, guru Jasmuheen, styled or the Cosmic her called the Internet site CIA, business, Academy. Through a manifesto for living, that she recom of activities, she offers a programme can help an individual her mends She also markets achieve self-mastery. seminars and books through the internet too. She writes,

One of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself is complete mastery over the and all of your energy fields. Mastery is about being molecular structure a in of to state constant exist pure health, regeneration, and freedom empowered 2004: http://www.selfem from disease on all levels of our being. (Jasmuheen,
powermentacademy.com.au/lifestyle2.htm)

of the internet sites that are registered when you type into any search engine demonstrate how very controversial this is. The sceptics food practice claim that these new age gurus are conning the we a in and have human all of cultures yet tradition, long standing public, or a to of live without less food The desire with kinds, food, temporarily. breatharians ascetics prove this is possible. claim that yogis and other Eastern Some also claim to be extraterrestrial and weave vast of systems beings, A brief tour 'breatharian' unearthly they also of the schizophrenic mental 2004). (Jasmuheen, on those with openings is often bestowed in their auric field that schizophrenia attract parasitic is deliverance they claim. The cure for this condition energies, auric re-programming, say the breatharians. through the Deleuzian to the schizo this resonates with attraction Interestingly, as our of real to the experience phrenic revelatory relationship ontological bestows them state with and belief around thought credulous would swallow this, that it appears 2005). This (Brookes, which abilities, telepathic to this writer, only the most origin they claim the with compare The of diagnosis

and reterritoriali deterritorialisation continuum, territorialisation, through on between of the of imma sation, desiring-production assemblages plane nence. The hallucinated own is creator of her the she is world, schizophrenic a to is her of her which This desires. be a pivotal may experience product or an a ecstatic it whatever is it but is of pure production experience, terrifying un the desires, freed from the dungeon of repression by the transcendental I suggest an conscious. that the food practice of intentional is act also of fasting a an act conscious but of the rather than unleashed will, desiring production transcendental unconscious. the new age market of mind-body-spirit the Perhaps therapies, including are capitalising on the deep hunger many have in the secular breatharians, a ised West for is often called lost sense of unity, what but 'transcendence', a sense of expanded which is about achieving state of embodiment, a BwO to extend fuelled desire of 'self beyond the by a transversal experience of skin and flesh. boundaries I contend that an exploration of the textual

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and Health

to in this paper reveal the cultural referred of the cyber communities a for of hunger of ecstasy, lost experience of bliss (Johnson, 1987) inscription in the Western that has left a vacuum these mutant psyche, which spiritu on these sites have a common nar alities hope to fill. The shared exchanges a sense of how the food practice rative content of fasting evokes describing content of our existential dualities characteristic state, and an terms the of evasion castration of psychoanalytic ontological from our source of nourishment, of amounts almost to an evasion separateness on as an such to be viewed anal As ambition live and the weaning. light' may in nature and evading the existential of dif narcissistic, regressive reality a of otherness from Are the ference, psychoanalytic Oedipal perspective. overcoming in classical the mind-body breatharians to an early nutritive state, rather akin unconsciously regressing to the way an embryo or foetus attains the nourishment in womb at the same as as this of divine self-sufficiency? time evidence the Interestingly promoting are closely aligned to the rebirthing movement breatharians (Orr, 1977), with on regression to attain its emphasis catharsis and ener through breathwork however to be moving would profess Both movements getic cleansing. beyond realm associated the physical with early life, into a post-corporeal, primarily self

an increased state. Both actively aim to cultivate sustaining, spiritual a into this for which self ecstasy, generated breakthrough capacity signals an a followed inner from of release peace realm, by post-corporeal resulting toxins and/or stress. embodied archaically Jasmuheen sells a 21 day programme that, she alleges through her website a foolproof evasion of separation from this primal nutritive state, and is a market is sold by extolling for it. The 21 day programme the virtues of the absence of bowel movements, of a need to attend to inges the absence which is akin to a womb and elimination, like state also. The tion, digestion, sense of extreme of of such desires for purity, and evasion control, anality are all too obvious to those of us with a matter through digestion processing once you've paid the 2000 dollars it costs However, psychoanalytic perspective. for the 21 day programme just think of all the money you'll save on food (the web site cheerfully is also sold as a cure for reminds purchasers)! This practice achieves there world as a selfless and ultimately altruistic. hunger, enterprise to no eating, end of this continuum from eating less extreme includes reasons. Often the outcomes of fasting for health dieting and fasting for health reasons loss and sense of purification. include increased The energy, weight The is to transform akin the heaviness of the to the fasting mystics movement echo such of the main in a lighter, in traditions. Those religious some for a crepuscular existence, flesh, to become to an image depicting an

desire manner

the pro-ana longings and death. between embodiment where earthly a one in added As says pro-ana writer caption creature, fairy-like angelic,

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for the is so damn sweet your mortal earth cannot compete...starving Infinity other shore, I will not eat' (2004: http://www.plaQueanQel.netlQrotto/idl4.html) is a practice expressive It appears of secularised desire that for some, fasting as an expanded state of consciousness, that is then reconstructed to experience on or therapeutic, the context socio-cultural and either pathological depending is clearly a of the practice. There in constructing the meaning who is involved common desire to expand and extend in all three practices the limits of the to fasting it be through adherence supported by meditational body, whether or will the force of alone. This and prayer, power paper suggests by practice of materialistic that in an age characterised secularisation, by the spread ' is beyond' the chuman desire for a sense of integrated the unity with what common rather than the duality to the of the physical plane, experience has become of mind and body as distinct, recontex rationalised, experience that in other ways than explicitly I propose expressed 'spiritually'. with cha the which Deleuze and Guattarri organs, body superseding a as a medicalised, to become without dualistic racterise entity, 'body organs', is driven by the fundamental that is a unified energetic desire of the intensity, tualised and organism for ecstasy and and bUss.

human

Theoretical

discussion

conclusion

In a secularised the limits of the flesh society, this desire and need to overcome has become transformed in into other practices that seek to satisfy this desire, a a more a to kind of body, become order expanded body that includes physical awareness or exterior, of areas of consciousness, collective that (Jung) mind, to many used to be available and/or communal, through spiritual religious a language to provide The only social theory that attempts for practices. of achieved by this process in and found A and Guattarri, expansion, Anti-Oedipus to Newtonian Thousand Plateaus. is paradoxically This, minds, perhaps a in its ontology, materialist but a materialism of order of different admitting a In this the the inhabits schema, quantum reality, 'mind', cosmology. body as an affective where the mind is conceptualised of desires tra assemblage thinking the plane of pure immanence. to versing Body does not exist in opposition an not to and mind is is the brain. reducible Mind of mind, energetic plateau as an via of and consciousness, affect, experienced intensity desiring thought Bion's of the affective of the (1967) clinical observations thinking. registration a minutae of transference of in search of thinker' phenomena, 'thoughts of intuitive not mere comprises apprehensions, cogitations) consistent with this Deleuzian The common appear theoretically enterprise. are cosmological, as Bion foundations of both sch?mas to too was aiming a concomitant into psychoanalysis, and develop import quantum cosmology (Bion's 'thinking' of the states about is the work of Deleuze consciousness

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Journal

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and Health

then processed theory of embodied mind, experienced affectively, cognitively the of and When symbolism through linguistic naming containing. language fails us said Bion, psychosis set in. The purpose of psychoanalytic dis may a language course is to provide of affective for the subtle registrations expe a that would otherwise remain unsymbolised and uncontained. Having as a container for affective disinte may help prevent language experiences and regression, because gration, psychosis symbolisation through language enables to take place. I propose that Deleuze conscious and Guattarri thinking us with a language for conceptualising how the psychological pro provide cesses Bion attends known' by Bollas to, called the 'unthought (1987), operate rience in the wider relations social and cultural sphere, Newtonian in terms of a 'political physics' of social (Protevi, 2001). use and Guattarri Deleuze the ontological subvert dualities

to against itself, model underpinning or healthy. of existential the polarised states into pathological classification Hence their subversion of a psychoanalysis based as it is upon an unconscious as the guiding of civilisation, becomes instead deploying repression principle as a that the unconscious schizoanalysis 'factory', generating deploys desiring Hence the famous quote from Anti-Oedipus production. 'A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the a A of fresh couch. breath with the outside world.' air, analyst's relationship psychoanalysis and hierarchical medical

(Deleuze & Guattari,

1971: 2)

as the with its unconscious Classical of psychoanalysis inaugurator to a reductionist tends always of any and all differ repression pathologising ence from what that is socially is regarded 'normal' within the as, 'Oedipally', of Western For psychoanalysts social formation the evasion of capitalism. of its actualisation and the concomitant in the 'holy evasion Oedipalisation, arrest. Yet many indicates failure and emotional of the family', developmental most in Western creative people do just that. Family societies life may not be to creative production conducive of anything other than children, unless there one or other partner is a bifurcation of roles, that enables to evade most or parents are able to pay staff to perform It is difficult this function. childcare, a to imagine how a woman infant her write book, create a might breastfeeding or music. compose sculpture us to conceptualise enables various language Schizoanalytic processes what to in 'other' is familial in non-pathologis desiring engaged production, terms. This materialist draws upon a sub ing, and cosmologically language of interrelationality, verted psychoanalytic that admits of quantum cosmology no 'essence' or impenetrable us as discrete to between what appear boundary a we in of live universe of rhizomati objects. Rather energetic assemblages, on an energetic All exists transitional desires. nomadically cally organised, continuum interconnected trajectory confluences and flows of intensities of desire, comprising of immanence, which is an omnipresent the plane in and transforms that participates brute what is', from inorganic of affects through

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matter stone

to the most highly complex organism. In this way, a human being and a are very much and their existence the connected related, through of their particular machinic the flows and couplings through assemblages, on the plane of immanence. that converge intensities in plateaus Freud called these environment of unconscious in our that is the investment desire 'cathexes', our relations that enables us to construct meaning, and prioritise in terms of their ontological to objects of the conceptual Much significance. in origin, but Deleuze and is Guattarri schema adopted by psychoanalytic a profound involves subversion of the discursive of reductive dualities flows

us from the categorisations It delivers employed by psychoanalysts. pathology an illusory rationalising to of the psychoanalytic mind it that enable exercise a sense in of being control of what is irrational the omnipotence, through a discourse of naming. Deleuze and Guattarri for also developed activity the irrational, but decline any need for control through naming symbolisation. as the the irrationality of the universe and radical uncertainty They celebrate source of creativity as desiring in science, it be expressed whether production, or love. poetry, music It is my contention that the Deleuzian of social relations model in grounded a materialist an can to of and desire affect contribute (Protevi) political physics of how the practice one to achieve of rigorous enables understanding fasting, an altered an experience state of consciousness that permits of this plane of immanence. The food practice of inedia; whether to religion, pro aligned or on anorexia breatharians 'thinspiration', living light', enables practitioners an altered to achieve a collapsing state of consciousness that permits of the dualistic affective divisions between to and beyond, subject and object, within enable an experience of transversal, desire to enjoy both, at one trans-Oedipal the alienation characterising to the psycho-social and beings subject industrial It is an experience of the col society. common to those suffering from psy lapsing of the inner and outer world's, that underpins much creative chosis, but also to the mystical imagination can enable this process, can and Guattarri work, as Deleuze propose. Fasting be ecstatic claim. In schizoanalytic terms it can reconnect us to practitioners existence everyday dictates of modern political experience of human that Oedipally bliss we crave, enable us to move the cor prohibited beyond the body with organs to become a BwO on the plane 'self, to 'transcend' poreal of immanence. to attain a conscious connective flow within the plane of immanence Fasting a subversive It enables to attain then, is in some ways, activity. practitioners state of consciousness dualist divisions beyond the conventional and the of driven forces consumerist manipulated by objectifying capitalism. divisions of inner and outer, self and other, mind and body, thought Binary are overcome, and feeling, decision to resist the desire to through a conscious consume. This enables practitioners to resist being invaded and colonised by a dominant cultural ethic of consumption, and subjected to these dualistic forces an existential and the the same time. This overcomes

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of fragmentation, of disintegration. or healthy, as pathological regarded BwO resists The without organs'. ingest from

the outside, then project to define desire of its own to intervene. meaning, itself, with no substantive a The BwO culture that of a desire for repression challenges reproduces and stifles undermines ecstasy, creativity, imagination. However to all this there is a paradox: these secular fasting practices resist

In this way voluntary inedias, whether of the 'body may be a modal expression the consumerist to cultural imperative out from the inside, in order to construct

the colonisation ethic, but at the same time 'buy into' a set by the consumption re: of desirable the the healthy the thin images body beautiful, body. Perhaps because it is an image of power and control, of an inspired body is celebrated to overeat. Perhaps with in a culture saturated will to power, stimuli that is in a secular, thin people attain a god-like consumerist status, why wilfully of the self-sufficient, narcissistic indi reality society. They are an embodied This desired as the highest societies. good by Western characteristically not by consuming is achieved health food, but by consuming diets, and exercise alternative the cultural programmes, cleanses, purges, therapies, are con fitness of these food practices of 'thinspired' gurus. Much produce a endow to new age mind-body-spirit with that them nected mutated practices vidualism spiritual meaning. tices that enable their desires New agers transform other ones. While them to cultivate some consumption intake means patterns

for prac by shopping a preoccupation with are food the transformed, limiting new age books, and of fasting seminars diets, purges, regimes, purchase means the consumption ethic of western remains societies micronutrients or even 'alternative' to see what is in any way intact. It is difficult 'spiritual', about that.

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