This page groups practices by the year their recorded history begins. Wikipedia notes that "the term 'cult' first appeared in English in 1617," even though the underlying Latin concept is far older. Browsing by start year lets a visitor see how far back a practice's documented use in its own language reaches.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingPractices undertaken to remove a condition the tradition treats as impurity and to restore fitness for worship or for ordinary life - ablution before prayer, bathing, confession, the sweeping out of leaven, exorcism, purification by smoke. Impurity here is a ritual status rather than dirt or sin, and its causes and remedies are set by each tradition's own law. 2 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseSourced to the subject's own accountTwo practices grouped here, smudging and the sweat lodge, are English names for ceremonies belonging to particular Native American nations, several of which those nations hold closed. The Lakota Summit V declaration of June 1993 objected by name to their conduct by people without standing. The atlas records that they exist and publishes no procedure. 3 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard analytic category in the study of religion 2 Learn More
The purificatory practices
This group gathers purificatory practices, the acts by which practitioners cleanse themselves of impurity or sin in preparation for worship or as a discipline in itself: ritual washing, bathing, fasting and other rites of purification. The concern with purity before the sacred is nearly universal.
The browser will find purificatory practices from across the traditions. The entries describe each practice's form and meaning, noting the conception of purity and pollution that underlies it.
Origin Period Start Year
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. PurificationView the Source 3. Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality
Lakota Summit V, 1993the holders' own account
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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