Purity and Purification

Ritual and Spiritual Purification is common among many religious groups and often goes hand in hand with physical and mental hygiene. That is: Ideally it should be regularly maintained- but it also need not be a constant concern to practitioners. However, it seems that modern Pagans have lost the large variety of religious terminology that was once used to describe the various types and severities of spiritual pollution, and the methods through which we purified ourselves of them.

This is an issue when not all types of spiritual and metaphysical impurity are the same, and when each requires a different type of ritual to purify- or standard of cleanliness for certain activities. Thankfully as NeoWiccans, however, there are only two main types of spiritual and metaphysical impurity we need to concern ourselves with most often: Borrowing terms from Hellenic Reconstructionism for want of better terminology, this is Lyma and Miasma; additionally there are two main things we must concern ourselves with purifying of these forms of impurity: Space, and Personage.

Miasma is often used as a catch-all in modern Paganism for any type of spiritual impurity. The reality, however, is that in proper historical contexts it is often coupled with the words ἀσεβής (impious), ἀκαθαρός (impure) and ἀνόσιος (unholy). Thus it only refers to spiritual pollution caused by impious behavior- which to the Ancient Greeks would have been actions such as Murder, Incest, Adultery, Sacrilege, and other severe crimes. And because of their spiritually significant nature, specific purification rites were required to remove Miasma, thus necessitating the criminal’s exclusion from the use of lustral water, and from participation in community rites, until their crime was expiated.

In other words: Miasma is caused by severe physical and spiritual transgression specifically committed against either another person (especially one of the same family or social group), or against the Gods. It is not a morally neutral and inherently human occurrence; average people do not simply gain Miasma. It is therefore incredibly rare that someone would actually need to purify either a space or theirself of it.

What one probably does have, however, is Lyma. Literally translated as “the thing you wash away”, Lyma is pollution caused by common occurrences of everyday life. And even though it is a form of spiritual pollution, it is highly attached to the physical reality of dirt; the basic ideology behind it is that whatever dirties us physically must also pollute us spiritually.

This means that in our everyday lives we become not just physically dirty in many simple ways, but that this also causes us to become ritually and spiritually dirty: By riding the subway, flying, or being exposed to car fumes; getting scratched by our cat and bleeding; interacting with a couple who recently had sex, or having sex ourselves; picking our noses; going to the toilet; catching a cold; coming across or interacting with a dead body; anything that involves dirt, bodily fluids, illness, and death.

Lyma is not a bad thing, however. It is just a natural fact of life; we need cleansing of these impurities because of what we do and what happens around us- not because we’re inherently impure ourselves.

A clear binary is presented between us and the Divine, in that the Divine is sacred and wholly pure. But while we carry within us a portion of the Divine Spark, we are not ourselves Divine. And so while our default soul state as Humans is pure, it is ultimately impossible for the Human body to remain pure and sacred at all times. And this is not through any fault of our own. It is simply because of the nature of material, mundane, non-Divine life- which actively lends itself to impurity. Likewise, this impurity is not a negative, but merely a natural part of being not Divine.

We can ‘become pure again’ briefly, though, through various ritual means of purifying ourselves. And we should, out of respect for the Divine and the powers which we manifest- as well as those we act in manifestation with, if any. Purification is therefore ultimately the one of the most basic and essential acts of purification one can participate in- and in that regard, it is Lyma that is most often what you wash away during the cleansing process.

This is where the concept of the Lustral Bath, or Purification Bath, prior to ritual ultimately derives from. It’s considered bad form, even, at times, to enter a Wiccan ritual space without having had some kind of a purification bath prior to doing so. The Mikveh is also a common cleansing ritual, especially before Shabbat on Friday nights, or if practicing the family purity laws. One doesn’t always have to take such significant action as a ritual bath, however, to cleanse oneself of Lyma. The action can also be as simple as washing one’s hands before approaching the Divine in Prayer; it seems in Antiquity that this, at its most basic, was the most common way of cleansing and purifying, and cleaning oneself, before something important- much like washing our hands before dinner in the modern age.

Equally as important to the cleansing of the self before prayer and ritual, though, is the cleansing of the space itself in which the prayer or ritual is to take place. And all for much the very same reasons: It mirrors both the principles and deeds of Sacred Hospitality, but it’s also simply more respectful to conduct religious or magical work in a physically clean space- and many religions have a similar concept of not putting the Gods in the presence of physical dirt, either. It’s also less distracting to perform a rite in a space that’s not only physically clean, but also devoid of unwanted and impure energy that has accrued throughout the day.

Cleansing both the self and the space beforehand also helps focus your mind on the upcoming ritual; for some people, cleansing the space from top to bottom, then cleansing the self and going through the ritual of dining one’s garb and jewelry, becomes a trigger that pulls them into the ritual headspace before the circle is even cast.