Book Description:

A leading scholar of ascetical studies, Richard Valantasis explores a variety of ascetical traditions, such as fasting, in late Antiquity developing a theory of asceticism informing the analysis of historical texts and opening the way for postmodern ascetical studies. Wide-ranging in historical scope and in developing theory, these essays address asceticism for scholar and student alike.

Book Description:

Using evidence from disciplines as diverse as history, geography, biochemistry and genetics, the author demonstrates that schizophrenia is caused by the hallucinogen adrenochrome and its derivatives. Effective treatment involves orthomolecular substances that reduce adrenochrome production or mitigate its impact. Foster discusses the work of psychiatrists Allan Cott and Yuri Nikolayev, who prescribed fasts for mentally ill patients.

Book Description:

Encyclopedic in its breadth and depth, the book provides a clinically relevant discussion of religious practices, such as fasting, as a resource for mental health and an analysis of the processes that encourage the conservation and transformation of significance. Pargament describes the psychology of coping from the complementary vantages of a scholar and clinician. Of note is the sophisticated presentation of theory and empirical data which leads to an appreciation of the role of religion in sustaining meaning and hope in the face of adversity.

Book Description:

This landmark book focuses on a problem that permeates modern life: that the abundance and ease of 21st century living is a mixed blessing. The authors offer unique insights into the movtivational factors that make us susceptible to dietary and lifestyle excesses, and present ways to restore the biological processes designed by nature to keep us running at maxium efficiency and vitality. Lisle and Goldhamer are on the staff at True North Health, a fasting facility in Santa Rosa, California.

Book Description:

Caroline Bynum's book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, examines the importance of food for religious women in the Middle Ages. Although there has been other recent research into the lives of women saints and the way they dealt with food and fasting. Bynum uses examples from the lives of well known saints, like Elizabeth of Hungary, Lidwina of Schiedam, Columba of Rieti and Catherine of Siena, not because these stories reflect what were normal fasting habits in the Middle Ages, but because their lives are well documented and they served as role models for Medieval women. .

Book Description:

This book is an excellent historic study of women possesed with piety, most of these women were nuns from the 14-15th century. They expressed a dedication to Christ through an aesthetic lifestyle that included fasting, self-inflicted torture, mystical hallucinations and extreme self-denial. The women who fasted to death gained a martyr like status.

Book Description:

Dutch psychologists Vandereycken and Van Deth survey the historical, literary, medical, and social interpretations of self-induced starvation. These range from signs of sanctity or demonic possession in ancient times to religious wonder, curiosity, and medical mystery. Anorexia nervosa is seen as a recent manifestation arising from changes in Western society at the end of the 19th century. While acknowledging anorexia as a primarily female phenomenon, the authors touch on other forms of self-starvation common to both sexes including hunger strikes and fasting as therapy.

Book Description:

When discussing the advantages of fasting in relation to psychological well-being, it is important to also look at the history of anorexia nervosa. Brumberg presents a history of women's food-refusal dating back as far as the sixteenth century. Here is a tableau of female self-denial: medieval martyrs who used fasting to demonstrate religious devotion,