ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHIES. 759 



the ghost to be propitiated is that of some ruling man, 

 notorious for his greediness, his love of bloodshed, and, in 

 many cases, his appetite for human flesh. To such a ruling 

 man, gaining power by conquest, and becoming a much-feared 

 god after his decease, there arise propitiatory ceremonies 

 which entail severe sufferings. Hence where, as in ancient 

 Mexico, we find cannibal deities to whom multitudes of 

 human victims were sacrificed ; we also find that there were, 

 among priests and others, self-mutilations of serious kinds, 

 frequent self-bleedings, self-whippings, prolonged fasts, etc. 

 The incidental but conspicuous trait of such actions, 

 usurped in men s minds the place of the essential but less 

 obtrusive trait. Sufferings having been the concomitants of 

 sacrifices made to ghosts and gods, there grew up the 

 notion that submission to these concomitant sufferings was 

 itself pleasing to ghosts and gods ; and eventually, that the 

 bearing of gratuitous sufferings was pleasing. All over the 

 world, ascetic practices have thus originated. 



This, however, is not the sole origin of ascetic practices. 

 They have been by all peoples adopted for the purpose of 

 bringing on those abnormal mental states which are sup 

 posed to imply either possession by spirits, or communion 

 with spirits. Savages fast that they may have dreams, and 

 obtain the supernatural guidance which they think dreams 

 give to them ; and especially among medicine-men, and those 

 in training to become such, there is abstinence and submission 

 to various privations, with the view of producing the 

 maniacal excitement which they, and those around, mistake 

 for inspiration. Thus arises the belief that by persistent self- 

 mortifications, there may be obtained an in-dwelling divine 

 spirit ; and the ascetic consequently comes to be regarded as 

 a holy man.* 



* It is curious to observe how this primitive idea still holds its ground. 

 In Blunt s Ecclesiastic Dictionary there is a laudatory description of the 

 prophet Daniel, as &quot; using his ascetic practices as a special means of attaining 

 Divine light :&quot; the writer being apparently ignorant that medicine-men al 

 over the world, have ever been doing the same thing with the same intent. 



