ABSTRACT
Cleansing is a basic feature of human biology, psychology, and sociology. Our bodies cleanse themselves of waste by exhaling, urinating, and defecating. Beyond routine cleansing and washing, human cultures also tend to turn cleansing into a social and religious ideal. This ideal seems to demand a vocabulary of purity, and religious cleansing tends to be called the purification of pollution. Ideas about purity and pollution and ritual practices of purification appear in very many cultures around the world. Purity ideas engage more than customary rituals. Purity vocabulary is a common feature of religious rhetoric, ranging from sectarian polemics to the most refined theological and mystical speculations. According to Mary Douglas, ritual provides a mnemonic method and formulates experience. Douglas's explanation for purity and pollution changed conspicuously when it came to the social function of the Bible's lists of pure and polluting animals.
