Why do so many religions fast?
Fasting is one of those practices that refuses to stay in a single box. It’s biological. It’s psychological. It’s political. It’s mystical. It’s communal. It’s deeply personal. It is both ancient and suddenly trendy with the biohack bros who have a podcast mic and hype protein shakes.
What happens when we choose hunger on purpose?
Across deserts and monasteries, temples and kitchens before dawn, human beings have stepped into emptiness — not because suffering is holy, but because hunger tells the truth.
In this episode, I wander through Lent and Easter, Ramadan and Eid, Yom Kippur and teshuvah, Hindu vrata, Jain purification, Buddhist simplicity, and even the Stoics who practiced voluntary discomfort. The theologies are different. The claims are not interchangeable. But the pattern hums beneath them all.
Fasting humbles the body. It clarifies desire. It strips away distraction. It reminds us we are not self-sustaining.
In ancient agricultural worlds where famine was never far away, fasting ritualized dependence. In our modern world of constant availability, it interrupts excess. Either way, hunger becomes a teacher.
This is not a diet episode. This is not detox culture.
This is about repentance and return, about submission and surrender, about resurrection and repair, and about learning what truly sustains us.
Because every fast eventually ends the same way:
With a table. In community. Steeped in gratitude.
Learn more about Angie at the Moon + Stone Healing.