sentences:  Fasting and other disciplinary methods are resorted to curb the flesh.Under a strict construction of the meaning of Asceticism, it is an error to assume that its history may be extended to embrace also certain rites in vogue among devotees to fetishism and nature worship.Mutilations, the sacrifice of the hair, dietary observances and prohibitions, which abound in all forms of religion at a certain stage of development, do not spring from the notion of the sinfulness of the natural instincts and of life.