Debt asceticism

One of three forms of asceticism Marsh distinguishes, and the only one that produces joy. Asceticism generally is depletion of energy in a personal animus by the will associated with that animus, which is what separates it from torture, where the controlling will is external and the anima goes to a predator instead. Debt asceticism works on anima bloat, the condition of holding an excess taken from others. Reducing the excess reduces the debt and the guilt that comes with awareness of it, and the relief of that reduction is the joy in the definition. The other two forms do something different. Tantalus asceticism causes a slight lessening of the cravings of an endoself by removing from view objects they cannot possess, which manages a symptom rather than a debt. Punitive asceticism is self-flagellation, debasement or deprivation in which the target extracts anima from themselves, which is closer to self-directed predation. The distinction matters because all three look identical from outside. Someone fasting, giving away possessions or living plainly may be balancing a debt, managing a craving or punishing themselves, and only the third is destructive. Marsh adds a caution about who is praised for it. Asceticism is not a great accomplishment in one who experiences primary anima with revulsion, since giving up what you cannot enjoy costs nothing.

Asceticism is studied comparatively across religious traditions as a technique of self-transformation, and Max Weber's account of inner-worldly asceticism made Protestant self-denial the engine of capital accumulation. Psychology reads self-denial through impulse control and delayed gratification, and the clinical literature separates religious fasting from disordered restriction largely by intent and consequence. None of these divides the practice by what it is doing to a person's energy balance. Marsh's three-way split is the unusual contribution, since it lets the same visible behaviour count as relief, management or self-harm depending on whose will is directing it and what is being reduced.