Milk

The ancient belief, which persisted for centuries, that mother’s milk was transformed blood reinforced the image. As a mother nurtured her young, Christ nurtured the flock with his blood during the Eucharist.

Later it was said that the reason both brothers did so well in school was that they had eaten the Brahmin's food, which in the Ayurvedic system of traditional medicine would be called sattvic: balanced, pure, healthy for the body-mind. Over vegetables and flatbread, rice and daal, they imbibed not only the ideal foods conducive to learning but also

Spirituality and religion originate in a particular kind of felt experience. These experiences are typically short-lived, surprising and uncontrollable, but they seem, to the person having them, to be highly significant and attractive.

We only ever got pigs’ blood. This wasn’t because it was the only type of animal blood the butcher had. ‘Pigs are dirty,’ my mum said once. ‘It’s what your body deserves.’ But it turns out that pigs aren’t naturally dirty. Rather, humans keep pigs in dirty conditions, feeding them rotten vegetables, letting the mud in their too-small pens mix with

Maybe in its beginnings the Christian faith was the same as the Buddhist, and this is now lost in the confusions of hateful sects that distort history.

any object invested with religious sanctity can, over time, become a substitute for the real thing.

any object invested with religious sanctity can, over time, become a substitute for the real thing.