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Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word κάθαρσις, katharsis, meaning "purification" or "cleansing". It is most commonly used today to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. The desired result is an emotional state of renewal and restoration. In dramaturgy, the term usually refers to arousing negative emotion in an audience, which then expels it, making them feel happier. In Greek the term originally had a physical meaning only. This began with its use to describe purification practices. The first recorded uses of the term being used in the mental sense was by Aristotle in the Politics and Poetics, comparing the effects of music and tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of catharsis on the body. The term is additionally used in Greek to refer to the spiritual purging process that occurs in the Christian Purgatory. Greek Neoplatonists also used the term to refer to spiritual purification. Catharism was a term used by outsiders to describe the thinking of a Christian movement so named because of its interest in purity. In psychology, the term is associated with Freudian psychoanalysis where it specifically relates to the expression of buried trauma (the cause of a neurosis), bringing it into consciousness and releasing it, increasing happiness. The term also has uses relating to the physical body. In medicine, it can refer to the evacuation of the catamenia ("monthlies", menstrual fluid) from someone. Similarly, a cathartic is a substance that accelerates the defecation of faeces. Purification ritual The term "kathairein" and its relatives appear in the work of Homer, referring to purification rituals. The words "kathairein" and "katharos" became common in Greek. It is thought that they are derived from the Semitic word "qatar" ("fumigate"). Aithiopis, a later epic set in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Later, the Greeks took certain new measures to cleanse away blood-guilt—"blood is purified through blood", a process in the development of Hellenistic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example—Orestes—belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood. The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us, on a krater found at Canicattini, wherein it is shown being employed to cure the daughters of Proetus from their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the question of whether the ritual obtains atonement for the subject, or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction". Platonism In Platonism, catharsis is part of the soul's progressive ascent to knowledge. It is a means to go beyond the senses and embrace the pure world of the intelligible. Specifically for the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, catharsis is the elimination of passions. This leads to a clear distinction in the virtues. In the second tractate of the first Ennead, Plotinus lays out the difference between the civic virtues and the cathartic virtues and explains that the civic, or political, virtues are inferior. They are a principle of order and beauty and concern material existence. (Enneads, I,2,2) Although they maintain a trace of the Absolute Good, they do not lead to the unification of the soul with the divinity. As Porphyry makes clear, their function is to moderate individual passions and allow for peaceful coexistence with others. (Sentences, XXXIX) The purificatory, or cathartic, virtues are a condition for assimilation to the divinity. They separate the soul from the sensible, from everything that is not its true self, enabling it to contemplate the Mind (Nous). Passive psychological Catharsis is a term used in dramatic art that describes a particular effect of a performance on its audience. The first recorded use of the term being used in the mental sense was by Aristotle in his work Politics, regarding the use of music:And since we accept the classification of melodies made by some philosophers, as ethical melodies, melodies of action, and passionate melodies, distributing the various harmonies among these classes as being in nature akin to one or the other, and as we say that music ought to be employed not for the purpose of one benefit that it confers but on account of several (for it serves the purpose both of education and of purgation [κάθαρσις]—the term purgation we use for the present without explanation, but we will return to discuss the meaning that we give to it more explicitly in our treatise on poetry—and thirdly it serves for amusement, serving to relax our tension and to give rest from it), it is clear that we should employ all the harmonies, yet not employ them all in the same way, but use the most ethical ones for education, and the active and passionate kinds for listening to when others are performing (for any experience that occurs violently in some souls is found in all, though with different degrees of intensity—for example pity and fear, and also religious excitement; for some persons are very liable to this form of emotion, and under the influence of sacred music we see these people, when they use tunes that violently arouse the soul, being thrown into a state as if they had received medicinal treatment and taken a purge [καθάρσεως]; the same experience then must come also to the compassionate and the timid and the other emotional people generally in such degree as befalls each individual of these classes, and all must undergo a purgation [κάθαρσις] and a pleasant feeling of relief; and similarly also the purgative [κάθαρσιν] melodies afford harmless delight to people). (As translated by Harris Rackham)In his treatise on poetry, Poetics, he describes the relief brought about by a staged tragedy:We must now treat of tragedy after first gathering up the definition of its nature which results from what we have said already. Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action that is heroic and complete and of a certain magnitude—by means of language enriched with all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the different parts of the play: it represents men in action and does not use narrative, and through pity and fear it effects relief [κάθαρσις] to these and similar emotions. (As translated by Harris Rackham) Purgation or purification? In his works prior to the Poetics, Aristotle had usually used the term catharsis purely in its literal medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the katamenia—the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material) from the patient. F. L. Lucas opposes, therefore, the use of words like purification and cleansing to translate catharsis; he proposes that it should rather be rendered as purgation. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions." Ge.... Discover the Manifest Happiness Hypnotherapy popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Manifest Happiness Hypnotherapy books.