Traditional preparation for ceremony includes dietary restriction, sexual abstinence, reduced social contact, and a sustained orientation of attention toward the work ahead. In some traditions, participants enter a simplified dieta, a period of dietary and behavioral restriction, in the weeks before ceremony. Prayer, time in nature, and quiet reflection are common practices. The underlying principle is consistent across lineages: you arrive to the ceremony having already begun to step outside of ordinary life and its patterns (O’Shaughnessy and Berlowitz, 2019; Berlowitz et al., 2018).
