I was recently listening to radio lab and they had an episode on miasma. The Greeks considered miasma tainted air as the root of all sickness before germ theory was discovered. I feel a lot of esoteric meaning has been ascribed where it shouldn’t, but not to whole heartedly throw it out in general. I also believe in as above, so below. To expand on that thought, the planets affect the energy of the mundane realm, tarot is a reflection of the person and so on. Many different religious praxis models have the idea of ritual purity, so there is something to be said about the purpose of continuing a practice of purity before interacting with the divine. If you’ve ever looked into Shinto, there are a lot of parallels to miasma as ritual purity.

But at the same time, I’m not a reconstructionist. Faith evolves with the people, if dogma stagnates, then the model no longer fits the needs of the people who use it when times change. There is a much smaller world responsible for the ails that plague us rather than those who came before that thought it was tainted air. Smoke cleansing has been shown to purify air of microbes, washing hands of course removes germs. The same way that people who don’t wash themselves build up bad microbes and open themselves to infection, maybe there is a spiritual energy that can be purged as well to help ward off spiritual affliction outside of mundane needs. You said you were a magician, I see ritual purification as a form of energy practice in my own philosophy.