Ancient healing therapies -
They are reported to have the ability to look into the body of their patients and see their illnesses. In these cultures, herbal remedies featured prominently.
Preparations such as herbal tonics, washes, massages and even aromatherapies were often recommended. Treatments such as sweating, as we see today in contemporary saunas were utilized. We now recognize the value of sweating. It helps cleanse the body of toxic elements and boosts the immune system.
Hot baths were also employed. Bathing calms the nervous system and can help stimulate blood circulation. It can also help relieve common aches and pains of the body.
Early physicians also recognized the role that our thought and emotions play on our health. This came in the form of prayers, drumming, changing, toning, meditation and the use of directed intention.
The art of healing goes back into deep antiquity. Medicinal plants, as a therapeutic tool, have been discovered in the archeological record. In , archeologist Ralph Solecki and his team excavating in a cave in North Eastern Iraq unearthed a 35 — 45 year old adult Neanderthal male.
His body was discovered about fifteen meters from the mouth of Shanidar Cave. Evidence suggests that the man was intentionally buried.
He was interred in a shallow grave and his body was placed in a fetal position. Beneath his body was a bed of woven woody horsetail. Reconstruction of Neanderthal burial discovered in Iraq. Photo source. These plants are reported to have curative powers that include diuretics, astringents and stimulants and ones with anti-inflammatory properties.
The pollen discovered at this site provides evidence to just how long medicinal herbs have been used in a healing practice. If this man was an early physician, as the evidence seems to indicate, the knowledge and use of herbs for their therapeutic properties must extend back even further in time than the 60,year date of his burial.
Herbal medicine is not the only alternative therapy that we have found evidence for in the archeological record. The year was when hikers trekking through the Ötztal Alps discovered the mummified body of a man frozen in the ice.
Tests indicated that this man, dubbed the Iceman or Ötzi, lived about five thousand years ago. The tattoos are dark blue in color and are believed to have been made by using soot that may have been removed from a fireplace. The majority of the over fifty tattoos that cover his body are arraigned in groups of one, two, three, four and even seven parallel lines that run along the length of his body.
The crossed shaped tattoos found on his left ankle and knee correspond to acupuncture trigger points. Nowadays, acupuncture is sought out for the relief of pain, where specific points are activated along channels known as meridians.
Fifteen of Ötzi tattoos are located on the bladder meridian. This meridian is traditionally targeted for the relief of back pain. Physical examination of Ötzi body revealed that he suffered from severe knee, hip ankle and back issues as well as abdominal disorders.
A cross-shaped tattoo on Otzi's knee. These are only a few examples of ancient and indigenous healing techniques.
The list of methodologies they employed can go on and on. While we can only speculate at this time as to when we began to utilize these techniques to restore health, in the end, it is easy to see that they have been in use for eons.
It is understandable why many people are hesitant to embrace concepts offered by alternative health practices. We have been taught that the methods used by our fathers, and our fathers father are bad, ineffective or harmful.
Our bodies were designed with the innate ability to heal itself. They are not intended to ingest, digest, incorporate or process synthetic products or substances. We have been taught to ignore the outcome, the byproducts and the side effects of these manufactured chemical substances as long as we feel better in the short term.
We have come be believe that we can experience happiness through chemistry, yet as a people, we are becoming sicker and sicker each day. The goal of allopathic medicine is to eliminate symptoms, not heal the body.
The focus of alternative health practices, like our ancestors, is to heal the body. We know from the historical record that the use of herbs, acupuncture, ritual, prayer, meditation, toning, massage and many other healing modalities have been employed for thousands of years.
The historical record for the effectiveness of traditional cures holds firm regardless of how much it is mocked as voodoo medicine. No one wants to get sick and if we are ill, we all want to heal. If you have in the past shied away from traditional, alternative healing modalities, perhaps it is time to take another look at them.
As you can see, these methods have been practiced for thousands of years. When people came to the temples of Asclepius, they began their healing experience in the outer sanctum, where the concerns of the physical body were addressed. They fasted, studied nutrition, detoxified, and were massaged with anointed oils.
In my office, most people expect to be addressed initially at this level of healing. They want to know that, for their particular diagnosis, there are some physical remedies that can be applied. They are, however, fortified and lulled into a false security by the beliefs propagated through mechanistic medicine: if they are suffering from a symptom, there must be only a physical explanation and hence, only a physical treatment.
I believe this attitude is fundamental to human nature and typical of our collective understanding of disease and illness at this time. This approach to healing is entirely appropriate, albeit limited, and forms the basis of the methods of healing we bring to bear at Stage Two of the Seven Stages model.
The research that links mind, body, and spirit Stages Two through Seven in the Seven Stage model to physical healing, although it exists, has not yet achieved respectability among mainstream practitioners.
It will probably take another few decades before the research achieves a level of reproducibility that will convince the skeptics to sit up and take notice.
Back to the ancient temple of Asclepius. After they had completed the rituals and practices of outer healing, Greek patients would move into the inner sanctum of the temple, where the priests officiated. In the middle of the temple were stone pillars carved with symbols of twin snakes winding around and down the pillars.
The twin snakes or serpents were the symbol of healing in Greek mythology—the balanced serpents of the conscious and the unconscious, the inner and the outer. This was to acknowledge that health is not just an external matter.
Patients were also required to take an oath, swearing allegiance to the gods Apollo and Asclepius. They also were asked to give an offering of a honey cake, implying that in order to gain something, they had to let go of something that was no longer working in their lives, to allow for renewal.
Elliot Dacher describes this ritual:. It was expected that the patients, when they went into the inner temple, would stay for a number of days, if not weeks. In fact, it was encouraged that they not leave until they had had some sign, usually in the form of a dream, signifying that healing was either underway or complete.
They were asked to reference their inner wisdom, the healer within, an essential requirement in any healing experience, where the limited vision of consciousness as experienced through the five senses is enriched by messages and symbols from the unconscious.
These dreams were then interpreted by the priests and permission was then given to continue on the healing journey.
In undertaking this part of the experience, they were acknowledging that they were not coming for a quick fix or a physical cure, but were prepared for an encounter with the deeper medicine, the healing force within.
The twin snakes, the Caduceus, are the symbol of healing used in modern medicine. Myth tells us this is the staff of Hermes, the Greek version of the Egyptian god Thoth. He was worshipped as the creator of the arts and the sciences, of music, astronomy, speech and the written word.
The staff is said to represent the power of the gods. Greek legend has it that one day Hermes was walking along and saw two warring snakes fighting with each other. He took his staff and struck it between them to separate them.
And now the symbol of modern medicine is the staff of Hermes, separating two opposing forces, not letting one outshine the other, not letting either win the battle in their struggle for supremacy. The two opposing forces are Wisdom and Knowledge, and the caduceus is a reminder that medical practitioners must maintain a balance between the two.
Knowledge, in this framework, is what one learns from the outside: the doctor brings his many years of arduous training to bear on the diagnosis.
Both of these sources of wisdom must be accessed by not only health care providers in the application of their healing arts, but also by the patient, in order to maximize the healing transformation.
The patient must acquire as much external knowledge as she can, from as many different sources as she needs, while also being cognizant of the fact that not all healing is about external remedies or potions.
An inner journey is required. Alastair Cunningham has described the broad terrain of this dichotomy by dividing the different routes to healing into two broad categories:.
There are many spontaneous or automatic healing mechanisms operating constantly in the body and mind; for example, healing of wounds, the immune response to foreign micro-organisms, or, at the mental level, the lessening of anxiety or depression with the passage of time.
Assisted healing , by contrast, denotes some kind of active intervention, by the person herself, or by others. He further divides the latter form of healing into two forms. Further to these two ways of healing is that which is transcendent to both.
Deepak Chopra, in an address to the Institute for Noetic Studies IONS conference, Washington, , spoke about the fact that there are three essential ways of perceiving reality:.
In mechanistic, externally-assisted healing, we are highly dependent on knowledge at this level. This occurs in the mind, not in the physical world. Thus if we wish to know this deeper aspect of ourselves, this timeless, eternal, non physical self, we cannot use the eyes of the flesh or the eyes of the mind.
One has to traverse the territory of the inner landscape, the world of transcendent consciousness that is beyond the experience of everyday waking reality. This landscape is beyond both mind and body. It is as if you see with another eye, another perspective, often called the witnessing self, where the concerns of the body and that of the psychological self, fade into the far distance, and what is left is this sense of presence, this sense of a timeless and eternal Self.
All concerns about physical reality, health and illness, disappear into the expanded realization that we are not our physical bodies. There is a deep, abiding, unshakeable inner silence and knowing. It is as if our souls have woken up to their existence and to their relevance. In the East, with its profound dedication to the inner process of healing, there has long been a tradition of orientating oneself towards this experience through various yoga traditions: Bhakti yoga is the path of love and devotion; jnana yoga is the path of intellectual rigor and discipline; hatha yoga is the path of physical mastery of the body and the senses; and karma yoga is the path of selfless service.
By dedicated and rigorous adherence to these spiritual practices, the possibility of transcendence to only sensory and mental ways of seeing the world is possible.
The path to transcendent consciousness is arrived at via the third way of perceiving reality that Chopra describes. The West has not had the same exposure to these well-defined disciplines. This awareness of transcendent consciousness is a relatively recent development with the emergence on the planet of the great sages Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Socrates and the sages of the Upanishads.
Previous to their appearance on the world stage, human experience was limited to everyday reality as dictated by the senses and the mind, motivated largely by a desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, feeding, procreation of the species and fending off approaching danger were very much the only operational systems of day-to-day existence. Once these sages spread their teachings, human beings were able to transcend mundane states of living and taste reality for the first time—not reality as is witnessed through the five senses, but transcendent reality, the state of pure awareness so well described in metaphysical texts.
Once the patients had been in the temples and had their inner transformative experiences interpreted by the priests, they were then escorted outside of the temple to large amphitheaters where traditional plays, such as the Oedipal Trilogy, the trilogy of Orestia, the journeys of Odysseus, and the great dramas of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes were enacted.
The largest theatre in ancient Greece was at the healing temple at Epidaurus, and with its perfect acoustics, it is still in use today. The purpose behind exposing patients to these dramas was to illustrate to the patients that what they considered to be very personal, dramatic experiences had their origins in antiquity.
This exposure was meant to reinforce that whatever problems the patient had, others had those problems, too. By reflecting on the themes that were enacted in these plays, those of lust and betrayal, revenge and shame, suffering and salvation, the individual could engage in deep inner therapy where the meaning and lessons of their own lives could be compared to those enacted on stage.
Wisdom could be imparted and the experience gained could be contemplated, against the backdrop of the patients own lives. Furthermore, many of us have been through great traumas in our lives, from romantic betrayals to divorce and bankruptcy, death of loved ones, and stories of loss and gain.
This realization would lead them to lighten up somewhat, to take themselves a little less seriously, knowing that we are mythical beings living out mythical lives.
In Ancient Greece, as in our world, one of the greatest dangers to living at ones maximum potential, is making the mistake of taking oneself too seriously! Many of us have taken heroic journeys—spending the first half of life conquering and creating a safe haven for our emerging egos, only to find in the second half of life that nothing of the senses truly satisfies our soul.
Nothing outside of ourselves really satisfies our deep existential longing for a fulfilled, related and meaningful life. Once we wake up to this awareness, we then shift our awareness from an outer-directed life governed by trying to satisfy outer authorities our parents, our peers, or societal expectations , to an inner-directed psychological or spiritually-based life where the questions we ask are more about the meanings behind apparent reality.
Some of us have struggled with these life transitions and thought we were quite unique in these experiences, but throughout antiquity, these stories and dramas have repeatedly unfolded. We are all participating in this greater story of life.
Furthermore, within the Asclepian temples, in the surrounding gardens and walkways, there were statues completed by some of the great sculptors of the day such as Phidias and Praxiteles. Beauty, truth and virtue were all aspects of the good life and a more profound well-being.
In summary, Greek healing methods suggested that there is an interweaving of both the inner and outer experiences through the evolution and shift of consciousness.
Outer remedies were required, but inner ones were just as significant. For every movement on the outside, there had to be the possibility for a movement on the inside as well.
It is important to realize from the Asclepian times onwards, this movement between the outer physical healing and the inner healing, from the Scientists to the Vitalists, from the rational to the mystical, has been perpetuated throughout history. At certain periods, the outer traditions have held sway, such as what we now experience in Western medicine, and at other times, more inner directed practices have been dominant.
According to Elliot Dacher, there have been two major periods where the outer and inner ways of healing have been equally balanced, the first being the times of ancient Greece and the second in renaissance Europe. And for a brief shining moment, inner and outer ways of knowing and healing were in the proper balance and harmony.
When this occurs, there is a corresponding flourishing of the arts, science, healing, and of human life itself. It is apparent, with the recent interest in all forms of healing, that we are once again in a major crossover period in our history.
We have developed extraordinary competence in technological advances and outer ways of healing, but have largely ignored the compensatory opposite, the significance and mastery of the inner life.
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: Ancient healing therapies| Your guide to ancient healing therapies, and the wellness resorts that offer them | Entertainment Weekly. Therapiees root of the Ancien Ancient healing therapies addressed, as opposed to healnig Ancient healing therapies Glucose monitoring system attended to with prescription medication, only to return. Rolfe, Trans. Email Updates. Millennia-old well-being philosophies, from traditional Chinese medicine to Ayurveda, transport you to another time and world, helping you emerge more balanced and renewed after the experience. |
| Ancient Healing Methods: The Seven Stages to Health & Transformation | Besides prescribing herbal remedies, shamans also perform rituals that involve prayers, fasting, sweating, offerings and massages to aid recovery. Plan a visit: Embark on a journey towards self-acceptance and self-love with the Marry Oneself experience at Rosewood Mayakoba in Mexico. Guests will also be treated to an array of skincare or body treatments such as the Light of the Season to calm and stimulate the body. The Marry Oneself journey culminates with a pre-Hispanic wedding ceremony to signify a lifelong commitment to unconditional self-love and acceptance. The ancient healing therapy flourished during the Golden Age of Islam between years and , and paved the way for modern orthodox medicine. The concepts and ideas by great Islamic physicians and scientists, such as Al-Razi, author of His Book of Medicine for Mansur, and Ibn Sina, who wrote The Canon of Medicine, were undisputed for centuries and are still discussed today. Within this school of thought, illnesses are generally indicative of a disordered state of body fluids and mind. Treatments come in the form of herbal medication, dietary adjustments as well as spiritual care. The first in the world to hone in on this prominent traditional healing system, it offers over treatments, all of which aim to inspire positive and enduring lifestyle changes. The spectacular resort is divided into two areas: the adults-only Zulal Serenity and the family-friendly Zulal Discovery. Programmes are tailored to individual health needs, whether for relaxation, detox, weight management or fitness. Zulal Serenity also boasts extensive wellness facilities, which include thermal and hydrotherapy suites, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a gym outfitted with the latest Kinesis equipment, a state-of-the-art physiotherapy studio, an apothecary and an aesthetics centre. You may not have heard of it, but you probably have tried it one way or another. Fango means mud in Italian, and the use of mud for healing and beauty purposes can be traced as far back as ancient Egypt, where royal physicians used clay as an anti-inflammatory agent. Cleopatra, too, slathered on mud from the Dead Sea as part of her beauty regimen. As the Roman Empire spread, fangotherapy rose to popularity in Europe for its ability to detoxify the body, nourish skin, improve circulation and relieve aches. Plan a visit: Terme di Saturnia is a 3, year-old thermal retreat in southern Tuscany, Italy , where its mineral-rich spring water stays at a soothing Harnessing its natural healing powers is its namesake five-star spa resort, which is set within ha of Tuscan countryside and houses several hot spring pools. Ayurveda emphasises the prevention of poor health, and encourages the maintenance of health through holistic regimens that promote balance of the mind, body and consciousness. These include meditation, mantras, dietary changes, yoga , massages and herbal medicine. Knowing your own composition can help you and an Ayurvedic practitioner tackle ailments more effectively should you fall out of balance. Its proximity to spiritual cities of Haridwar, the gateway to the gods, and Rishikesh, the birthplace of yoga, lends this five-star, top-drawer retreat a sense of sacrednessv — no wonder Oprah Winfrey and The Beatles were once guests. Here, the philosophy of Ayurveda threads through the entire property. Especially beneficial is the Ayurvedic Rejuvenation and Immunity Booster programme, which seeks to revitalise the body with Ayurvedic treatments, nourishing meals, immuno-enhancing remedies and yoga. Emerge with improved immunity and energy, better metabolism and glowing skin from this ancient healing therapy. The Kingdom of Lanna, which covered most of present-day Northern Thailand, was founded by King Mengrai in the 13th century. It reached its zenith in the 15th century under King Tilokaraj, who spent much of his reign solidifying and spreading Theravada Buddhism in the region. In the 16th century, weakened by wars with surrounding kingdoms, Lanna fell under Burmese rule. Two centuries later, Siam gained control of the state. Even though Lanna ceased to exist, a strong Lanna identity endures in Chiang Mai, apparent in its cuisine, temples, festivals, language and architectural landscape. Traditional Lanna medicine, with its endless herbal formulas alongside physical therapies such as cupping and tok sen massage using wooden hammers, can also be found in the city today. Plan a visit : Ease sore muscles and tight knots with Yam Khang, or Thai Fire Therapy, an ancient Lanna treatment offered at Anantara Chiang Mai Resort. Regarded as a sacred art that can only be performed by a therapist who has gained a high spiritual maturity, this ancient healing therapy begins with the practitioner dipping her foot into an iron plough shear, or khang, containing a healing oil that has been heated over an open fire. Another traditional Lanna method is the minute Yajoo treatment that starts off with a heated herbal poultice pressed along the body to relieve pain and inflammation, followed by a herbal oil body massage, a light head massage and tok sen. Bathing in natural springs is a therapy as old as the first civilisations. Practised across various cultures from the Japanese onsen to the Turkish hammam , balneotherapy is beneficial for a range of chronic skin and musculoskeletal conditions including arthritis, psoriasis and fibromyalgia. With little to no side effects, this ancient healing method is also used for overall psychological and physical well-being to promote relaxation and improve sleep. Plan a visit: Nestled amid the foothills of the Alps in eastern Switzerland, Grand Resort Bad Ragaz is a luxury wellness-focused resort centred around balneotherapy. There are five thermal baths within the property, and all are filled with healing thermal water from the famous Tamina Gorge. Said to stimulate endocrine functions, improve blood circulation, boost the immune system and aid in musculoskeletal issues, the stress-relieving, science-backed ancient healing therapy is administered under medical supervision in specialised seaside wellness centres across many destinations in Europe. Plan a visit: The Rejuvenation Spa at Myconian Villa Collection in Mykonos, Greece, will nurture your body and soul with its luxurious thalassotherapy pool and a menu of stress-relieving, tension-melting treatments. This story first appeared in the May issue of Prestige Singapore. The post Your guide to ancient healing therapies, and the wellness resorts that offer them appeared first on Lifestyle Asia Singapore. Today, an individual may not take a physical journey for her healing, but rather a psychological one in which she moves from one attitude in the beginning to an entirely new psychological place. There must be a tremendous urge that arises from within the person seeking the healing for her to live as much as she is humanly capable at her maximum potential as a fully embodied and conscious human being. She must be willing to challenge many of her preconceived notions about herself, delve deeply into her conscious and unconscious material and be willing to take on the archetype of the seeker who wishes to be healed. This, in my experience, is the real crux of a healing and transforming experience. Unless there is a fundamental shift in consciousness, true healing and integration of your life is impossible. When people came to the temples of Asclepius, they began their healing experience in the outer sanctum, where the concerns of the physical body were addressed. They fasted, studied nutrition, detoxified, and were massaged with anointed oils. In my office, most people expect to be addressed initially at this level of healing. They want to know that, for their particular diagnosis, there are some physical remedies that can be applied. They are, however, fortified and lulled into a false security by the beliefs propagated through mechanistic medicine: if they are suffering from a symptom, there must be only a physical explanation and hence, only a physical treatment. I believe this attitude is fundamental to human nature and typical of our collective understanding of disease and illness at this time. This approach to healing is entirely appropriate, albeit limited, and forms the basis of the methods of healing we bring to bear at Stage Two of the Seven Stages model. The research that links mind, body, and spirit Stages Two through Seven in the Seven Stage model to physical healing, although it exists, has not yet achieved respectability among mainstream practitioners. It will probably take another few decades before the research achieves a level of reproducibility that will convince the skeptics to sit up and take notice. Back to the ancient temple of Asclepius. After they had completed the rituals and practices of outer healing, Greek patients would move into the inner sanctum of the temple, where the priests officiated. In the middle of the temple were stone pillars carved with symbols of twin snakes winding around and down the pillars. The twin snakes or serpents were the symbol of healing in Greek mythology—the balanced serpents of the conscious and the unconscious, the inner and the outer. This was to acknowledge that health is not just an external matter. Patients were also required to take an oath, swearing allegiance to the gods Apollo and Asclepius. They also were asked to give an offering of a honey cake, implying that in order to gain something, they had to let go of something that was no longer working in their lives, to allow for renewal. Elliot Dacher describes this ritual:. It was expected that the patients, when they went into the inner temple, would stay for a number of days, if not weeks. In fact, it was encouraged that they not leave until they had had some sign, usually in the form of a dream, signifying that healing was either underway or complete. They were asked to reference their inner wisdom, the healer within, an essential requirement in any healing experience, where the limited vision of consciousness as experienced through the five senses is enriched by messages and symbols from the unconscious. These dreams were then interpreted by the priests and permission was then given to continue on the healing journey. In undertaking this part of the experience, they were acknowledging that they were not coming for a quick fix or a physical cure, but were prepared for an encounter with the deeper medicine, the healing force within. The twin snakes, the Caduceus, are the symbol of healing used in modern medicine. Myth tells us this is the staff of Hermes, the Greek version of the Egyptian god Thoth. He was worshipped as the creator of the arts and the sciences, of music, astronomy, speech and the written word. The staff is said to represent the power of the gods. Greek legend has it that one day Hermes was walking along and saw two warring snakes fighting with each other. He took his staff and struck it between them to separate them. And now the symbol of modern medicine is the staff of Hermes, separating two opposing forces, not letting one outshine the other, not letting either win the battle in their struggle for supremacy. The two opposing forces are Wisdom and Knowledge, and the caduceus is a reminder that medical practitioners must maintain a balance between the two. Knowledge, in this framework, is what one learns from the outside: the doctor brings his many years of arduous training to bear on the diagnosis. Both of these sources of wisdom must be accessed by not only health care providers in the application of their healing arts, but also by the patient, in order to maximize the healing transformation. The patient must acquire as much external knowledge as she can, from as many different sources as she needs, while also being cognizant of the fact that not all healing is about external remedies or potions. An inner journey is required. Alastair Cunningham has described the broad terrain of this dichotomy by dividing the different routes to healing into two broad categories:. There are many spontaneous or automatic healing mechanisms operating constantly in the body and mind; for example, healing of wounds, the immune response to foreign micro-organisms, or, at the mental level, the lessening of anxiety or depression with the passage of time. Assisted healing , by contrast, denotes some kind of active intervention, by the person herself, or by others. He further divides the latter form of healing into two forms. Further to these two ways of healing is that which is transcendent to both. Deepak Chopra, in an address to the Institute for Noetic Studies IONS conference, Washington, , spoke about the fact that there are three essential ways of perceiving reality:. In mechanistic, externally-assisted healing, we are highly dependent on knowledge at this level. This occurs in the mind, not in the physical world. Thus if we wish to know this deeper aspect of ourselves, this timeless, eternal, non physical self, we cannot use the eyes of the flesh or the eyes of the mind. One has to traverse the territory of the inner landscape, the world of transcendent consciousness that is beyond the experience of everyday waking reality. This landscape is beyond both mind and body. It is as if you see with another eye, another perspective, often called the witnessing self, where the concerns of the body and that of the psychological self, fade into the far distance, and what is left is this sense of presence, this sense of a timeless and eternal Self. All concerns about physical reality, health and illness, disappear into the expanded realization that we are not our physical bodies. There is a deep, abiding, unshakeable inner silence and knowing. It is as if our souls have woken up to their existence and to their relevance. In the East, with its profound dedication to the inner process of healing, there has long been a tradition of orientating oneself towards this experience through various yoga traditions: Bhakti yoga is the path of love and devotion; jnana yoga is the path of intellectual rigor and discipline; hatha yoga is the path of physical mastery of the body and the senses; and karma yoga is the path of selfless service. By dedicated and rigorous adherence to these spiritual practices, the possibility of transcendence to only sensory and mental ways of seeing the world is possible. The path to transcendent consciousness is arrived at via the third way of perceiving reality that Chopra describes. The West has not had the same exposure to these well-defined disciplines. This awareness of transcendent consciousness is a relatively recent development with the emergence on the planet of the great sages Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Socrates and the sages of the Upanishads. Previous to their appearance on the world stage, human experience was limited to everyday reality as dictated by the senses and the mind, motivated largely by a desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, feeding, procreation of the species and fending off approaching danger were very much the only operational systems of day-to-day existence. Once these sages spread their teachings, human beings were able to transcend mundane states of living and taste reality for the first time—not reality as is witnessed through the five senses, but transcendent reality, the state of pure awareness so well described in metaphysical texts. Once the patients had been in the temples and had their inner transformative experiences interpreted by the priests, they were then escorted outside of the temple to large amphitheaters where traditional plays, such as the Oedipal Trilogy, the trilogy of Orestia, the journeys of Odysseus, and the great dramas of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes were enacted. The largest theatre in ancient Greece was at the healing temple at Epidaurus, and with its perfect acoustics, it is still in use today. The purpose behind exposing patients to these dramas was to illustrate to the patients that what they considered to be very personal, dramatic experiences had their origins in antiquity. This exposure was meant to reinforce that whatever problems the patient had, others had those problems, too. By reflecting on the themes that were enacted in these plays, those of lust and betrayal, revenge and shame, suffering and salvation, the individual could engage in deep inner therapy where the meaning and lessons of their own lives could be compared to those enacted on stage. Wisdom could be imparted and the experience gained could be contemplated, against the backdrop of the patients own lives. Furthermore, many of us have been through great traumas in our lives, from romantic betrayals to divorce and bankruptcy, death of loved ones, and stories of loss and gain. This realization would lead them to lighten up somewhat, to take themselves a little less seriously, knowing that we are mythical beings living out mythical lives. In Ancient Greece, as in our world, one of the greatest dangers to living at ones maximum potential, is making the mistake of taking oneself too seriously! Many of us have taken heroic journeys—spending the first half of life conquering and creating a safe haven for our emerging egos, only to find in the second half of life that nothing of the senses truly satisfies our soul. Nothing outside of ourselves really satisfies our deep existential longing for a fulfilled, related and meaningful life. Once we wake up to this awareness, we then shift our awareness from an outer-directed life governed by trying to satisfy outer authorities our parents, our peers, or societal expectations , to an inner-directed psychological or spiritually-based life where the questions we ask are more about the meanings behind apparent reality. Some of us have struggled with these life transitions and thought we were quite unique in these experiences, but throughout antiquity, these stories and dramas have repeatedly unfolded. We are all participating in this greater story of life. Furthermore, within the Asclepian temples, in the surrounding gardens and walkways, there were statues completed by some of the great sculptors of the day such as Phidias and Praxiteles. Beauty, truth and virtue were all aspects of the good life and a more profound well-being. In summary, Greek healing methods suggested that there is an interweaving of both the inner and outer experiences through the evolution and shift of consciousness. Outer remedies were required, but inner ones were just as significant. For every movement on the outside, there had to be the possibility for a movement on the inside as well. It is important to realize from the Asclepian times onwards, this movement between the outer physical healing and the inner healing, from the Scientists to the Vitalists, from the rational to the mystical, has been perpetuated throughout history. At certain periods, the outer traditions have held sway, such as what we now experience in Western medicine, and at other times, more inner directed practices have been dominant. |
| Ancient Healing Methods Offer an Alternative Paradigm in Health | Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. Courtney year ago. Praying for good digestion meant praying for good health. This is unfortunate for modern herbalists seeking to understand the healing practices of the ancient Greeks. Issues Advance articles Publish Author Guidelines Submission Site Open Access Options Preparing your manuscript COPE guidelines for peer review Fair Editing and Peer Review Promoting your article Purchase Alerts About About Music Therapy Perspectives About the American Music Therapy Association Editorial Board Advertising and Corporate Services Self-Archiving Policy Dispatch Dates Contact Us Journals on Oxford Academic Books on Oxford Academic. With this in mind, patients with a fever or other ailment were often diagnosed with an overabundance of blood. Ayurveda massages focus on marma points, energy sites in the body, to invoke healing. |
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