Snakes and Dreams: Greek Healing Techniques

a Down the Rabbit Hole, "Behind the Curtain" article

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Next week is the Lunar New Year and it’s the Year of the Snake. This is a bit early but I didn’t want to fill your inboxes with three emails in one week.

I don’t remember exactly how I found out about the Greek healing temples but your first hint was in episode two, “Missing”, when the healer attached to a small village (we’re in southern Spain at this point) is called the Asclepius.

I made it into a title, rather than a name, because why not. But where did he come from?

Asclepius is the god of medicine and it turns out there was a number of healing temples and complexes dedicated to him.

The internet has a lot of the same thing (and I include links further down as references for you). All that can be certainly said appears to be derived from the testimonial tablets found at Epidaurus as well as contemporaries writing about them, so unlike other ancient institutions, this one is actually pretty well documented.

This is probably the best overview article about it:

https://parabola.org/2021/02/19/what-dreams-may-come-ancient-holistic-healing-at-the-asklepion/

The idea was that healing would occur by treating not just the physical symptoms but also the mind and the spirit. The temples were located with beautiful views and the larger ones even had theatres and other entertainments. Of course, there were the prayers and offerings to the god Asclepius and his family.

According to the article above, each patient was cleansed and then set to dreaming. Apparently, snakes were sacred to the temple and would crawl over sleeping patients to inspire dreams.

I mean, I don’t know how you would sleep through that but 🤷‍♀️.

Asclepius or one of his family would visit the patient in their dreams. Based on the temple priest’s interpretation of said dream, a healing protocol would be created and followed. But there was more to it than that, Asclepius was the god of empirical medicine (aka, this thing seems to work, we should do more of this thing), as opposed to his Dad Apollo who was divinely healing, and Hippocrates after him who invented “rational” medicine.

George E. Koronaios, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. Votive relief of Asclepius. The god bends down over the reclining sick woman, placing his hands on her neck and back. Hygiea stands behind him and the family of the patient approaches as suppliants. From the Asclepeion of Piraeus. Around 350 B.C. From Wikimedia Commons.

Judging by Aristides (quoted in the above article): it could get pretty weird.

“I had to sail across to the opposite side [of the harbor],” writes Aristides in his Oratio, “eating honey, and acorns from an oak tree, and vomit; then complete purification was achieved”

Sometimes the dream itself cured the person. (See: https://www.greece-is.com/of-gods-and-dreams-the-ancient-healing-sanctuary-of-epidaurus/)

Once I knew about Empurion (the old name for the port of Empuries), I researched to figure out the layout of the city and how the temple itself was laid out.

Sadly, everything is in ruins and a church was built over the old temple. It’s now being debated that it actually might be a Zeus-Serapis temple instead of Asclepius’ but I never let an archaeological controversy get in the way of “what if”.

I also read “The Temples and Ritual of Asklepios at Epidauros and Athens: Two Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain” by Richard Caton (purchased off Amazon), which had pictures and which I live-Noted as I read it because it was written in the 1890s and … it shows.

The archaeological side was interesting and there were plenty of images showing photos and layouts and things that were very helpful when I finally got to write about the Asclepius healing temple in “Gold Dust Woman” and “And I’m Here” (episodes 4 and 5).

Caton also wrote about those who could not be cured. He doesn’t site any sources, so who knows if this was “common knowledge” or just his supposition given that he thinks they were quacks. I don’t have a strong background in the Greek classics beyond your basic mythology. Share in the comments if that’s your field!

“We know that in some cases the honour of Asklepios was saved by sending the unfortunate invalid to some distant shrine; but of course it happened that in some instances the patient died while at the Hieron. Now, according to the religion of the Greeks, two events were considered to desecrate in the most dreadful manner any hallowed precinct—namely, birth and death; neither of these must occur within any sacred enclosure.

“While the sick probably met with considerable kindliness, humanity, and real help at these shrines, and much actual benefit resulted, notwithstanding the superstition on which all was based, still, in this one respect Greek tradition and ceremonial were a cause of the most gross inhumanity. The unhappy visitant whose vital powers were finally declining was received and domiciled in the abaton, but when he failed to improve, and was seen by the priests and attendants to be obviously dying, instead of being tenderly nursed and soothed, he was removed from his couch, dragged across the precinct to the nearest gate, expelled, and left to die on the hillside unhelped and untended. Asklepios had rejected him, and no priest or minister of the god must defile himself by any dealings with death. One cannot but hope that the sympathy and humanity which exist naturally in the hearts of most men and of all women, found some means of helping these unhappy beings, and that when death seemed probable such sufferers were conveyed to a hostel outside the precinct, and allowed to die in peace there. A like superstition existed regarding birth. Many a poor woman who was anticipating maternity, and who had been hoping for relief from some ordinary ailment, was suddenly and mercilessly expelled from the precinct at the moment when she needed help and comfort most.” — Richard Eaton

And yeah, short paragraphs are definitely not a 1890s thing.

I mean, it’s a good thing the two of you who voted chose that Braith would live. Being thrown out of the complex would be absolutely heartbreaking for Llewelyn and the Chosen Court.

Other internet resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepieion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emp%C3%BAries#References

Haven’t started reading Hiraeth yet? You can read the whole thing here:

Start Here: Hiraeth

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