concept

Healing

Beliefs & concepts · Rituals

The restoration of a body or a life to a usable state. Temple sleep, herbs, and later clinical medicine are different crafts of that hope.

Also known as cure

Hellenic religion

  • Healing is associated with Serpent.

    Asklepian healing keeps a serpent in the sanctuary. Healing and the snake meet there as Greek temple medicine, not as a global serpent-essence.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · partially sourced · documented

  • Healing is used in Dream incubation.

    At Epidaurus the useful dream is for a cure. Incubation is one Greek method of asking to be healed.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    used in · sourced · documented

  • Apollo is associated with Healing.

    Greek Apollo can send plague and also be asked for its stopping. Harm and help sit in one cult without becoming Asklepios.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · partially sourced · documented

  • Asklepios is sacred to Healing.

    Pausanias describes Asklepieia as places one went to be cured. Healing here is a temple craft with a named god.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    sacred to · sourced · documented

  • Serpent is associated with Healing.

    Greek Asklepian cult pairs the serpent with a healing god. Keep this pairing separate from Apep’s hostility and from the Nahua feathered serpent.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · partially sourced · documented

  • Epidaurus is associated with Healing.

    People went to Epidaurus to be cured. The cure is a temple hope with a named god.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · sourced · documented

  • Healing is connected to Medicine.

    Healing is the hope; medicine is an organized craft of that hope. They meet without being identical.

    connected to · interpretive · documented

Celtic tradition

  • Brigid is associated with Healing.

    Later Irish tradition gives Brigid a share in healing. That is not Asklepios’s Epidaurus.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

Roman religion

  • Mandrake is used in Healing.

    Pliny treats mandragora among medicinal plants. Roman encyclopedia, still not a witchcraft root-person.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    used in · sourced · documented

Egyptian religion · Nile valley

sources