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Aesclapios the Shaman
Our previous several columns have been focused upon our inner place of power and healing—“our sacred garden.” In our next several columns, we will say something about the nature of health, illness and healing from the perspective of the traditional shaman—and as a lead in, this month’s offering will include ‘an encounter,’ an unpublished one.
We should begin by observing that all healing has a holistic foundation. During the late Bronze Age, about the time of the Trojan War more than 3,000 years ago, the Greek physician and healer, Aesclapios, understood this and established the first holistic treatment center in the ancient world where the principles and practice of both physical medicine and spirit medicine reached a high art. Over 200 of these centers were eventually built and dedicated in his name around the Mediterranean Basin. They were called Aesclapia (singular=Aeslapium), many of which still exist today as archeological sites.
All who came to these centers for treatment were taken in, regardless of whether or not they could pay. This was in keeping with Aesclapios’ teachings that all should have equal access to healthcare and that money should never be an issue in the practice of medicine.
Many of the healing practices that Aesclapios initiated and taught within these sanctuaries are known to us. Of special interest is the practice that came to be known as “divine sleep” or “dream therapy,” and later “incubation sleep.” In Latin, it was called incubatio.
In this treatment procedure, the sufferers were placed in a state of light trance by the priest-physicians after several days of preparation and fasting. Then, in the semi-darkness of the underground rooms under these magnificent shrines and temples, the spirits of Aesclapius and his family would appear to the sufferer, doing the diagnostic work as well as the healing.
This is spirit medicine in every sense, and it is obvious that Aesclapios had been trained as a shaman. Of interest: a similar healing method is included in my book Spirit Medicine.
Let me elaborate on just who Aesclapius was to place him in perspective because he was the founding father of Western Medicine, and his power object, the caduceus—a rustic staff with a serpent twined about it—is the symbol of the American Medical Association.
Aesclapios lived during the time of the Mycenaean Culture, yet when the Classical Greeks embraced him as the chief archetype of healing hundreds of years later, his extraordinary life was enhanced by legend. It was claimed, for example, that he was actually fathered by Apollo, a sun deity and the principle god of Medicine and Music. This ‘seminal event’ happened during a romantic encounter between Apollo and a mortal woman named Coronis.
Coronis was a practical woman, and she had no desire to be a single mother. She knew that the gods were always drifting like bees from flower to flower, so when she learned she was pregnant with Apollo’s child, she married a mortal man named Ischys.
Apollo didn’t take this well at all, and in a fit of divine anger, he killed them both. Then, filled with remorse, he showed up in disguise at Coronis’ funeral. Since he was a god, he was able to see into her body burning on the funeral pyre, and there he saw the baby. He suddenly understood all and knew that he was the father of the child. Accordingly, he strode forward, reached into her body and snatched the baby from her womb.
That’s how Aesclapios was born—a nice mythic beginning.
Apollo now had a problem. What was he to do with this baby? Well, he did what all the gods did with their bastard children. He sent him off to be raised by Chiron the Centaur.
Chiron was (and is) a Lower World being who is part horse, part human. In his specialty work, Chiron also possessed full knowledge of the healing arts, and in fact, he himself had a wound that would never heal, revealing him to be a classic example of the shaman as the ‘wounded healer.’
Aesclapios became his star pupil, and when his abilities as a healer surpassed those of his teacher, he reentered the everday level of the Middle World where he became the head of a famous healing family.
His wife was named Epione and her specialty was pain management. They had two daughters, Hygaea and Panacaea who became the archetypes for health and treatment. Their son was named Telesphoros and he became the specialist in convalescence and rehabilitation.
Aesclapios himself is remembered as a tall, gentle bearded man who always carried his caduceus, a fact that immediately identifies him with the shaman’s world, Enough to say that the extraordinary relationship between snakes and healing is well-known to traditional shamans everywhere. It was only in Christendom that the snake got a bad rap.
When Aesclapios came to the end of his mortal life, the gods approached the sky father Zeus and put forward a suggestion. Since Aesclapios had had a mythic beginning, they argued, he simply could not have an ordinary death. Zeus agreed and subsequently struck him down with a lightning bolt, which is how Aesclapios died. At this point, he was raised to join the pantheon of the gods and goddesses residing in the Upper World (the top of Mount Olympus) where he continues his immortal existence to this day as a healing archetype (an oversoul field) upon whom those in need can draw.
Aesclapios teachings eventually became so famous that he essentially replaced or was merged with most of the major healing deities around the edges of the Greek world. It was even said that he had been able to restore life to the dead, a probable example of the shamanic healing modality known as soul-retrieval that we will discuss in future columns. The obvious similarity between Aesclapios and Jesus of Nazareth may be part of the reason that he and his family survived the Christian purge of the pagan gods.
All this was passing through my mind in early June of 2005. I was the leader of a travel group spending two weeks in Greece, visiting famous sites from antiquity by day, and celebrating life over sumptious meals in Greek tavernas by night. But almost everyday before our evening meal, we would take an hour or two in the late afternoon to do shamanic journeywork in a meeting room in our hotel. And during these sessions, we would use the shamanic method to journey back to the place that we had visited that day—to spiritwalk the site and connect with those spirits/gods who are the keepers of those places of power.
This is very easy to do if you know how—it’s a method we teach in our shamanic workshops.
During the afternoon on June 5, the group visited the great Aesclapium at Epidauros where we split up to wander alone among the many acres of silent stones for several hours, to get a feeling for this place as well as to establish connection with it. Some of us did ritual, some prayed, but all emerged with a profound sense of the Aesclapium as a place of great healing power when the group came together again in the twilight.
I was one of those who did ritual, in keeping with my role as a shamanic teacher. I found a place in the site that felt right, then made a small altar in the recessed end of a vertical Greek column about 5 feet high. I accessed the light trance to connect with the spirits of the place, then made my prayer, announcing who I was and what I was doing in this holy locality. Then I asked for healing for someone close to me, connecting with this person to send the healing energy of this place to them long-distance. Finally, I made my signature offering, a blue crow bead with my aloha attached.
When we returned to our hotel, we gathered in circle in a meeting room and did a drumming journey back to the site. I was the one drumming, and in response to my ritual in the afternoon, perhaps, I had an extraordinary experience.
I accessed the light trance (while drumming), and when I arrived at the place where I had done the ritual, the first spirit who came to me was the serpent. It simply emerged from the ground and then coiled around the ancient column in the top of which my altar resided. I have always been very fond of snakes and so I stroked its beautiful body as we entered into mental dialog. During the course of our conversation, the serpent informed me of some of the fine points of enkoimeses— the Greek term for incubation sleep--that I did not already know.
Then the serpent took me back into the oaks and pines that surround the site where I was honored beyond belief by being introduced to the spirits of Aesclapios, his wife and his children. At first, I perceived them as five luminous orbs, big ones with brilliant centers gradually fading into blue until they reached a dark indigo violet at the edges. As I watched them, wonderstruck, each orb began to radiate a halo of effervescent light—as though they were awakening in response to my focused attention.
Upon perceiving the unasked questions in my mind, the orbs materialized into form, whereupon the serpent approached them and coiled around Aesclapios’ staff. It was at this point that recognition struck. I will never forget the benevolent compassion flowing out of their eyes as the five of them turned their collective attention toward me
To say that this was a moving experience would be an understatement of vast proportions. One of my wildest hopes as a practitioner of shamanism had been realized. I had been able to establish relationship with the oversoul fields of some of the greatest healers of all time. I was not prepared for what happened next.
Another big blue orb approached through the trees, accompanied by the sound of galloping hooves, and upon arrival in our collective presence, it took form as a centaur. It was Chiron himself, the wounded healer.
As my physical body continued to drum for my group in the hotel room, my mind was reeling. For starters, I had had no idea of how big centaurs actually are and the word ‘great’ would not be inappropriate in referring to this being.
I was simply amazed when Chiron approached me and bowed, addressing me within my mind by an ancient name—one that was instantly familiar to me, one that brought immediate memories of the past back with it. He knew who I was, or rather, who I had once been.
In the interaction that followed, I explained to the collected deities who I was now, saying something about myself as a shamanic healer and explaining what I had been doing at the Aesclapium in the afternoon. As the seven gods stoically observed my small altar with its bead offering, there was even a moment of humor as a question formed within my mind.
“What… no ram?” followed by laughter.
I could see Chiron’s wound oozing fluid, so I requested permission to do a healing for him, an offering that he graciously accepted. I asked Aesclapios and his retinue to assist, and they did. At the end of the short procedure, Chiron bowed to me once more and assured me with a sweet smile that his wound felt better than it had for many millennia. It did look smaller, I thought.
I then turned my attention toward the person for whom I had requested healing energy during the afternoon, and in doing so, I specifically addressed Aesclapios’ wife, beautiful Epione, explaining to her that the issue involved chronic pain. Her radiance deepened and increased as her stern countenance cracked and she smiled in response. I explained how I do long-distance healing and asked if she would merge her healing power with my intentions. I then extended the invitation ‘to be of service’ to the entire group of deities before me.
There was no mistaking their response of immediate agreement.
As I visualized my connection with my new allies as cords of light, amping up my own power into the gamma rhythm brain wave state (an ability described in my book Visionseeker), I saw an amazed expression appear on Chiron’s strange face. Then he, Aesclapios, Epione, and their children closed their eyes, their structured forms slowly resuming their normal energetic state until I saw them as orbs once again, globes of light that encased shafts of brilliance that were not unlike the columns that support the roof of Greek, Roman and Egyptian temples.
In that moment, I suddenly understood what the columns of the temples actually symbolize. The columns are the gods in their true form, vertical, energetic shafts of light and consciousness that connect heaven (the roof) and earth (the foundation).
As my mind tipped over with this realization, another glowing orb appeared, a much larger one. It came from the sky and hovered above us, growing brighter and brighter until it rivaled the sun. Then, it began to descend until its golden light had settled upon all of us like a mantle, its luminescence merging with our own.
In these moments, there was no doubt in my mind that this radiance was and is ‘the field of being’ that the ancient Greeks revered as Apollo, the sun god. Once more, I made my explanation as to who I was as well as my request for healing for the one afflicted. The field of radiance responded, expressing a subtle rhythm, a pulse in which the light dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was (and is) Apollo, and in those moments, I knew with absolute certainty that it was (and is) alive.
As tears of emotion streamed down my face from my closed eyes in the hotel room, I activated my connection with the one afflicted, forming a visualization of that person where they were and ‘seeing’ their physical problem resolving itself, expressing my hope for the best possible result.
I held my focus… held my focus, while the golden radiance pulsed and throbbed, expressing a sense of benevolence that was quite palpable. Then the vision began to fade, and as it did, I saw him. Perhaps it was a memory from a former life, a soul memory of a former connection with Apollo, but as he vanished once again into the light in the blink of an eye, several Greek words whispered in my mind—
“Pholarchos…iatromantis ouliades…” These words were repeated several times, as though to ensure that I would remember them. Then I felt the connection go, and I watched, enthralled, as the entire scene before me faded, and the hotel meeting room came back into focus.
I shared some of this with the group over dinner, and then the next day, I casually asked our guide what the words meant. She had never heard the word ‘pholarchos’ before but she told me that the Greek word ‘iatromantis’ referred to a healer who heals through prophesy. She also informed me that one of the names through which Apollo was worshipped in the ancient world was Apollo oulios, and that ‘ouliades’ literally meant ‘son of Apollo’.
It was then that I realized that Apollo was the patron deity of shamans in the Greek world. To claim outright that ‘he’ had recognized me as his son would be pretentious in the extreme, and yet the claim would not be inaccurate in light of what occurred.
On my return to the US, I read a book by Peter Kingsley called “In the Dark Places of Wisdom.”--an extraordinary narrative in which I discovered the word ‘pholarchos.’ There I learned that the term refers to healers in the ancient world who did their work in suspended animation—in trance, and often underground in caves and crypts. In other words--shamans.
Until next month, allow me to invoke the spirit of my great Hawaiian friend, Kahuna Nui Hale Makua, and extend to each of you the Light and the Love of the Ancestors, The Source of Life, rejoicing in the Power and the Peace, braided with the cords of Patience, revealing the tapestry of the most powerful force in the universe—your Aloha.
--and warm thoughts--Dr Hank
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