Healing, Disease and Placebo in Graeco-Roman Asclepius Temples
A Neurocognitive Approach
Olympia Panagiotidou [+–]
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Olympia Panagiotidou is a Postdoc Researcher at the Department of the Study of Religion at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. For her research, she has received a scholarship and support from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY). She earned her PhD and holds a MA in Cognitive Science and the Study of Religion from Aristotle University and Aarhus University. She also holds a BA in History and Archaeology from Aristotle University.
Healing, Disease and Placebo in Graeco-Roman Asclepius Temples narrates a story of religious healing that took place at sanctuaries dedicated to the ancient Greek god Asclepius, the so called asclepieia. The Asclepius cult, which attracted supplicants afflicted by various illnesses, appeared in Greece in the sixth century BCE, thrived in the Hellenistic period and spread throughout the Graeco-Roman world only declining during the final dominance of Christianity in the fifth century CE.
This study analyses inscriptions from the asclepieia which were supposed to record personal stories of healing. Using the archaeological and historical evidence it looks at the placebo effect and the role it may have played in healing at the Asclepius sanctuaries in light of contemporary theories and neurocognitive research on placebo effects. It explores the specific biological, cognitive, and psychological processes as well as the external cultural and social influences that would have shaped personal healing experiences.
It is the first historical study of the Asclepius cult which integrates theoretical insights into the human mind provided by neurocognitive sciences. It can be considered a cognitive historiography of patients who visited the asclepieia as supplicants which aims to deepen our understanding of past minds and, more generally, of human cognition.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Introduction [+–] 1-19
The aim of research and the employed theoretical approach are outlined. The book focuses on the healing cult of Asclepius, as it developed especially in the Graeco-Roman era. The aim of this book is to apply a neurocognitive approach to the Asclepius cult and to individual experiences at the asclepieia.
Chapter 1
Setting the Theoretical Framework [+–] 21-36
Chapter 1 sketches out the major concepts of placebo effect theories and provides some definitions and clarifications of placebo terminology (e.g., placebos vs. placebo effects). The slight difference in the meanings of the words ‘disease,’ ‘illness’ and ‘sickness’ as well as between the terms ‘cure’ and ‘healing’ are clarified.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 briefly overviews the ancient literary sources that preserve the major mythical sagas about Asclepius, his superhuman powers and his relationship to human doctors. The representations in the mythical narratives that would have made the stories about Asclepius particularly catching and memorable for people of that era are examined.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 outlines the geographical expansion of the Asclepius cult and focuses on those features of the great asclepieia that made them attractive healing places for people suffering from health problems. The motives and conditions that could move persons afflicted by an illness to resort to Asclepius temples are examined.
Chapter 4
Taking the Journey: Arriving at the Asclepieia [+–] 91-122
Chapter 4 examines how influences and motivations common in people’s social and cultural surroundings would have mediated patients’ decisions to visit an asclepieion, and further how the particular contexts of the asclepieia could have influenced supplicants’ personal perceptions, conceptions, feelings, and expectations for healing, facilitating and potentially activating placebo effects.
Chapter 5
The Culmination of Incubation: Creating the Miracle [+–] 123-152
Chapter 5 examines how all the cultural influences, social interactions and patterns of thought that mediated patients’ decisions to resort to the asclepieia, and the particular elements of the Asclepius cult context would have affected patients’ cognition forming the experience of incubation within the abaton.
Conclusion
Completing the Loop [+–] 153-160
In the Conclusion, the main steps of the kind of journeys supplicants might have followed in order to experience the asclepieia’s placebo effects are briefly reviewed. It is underlined that this study highlights how the application of cognitive theories to an ancient cult can deepen modern historical knowledge of past people.
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781800501416
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781800501423
Price (Paperback)
£24.95 / $32.00
ISBN (eBook)
9781800501430
Price (eBook)
Individual
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
Publication
08/03/2022
Pages
228
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
scholars
Illustration
10 figures
