Tag: Asclepius

At the origins of LaΓΉro, the Salento nightmare sprite

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, Esotericism, folklore, History of Religions

There are those who see in LaΓΉro Salentino, even starting from the etymology, the descendant of the ancient Lare, the Roman domestic spirit. But more generally the points of contact with other supernatural entities of the Mediterranean tradition stand out, from the Nightmare to the Munaciello, from the Genius Cucullato to the Telesforo.

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Parmenides, priest of Apollo: the "incubatio" and sacred healing

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Characters, Shamanism, History, History of Religions
In an extract previously published on the site [cf. Ioan P. Culianu: the hyperborean shamanism of ancient Greece] we illustrated the retrospective of the Romanian religious historian Culianu on the existence of a Hyperborean shamanism in the ancient Mediterranean area: a "technique of ecstasy" attributable to the divine figure of Apollo Hyperborean of which the major interpreters, called "iatromanti", were the ancient scholars and philosophers. We focus here on one of these "enlightened": Parmenides of Elea (IV - V century BC), born in Elea / Velia (today Ascea, in the province of Salerno), where he founded the Eleatic School together with Zeno.

The archaeological findings of Velia allow us to reconstruct the "Apollonian Way" of Parmenides, pre-Socratic philosopher, Apollo's iatromancer and healer

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