Column V of the demotic magical Papyrus from the third century BCE. In this column and in other passages we find the earliest written instructions for trance induction and self-hypnosis using fixation methods. The text of the papyrus, which relates to trance induction, includes a description of the method as well as detailed invocations, with names of deities who can be consulted about the future. Methods for inducing trance were first described in writing in the “Leiden Demotic-Magical Papyrus.” The manuscript is composed in Egyptian Hieratic, Demotic, and Greek. Some passages probably date back to 1500-1000 BCE. According to the papyrus, trance was used as a state of consciousness where, through a medium (an ‘uncorrupted boy’), predictions could be made about the future. However, trance as a tool for healing the ill is not mentioned.






Excerpt from the Papyrus:
Self-hypnosis:
In column five it is advised that those with questions about the future burn incense before an oil lamp, fix an oil lamp in place, then “you see the god about the lamp and you lie down on a rush mat without speaking to anyone on earth. Then he makes answer to you by dream (Griffith & Thompson, 1974, S.45; unsere Übersetzung 1))."
Hypnosis via a Medium::
“Tete-Ik-Tatak and more commend you to this task, that all I ask will be answered. For I am Horus, child of Mendes. For I am Isis, the knowing. What I speak of my mouth, shall be.”

A twilight darkness lays over Menofer, or Memphis, as the Greeks called ancient Egypt’s capital. The sun has not yet risen, and only weakly portends its presence behind the desert mountains. All is calm, except for a few water birds in the cattails down along the Nile, where in the cool of twilight lay the big barks from Abydos and Siut, full of trade wares from Nubia and the incense region called Punt. A man and boy emerge from the streets near the harbor and move quietly past the cramped houses of the harbor quarter, where the slaves still sleep in the entranceways, leaving the city through the gardens in the direction of the desert. They enter a hut, with a window through which the sun will shine at dawn. The man paints the eyelids of the boy with a special pigment – a boy who has never been allowed to have contact with a woman – sits him upon a new brick, and positions a clean new linen sheet behind him. Now he commands the boy to face the place where the sun will soon appear, and orders that he fix the spot exactly. Later he will pass the “Ra-finger,” the sun-finger, over the boy’s eyes. While the boy has his eyes closed, the man speaks an incantation seven times and instructs the boy:

The jackal-headed god Anubis accompanies the dead into the underworld and overseas rituals connected with death





“Speak to Anubis and tell him: ‘Bring a table for the gods and let them all be seated.” Afterwards he petitions Anubis, the black-skinned, jackal-headed god of embalming, with the mediation of the boy, for a consultation with the gods about the future.

Such a ritual was used in ancient Egypt for various purposes – if a cattle-dealer was worried about the future following an epidemic, if a commander was concerned about a military conflict underway, or if a high priest of Amon desired clarification regarding a political decision. Each of these instances is referred to in the Demotic-Magical Papyrus (half of which is located at Leiden University, the other half in the London Museum) from the first century CE. Parts of this document, however, probably date back to the time of the eighteenth-twentieth dynasties (ca. 1500-1000 BCE) 3) In this papyrus we find the first written instructions for inducing the trance state, used to make contact through a medium (the uncorrupted boy) with a supernatural power – the world of gods and demons – to see into the future and influence the outcome of events. Here we also find instructions for self-hypnosis using fixation on an oil-lamp, as well as the suggestion that in using a medium, one must be careful the boy is appropriately suggestible.
In the magical papyrus the trance state is regarded as a form of consciousness in which a vision of the future is possible. Nowhere is there a passage relating to the use of trance for therapeutic ends. In the cases where healing is actually referred to, there are recommendations for incantations or exotic medicinal treatments (e.g., to stop the flow of blood, it is recommended to imbibe Myrhh, Garlic, and gazelle gall, mixed with old full-bodied wine).

Sources:

1) Griffith, F.L. & Thompson, H. (1974). The Leyden Papyrus. New York: Dover.

2) Brugsch, H. (1893). Aus dem Morgenlande. Leipzig: Reclams Universalbibliothek, Nr. 3151-52, 43-53.

3) Max Müller, 1886, zitiert in Griffith & Thompson (1974).

In ancient Greece in the temples of Asclepius – for example in Epidaurus or on the island of Kos – healing of illnesses through “temple sleep” was practiced. In this case, hypnosis methods in the narrow sense were not used; however the state of consciousness in temple sleep is comparable to the hypnotic state. Period reports of temple sleep experiences describe a state of consciousness, “between waking and sleeping,” a description that one hears nowadays from those practiced in hypnotic experience. After successful treatment, grateful patients would frequently set up so-called votive-tablets, depicting significant experiences during the therapy. The votive-tablet reproduced here shows a man’s healing through Asclepius, specifically through the bite of a snake representing Asclepius.1)



If the “Magical Papyrus” (of London and Leiden) did not also allude to trance as healing method, we could anyway assume that trance was employed as a therapeutic measure in ancient Egypt, around 500 BCE in the Serapis Temple or in Temples of Isis along the Nile. In these cases, the ailing patient was induced into a nine-day sleep by priests, wherein the goddess Isis would appear through a dream, and a diagnosis would be given as well as instructions for treatment. This temple sleep tradition was absorbed in ancient Greece, where we find temples honoring the god Asclepius. The most famous were those in Epidaurus, Pergamon, and on the island of Kos. As in Egypt, the god appeared to the patient during sleep, performing the necessary healing or offering instructions for treatment. The temple sleep took place in a special underground room, the ‘Abaton’ or sanctum, the walls of which were marked with reports of healing experiences.

Asclepius, Greek God of Healing

As in Lourdes or the Bavarian Wieskirche today, in those times healed patients would leave behind votive-tablets or written reports describing the transcendental healing experience.2) In one of these reports, Aristides details a state in which the god appeared to him as though, “between sleeping and waking . . . sometimes as in a dream, sometimes as in a waking vision.” Marinus expressed it similarly (“between waking and sleep”). Likewise, those with high susceptibility to hypnosis compare the hypnotic state with the state just before falling asleep – when one is no longer truly awake, but nevertheless not fully asleep.

In rendering treatment during temple sleep, the god was assisted by his healing dogs or snakes (the Asclepius snake can still be seen today in many pharmaceutical logos), which healed the affected body area with licking – for example licking the eyes of a blind man. The god himself also healed by the laying on of hands, advising special medication or activities like swimming, riding, composing poetry, etc.

Asclepius appears to the ill. In the background, the sick man with the healing snake of Asclepius.

The temple dedicated to Asclepius on the island of Kos.



Asclepius




Sources:

1) Kerenyi, K. (1948). Der göttliche Arzt. Basel: CIBA.

2) Edelstein, E. & Edelstein, L. (1975).Asclepius : a collection and
interpretation. of the testimonies.New York: Arno Press.

The Fresco at right “depicts Lady Wak Tun, one of the brides of the ruler Yaxun Balam, wearing a richly embroidered Huipil and kneeling before a vision-serpent, holding a basket with both hands. The woven basket contains, in addition to blood-stained strips of paper, the clearly visible tail of a sea-ray, commonly used as a body-piercing instrument in acts of self- castigation. The cord, which Wak Tun . . .has pulled through her tongue, now is draped over the right arm . . . the hair is combed back and tied together with blood-stained bark strips. She has clearly just finished the blood-offering, because a vision now appears to her, in the form of a naturalistically crafted snake with wide-open jaw, from which an ancestor’s head peers out” (Eggebrecht & Eggebrecht, 1992, S, 410. 1))"

A special form of induction to trance, which probably seems quite drastic to us today, was practiced among the Maya, whose advanced civilization flourished around 200-1000 CE and reached over modern-day Yucatan, Chiapas, and into Guatemala and Honduras. Their descendents still live there today. In undertaking a ritual blood offering, intended to gain favor from ancestor gods, the Mayans induced trance by the letting of blood. Participants generally prepared themselves for the ritual by fasting or with steam baths. Spears of agave, sea-ray tails, or sharpened bone were used to start the flow of blood, particularly by piercing through the tongue – or for men, the penis. In this way, a continuous stream of blood was achieved, which effected a change in consciousness that would in turn lead to hallucination. The Maya also used ritual dance 2) and imbibed drugs to achieve a trance state. 3,4).

Sources:

1) Eggebrecht, E. & Eggebrecht, A. (1992). Die Welt der Maya. Mainz: von Zabern.

2) Schele, L. & Miller, M. E. (1986). The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art.
Fort Worth.

3) De Smet, P. (1985). Ritual enemas und snuffs in the Americas. Amsterdam.

4) Robicsek, F. (1978). Representation of Smoking in Ancient Maya Art. In: Actes du XLIIe
Congrès International des Américanistes, Vol. 7. S. 399-406.