Incubation, A Western Form Of Meditation

The forgetfulness regarding our roots is mirrored in the way western seekers focus obsessively on spiritual practices and doctrines of the East, bypassing the tremendous healing power of techniques which were taught and cultivated in mystical traditions of the Ancient Greece.

One of these practices is incubation (enkoímesis), essential in the Asclepian medicine and the religion of Apollo. It was practiced in Dream Temples or Asclepieiai, of which archaeologists have found different versions in Greece, Turkey and Spain. These temples had terraces with columns and altars as well as underground galleries and chambers with sleeping rooms, couches and medicinal pools carved on the rocks.

Men and women -particularly those in a desperate condition, affected by serious illnesses- went to dream temples looking for healing. And there they were guided by the iatromantei, healer priests of Apollo, as Parmenides of Elea. The patients would purify their bodies and lie down on a couch. For hours or even days the initiates had to rest in silence and stillness, surrendering to the healing power of darkness, under the strict supervision of the priests, who also interpreted their psychological states and dreams.

In his book Asklepios: Archetypal Image of the Physician's Existence, Carl Kerenyi gives us a good account, in regard to the Asclepeion of Kos: The patient himself was offered an opportunity to bring about the cure whose elements he bore within himself. To this end an environment was created which, as in modern spas and health resorts, was as far as possible removed from the disturbing and unhealthful elements of the outside world. The religious atmosphere also helped man's innermost depths to accomplish their curative potentialities.

Ancient chronicles tell us about several states experienced by the patients. The descriptions range from deliriums to special dreams and insightful states with mystic and shamanic characteristics well known in all spiritual traditions.

Incubation allows the seeker to stripe away all the layers of perception, cultivating deeper dimensions of being.

This art turns out to be extremely effective for bringing poise into the psyche and the body, finding the source of being.

The only thing required is to lie down comfortably, preferably in a dark place, and pay relaxed attention to the sensation of the body, including the breath and the silence within, without trying to control thoughts nor emotions. A systematic attention through different limbs will stop the wanderings of the mind. Mental contents simply become clouds dissolving in the space of pure awareness.

Peter Kingsley is probably one of the only scholars who works to bring this tradition back to life. More information at: http://www.peterkingsley.org/

There's a clear similarity between Oriental and Western techniques of meditation, and their precision gives us the right to see them as a science of Spirit". Incubation in particular is very close to a Hindu technique called Yoga Nidra or Yoguic Sleep, where pure Consciousness is accessed gradually. Its ultimate goal is known in Vedanta as Turiya, or Fourth state, which integrates and transcends three states: waking vigil, sleep with dreams and dreamless sleep.

There have been giants of the Spirit who plunged into the greatest depths of reality , sometimes after terrible sufferings, as it happened to the Spanish mystic St.John of the Cross his Dark Night Of The Soul, the subject of our next post.

© Copyright 2009 by Fernando Humberto