Religion and Healing – About medical practices and religious healing rituals
Thematic field of the exhibition "Body. Cult. Religion."
Diseases are considered part of the body’s transience. However, they are sometimes attributed to supernatural causes, negative energies, disharmonies, bad karma and the like. Religious practices such as prayers, confessions of sins, sacrifices, incantations or other ritual acts are intended to counteract this, serve healing or help the sick person to bear his fate more easily.
In ancient Egypt, for example, people turned to the gods Isis and Horus, while in Greece it was mainly the god of healing Asclepius and his daughter Hygieia who were addressed.
Christian nursing was based on the idea that mercy should motivate people, i.e. service to the sick person should be equated with service to God. In ancient Jewish societies there were popular, magical Healing practices that were mostly rejected by rabbinic authorities and associated with idolatry. In the countries shaped by the Islamic Arab culture, different healing practices are offered. These include, for example, astrological, esoteric and other practices that can be categorised as tradition. In the ancient Indo-Brahmanic sacred texts (Vedas) illness and well-being are often causally linked, with the action of the gods. Later, also a sophisticated medicine (Ayurveda), which is still practiced today, with their own explanatory approaches to health and illness.
In China, diseases were partly attributed to a disharmony of the two different primordial potencies of Yin and Yang, against which diets, medicines and various physical exercises were supposed to help.
