ANASTENARIA

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
This article is double. It comprises a generalised theoretical introduction to the concept of the sacred as a transgressing factor of our postmodern profanity and the description of the ritual of Anastenaria in contemporary Greek Macedonia. This twofold ritual that is celebrated once in a year at the names day of Saints Constantine and Helen, starts with a ceremonial sacrificial of a bull and is integrated with a collective fire-walking of the initiated persons on the burning coals of a fire. Some ethical conclusions related to the Durkheimian concept of the sacred are discussed.
FIRST PART
PREFACE
“Way up and way down are the same”
(Heraclitus)
“Rituals are symbols of social processes”
(Durkheim)
If the old saying of Heraclitus can be interpreted today as an inner journey of selfdiscovery coinciding with an external journey of discovering the World, the question is by what means could we succeed in both these journeys and what sort of knowledge do we really need to
develop in advance to face new discoveries and to interpret them giving thus a personal meaning
to our inquiries.
The symbolic order (Elias, 1993; Turner, 1969;
Douglas, 1970; Strangelove, 1977)1 has been for innumerable centuries the best invention of mankind aiming to give an analogical meaning to the Inexplicable and Unknown. Some, named
the Unknown sacred or holy but the true essence of the Unknown can be described in every case by the lack of the relative knowledge necessary for its elucidation. The sacred thus can be defined as the need of giving interpretations to strange phenomena of practical life by the indirect way of The Transgressing Character of the Sacred in the Double Ritual of Anastenaria
Nikos Gousgounis
analogous thought i.e. when we cannot solve a
problem, we give symbolic or representative
solutions using metaphors from other resembling
cases. We represent for example by the symbol
of the cross the sum of our beliefs to a specific
web of signification that compose Christianity.
As told by Max Weber, man is an animal
suspended in webs of significance he himself has
spun. Culture consequently is a system
composed by those webs, and the analysis of it
has to be therefore not an experimental science in
search of law but an interpretative one in search
of meaning.
What is the sacred today? If by sacred we
classify all extraordinary transcendent and
outside the everyday course of events
phenomena then the sacred under multiple forms
is present in every society, traditional, modern
(rationalised) or even postmodern. The true
meaning of the sacred is a challenge to historians
of religion, theologians and sociologists
(Durckheim,1954 (1912); Eliade, 1959; Caillois,
1939; Bell, 1979; Girard, 1972; Castelli,1939).
However, a fresh look by an anthropologically
oriented research taking under consideration all
successful and unsuccessful efforts of all these
disciplines so far, needs to produce a new
interpretation of its meaning as viewed under
actual social and cultural circumstances.
To give a sociological example, the invention
of the term secularization (Martin,1978) as the
process in which religious thinking, practice and
institutions lose social significance, cannot
explain how modernization effects in certain
societies are parallel to an unexpected vitality of
religion once more while religion is not imposed
by public pressure and is rather a matter of
personal choice. Following Luckman (Luckman,
1967), we can argue that individualism in
contemporary, urban, consumer societies
contains elements of transcendence and almost
sacredness which are components of an “invisible
religion”. Today, 35 years or more than a
generation period after this theory, we can
advocate for a further increase of individuality in
128 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
postmodern globalized society characterised by
the explosion of technological communications
and the plethoric information. The sacred can
attract its sources from this communicative
everyday reality (real or virtual) of our postmodern
communication techniques and it can also be
manifested under new forms completely non
recognisable by traditional theorists. But the inner
meaning of the sacred -that is the quest for the
essence of Divinity and the relation of the human
to it - is even enforced amidst the hidden and
invisible religion of our individualities.
If for theologians and historians of religion,
the public sphere has been for centuries the
starting point of religious phenomena and if
eminent sociologists such as Durkheim believed
in the unifying force of the so called “collective
conscience” as the foundations of all religious
expressions, today religion and its sacred
“raisons d’etre” can be better described by the
means of individuality and personal quests. The
limitation of religious institutionalisation in our
days and the profanation of our activities and
behaviours does not eliminate by any sense our
needs for the comprehension of the unknown and
the unusual. The revival of the sacred under these
private circumstances, detect new “rituals” of
comportment. These specified mostly individualistic
rituals are “transgressing” our rational and
ordered world inversing the premodern schema
of the collective sacred transgressed by profane
acts. Our postmodern symbols as mediated by
rituals are much different in external
characteristics and forms from the holy symbols
described through centuries by the historians of
religions, but they keep the same inner reason :
the eternal quest of man for understanding the
unknown. Postmodern symbols are transmitting
the same as a virus the very substance of culture
-meanings, social forms, knowledge, etc., creating
thus our collective memory or personal culture.
To give some examples of postmodern
collective rituals before descending to the
individual ones, we can mention the collective
habits of fanatical spectators of sports while
supposed to support their favourite clubs. The
violence exercised by these groups of spectators
is a part of the everyday virtual violence exercised
by media and reproduces the same characteristics:
irrational need for violent expression
enforced by the anonymity of the crowd2 . There
is not important solidarity among the hooligans
while aggressing police or while destroying
material constructions. There is no meaning for
these acts of violence and no further aim that
could demand for a solidarity of the group. The
only desire of the average hooligan is to recognise
his acts of violence while watching TV in the same
night recognising himself as the author of a part
of today’s actuality, playing the eternal game of
Narcissus in front of his mirror-that is the Media
magic glass- . But even if this desire cannot be
interpreted by any means as sacred, there are
many characteristics of these violent acts that
remind old sacred deeds of the pre-modernity
when people of small communities sacrificed
animals in sacred rituals dancing afterwards for
expiation. This violent act of killing a sanctified
animal to get all its force through a communal
ceremonial feast was considered as a sacred deed
even if the very act of killing was a profanation or
transgression of the sacred spirit of the ceremony.
As Bataille says in his “Eroticism” after the
transgression of the interdiction (of murder) and
the profanation of the sacred ceremony, the
interdiction is always enforced as well as the
sacred character of the ritual ! [Bebergal).
Today, the well ordered and apparently
faultless rationalised society is transgressed and
violated by non profane deeds that cannot be
described as sacred but hold the same
sacrificatory elements superficially irrational and
destructive. What is really violated or
transgressed is the sense of Order or organisation
that tends to take global dimensions in the late
capitalism. Thus, the inversion of the classical
schema of the sacred as transgressed by the
profane takes the form of the profane transgressed
by new forms of the sacred aiming to exorcise the
Unknown hidden behind the extreme order and
trying to restore the primordial chaos. Science
has not succeeded into explain Nature which is
producing new forms of reaction to the
accelerated human intervention. Also social
sciences have not succeeded into explaining the
multiple reasons of social interactions. Science
has succeeded only into changing mentalities and
influencing also our educational systems
removing our interests from classical studies and
humanities and focusing on technological studies
which alienate the human being in long term.
Science has succeeded also into demystifying
the human way of interpretation of the
supernatural by the use of the rational thought
but humans do need myths in the end of this
Millennium and all that commercial media do is to
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 129
exploit to the extreme this universal human need
by serving audiences with falsified myths
produced in the studios and using the simulating
technics of electronic technology for producing
false impressions by their artificial effects.
How to Define Transgression Under
Postmodern Conditions
a. The Sacred and Its Ecstatic Transgression
Durkheim defined religion as: “a unified
system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred
things, that is to say, things set apart and
forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite
into one single moral community called a Church,
all those who adhere to them.” Apparently,
Durkheim was right into relating religion to apart
sacred things which were set and forbidden. But
he was too much preoccupied by the social impact
and importance of such a religion for human
communities (organised to churches and
acquiring a moral meaning of existence) to foresee
that religion as resulting from the sacred was also
an individual’s preoccupation. If humans were
organised in small communities in the pre-modern
times, this did not exclude the individual
problematics to the Unknown and the Divine.
Communities set cultural symbols and series of
rituals characteristic of their life-styles which set
individuals in the “ common game”. For example
the forbidden things considered as sacred, were
interdictions that waited for their ceremonial (and
for this reason sanctified) transgression through
the profanation process i.e. by the way of the
imitation of real practical acts of the everyday
life. However, the inner meaning of what
transgression might be is related to the eternal
problem or need to give interpretations to things
unknown. This hypothetical interpretation could
drive the human to the limits of his existence
where there was no place for longer interpretation.
The best mean to arrive to that hypothetical or
imaginative limit was the transgression. The
elleiptical and never integrated process of tending
eternally to a comprehension of unknown things
by transgressing them , pretending that there is
not any interpretation during this very
transgression was a major characteristic of the
premodern or traditional era of mankind prolonged
up to our days in many different parts of the globe
that preserve oral tradition and related rituals. This
mentality called “primitive” or “mythological” or
even “ pre-logical” (Levy Bruhl, 1922) had -and
still has in these remoted places- the handicap of
ignoring the new tradition of the written culture
or the power of Logos and its derivative, modern
and rational science.
If modern science - as formed after
Enlightenment in the path opened by Greeks -
has promised to overpass all dead gods and
demystify all primitive myths classified as fairy
tales for children, it did also bring to the
modernised part of humanity quite a lot of new
and negative consequences. The extermination
of the sacred from the everyday life and the
institutionalisation of moral communities called
once churches- at least in the first Christian era-3
to the model of a concentrated powerful
organisation - giving afterwards the idea for the
ethnic state - brought existential agony to the
individuals once more that transgressive
ceremonies and ecstatic behaviours were not
more allowed officially by the religious authorities.
The profanation or secularization of life
transposed the spirit of holy or sacred to its
symbolic “cage” manipulated traditionally by the
official Church(es) and people had to believe that
this science based on empirical evidences and
experimentation in laboratories imitating or
simulating Nature had to be their salvation for
the comprehension of the Kosmos. Commercial
interests which followed this science and bought
the most of it to sell it back in good prices under
the forms of technological products finished into
establishing a hallucinative web of massive media
which define our lives by the pretext of
information and entertainment. Returning to the
classical era before the evasion of media , humans
were alienated from the products of their work
because they belonged to an impersonal huge
mechanism of production owned and/or directed
by impersonal directors (capitalism) or by the
amorfous state of the socialist experiment. Not
any form of transgression was permitted during
this era that lasted till the last technological
revolution that was the electronic evasion to our
lives. (late seventies). Scientists played the game
of God but their knowledge much removed from
ethics and virtue once claimed by Socrates risked
to turn into ruse. The exploitation of Nature and
the violence of human conscience were acts
realised during the omnipotence of science that
cannot make scientists feel proud of. Recently
we witness to a slow passage towards a new era
of human culture called postmodernity or
130 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
postindustrial condition. The inner reason of such
a transition has been the expansion of total
alienation of human beings not only in their labour
sites but also during the rest of their supposed to
be free time. Consumer mentality as propagated
by the mass media and all simulative techniques
used for advertising products have been well
established in the western life-style and human
alienation has been expanded from the production
to the consumption sphere. Simulation techniques
have been used for exaggerating reality and
presenting the world as a toy or rather as a
multicolored artifice. Originality is rare and the
copies are imitating the original forms better than
ever. The meanings are also escaping the same
as the original forms because they are cut into
infinite fragments that make no sense but are easy
to memorise because of their nonsense, the same
as advertising slogans. The plethorism of
provided (pseudo) information is not a guarantee
for any knowledge formation, in the contrary the
claim for democracy and pluralism in the
provision of non demanded information has
resulted a falling of quality and a generalised
cacophony in the massive media. The possibilities
revealed by a new medium such as internet
for human retroactive communication , has
opened new horizons for many people but the
quality of their communication depends on their
formed mentality (as formed in most of the cases
by mass media). What transgression of this
extreme profanation or violation of life could
demand ? One thing is sure: Through mass
information propagation, man became a lonely
individual amidst impersonal masses or crowds,
aiming to not collective aims and loosing the
sense of solidarity. What Riesman anticipated in
the middle of the century as the coming of the era
of the lonely crowd became an indisputable reality
at the ending of this same century. The return to
the self in the era of much proposed globalisation
-that is a commercial hoax- is one of the
uncontestable truths of recent times. What the
Ancients claimed as the knowledge of the self is
presented as the only possibility for today’s tired
postmodern citizens provided that they would
find successful ways to overpass their heavy
alienation. The aesthetization of our postmodern
lives laid to nowhere except to the consumer’s
model but for Ancients aesthetics was the third
level of inner evolution after the acquirement of
the knowledge of the self. Socrates claimed that
“man must be who he really is and he has to
proceed to this act by the knowledge of himself.”
This is a ethical deed to use the potentialities of
Logos or thought or rational knowledge in order
to become yourself. The final result is to make
World beautiful (Kosmos in Greek meant
ornamentation in a metaphorical sense) and this
aesthetic aim could be realised only by the
harmonious collaboration of Ethos and Logos
(Otto, 1969; Foucault,1993)4.
This knowledge of the self , followed by its
application to one’s everydayness, seeks ways
of expression once it succeeds to overpass the
thick web of falsification of forms and
fragmentation of meanings produced by the
massive consumer and informative model. The
heavy profanation of postmodern life and the
pursuit of easy and superficial success (financial
or social recognition of one’s ….glamour) leaves
in vacuum the primordial need of the human to
KNOW still the Unknown things and to
communicate with the essence of Divine whatever
that might be .transgression of institutions (most
of them evolved to laws) cannot be dared.
Sacrifices exercised during the innocent era of
premodernity are considered as crimes or satanic
ceremonies if not accepted by official religious or
state authorities who manipulate postmodern
symbols and related rituals (falsified to a .tourist
extend)5.
The quest of originality and true meanings is
the new sacred task that humans need to fulfil.
This task can be successful only in the margin of
the dominant cultural model of the western
consumer society. What was called anomie once
in a negative way (social disorder) now takes the
dimensions of marginalization that can prove itself
successful if achieving its aim: how to create new
ways of life different from the dominant alienating
culture model mentioned above. What has to be
transgressed of this vulgar profane world ?
Everything ! How ? Using the old sacred ways
reinversed. There where transgression of the
forbidden things was permitted instantly by a
profane (and for an instance sanctified) act, there
where the sacred pathos created ecstatic
moments of passion and fever the pursuit of
methexis with God or Saints or the essence of
Divinity, today we have to transgress just the
idiotic massive model of consumption and
obedience to the hidden god of useless
maximization of production and “development”.
Already social movements such as the ecological
one, challenge and dispute the dominant model
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 131
and propose new alternative ways of practical
life, of theory and communication. The
unsupportable (and non demanded) Order of our
western societies supposed to procure wealth and
well-being have succeeded only into alienating
their members and into providing unequal
chances and career opportunities. The better way
to transgress this profane and ice-cold Order
presented as necessary, is to fight it by sacred
passionate means, boycotting its rules and
directives. In other words by not following the
model of life that it proposes during the working
and free time. The sacred of the future must find
ways to transgress (by not loosing its essence
and motivation) the miserable profanity that
others decided for us the same as their much
advertised products.
b. Premodern Seduction Versus Postmodern
Simulation or the Loss of the Metron
Science as a product of rationalised
knowledge attempted to interpret the “unknown
things” that tormented the human being from
primordial times. This quest for the production or
creation of TRUE meanings has to respect the
laws of measure or golden rule and to know when
and where to accelerate and also to retard or to
stop. Truth is the supposed to be last limit of
originality and its transgression brings to
falsification of the original thing. It is not enough
to interpret the unknown, this interpretation needs
also to be original the same as the things
interpreted are. What the criteria of true or false
interpretations could be? The desire of
discovering reality and to live in this reality by
not changing it, is the most powerful criterium of
truth and originality. Nature gives the model to
human societies as regarding this originality.
Nothing in nature is maximal, all have their
“measure” or optimum form. Also, nothing is
integrated or completed except the dead forms,
because death is a last limit and the transgression
of the living. The sense of elleipsoide or
something that is missing is omni-present in the
Nature but humans pretend not to see it.
Seduction for instance was in the premodernity a
holy passion with all the characteristics of
originality since humans seduced by the idea of
Divine searched how to accomplish their relation
with it before the establishment of the tyranny of
Logos (Baudrillard, 1978). The knowledge of the
self thus, cannot but be elleiptical and for this
reason important. Elleiptical does not mean false
but original and true because Nature is
elleiptically real and for this reason original and
true.
However, modern science has transgressed
in most of the cases the limits needed to be
respected in its fever to conquer -and exploit
afterwards- the unknown. The scientific arrogance
of absolute potentiality created the rational aspect
of substitution of the dead gods. This arrogance
and scorn toward the “primitive” thought
(characterised as irrational) paradoxally led
humanity to the era of absolute falsification of
meanings and the triumph of aimless life-style of
consumerism during postmodernity. Virtuality as
the extreme condition of simulation , substitutes
more and more our everyday realities. Money that
had been charged during ages with all the heavy
symbolic meaning needed for human exchanges,
became partly virtual and huge stock-markets are
supposed to play with the offer/demand law of
capitalism. In reality they invest virtual capitals
in virtual enterprises aiming at the maximum of
profits out of nothing , buying and selling fresh
air. The symbols of nothingness or of extreme
falsification created their analogous rituals aiming
to the reproduction and maximalisation of the
power of the already powerful in the expense of
the weak. The mentality of maximalisation of all
measure -even to the temporal measure by
increasing all possible speeds- has its
consequence to the formation of new aesthetic
styles adoring not the harmonious, the graceful
or the symmetric but the huge the heavy and the
expensive. What seduces the postmodern human
is not harmony but cacophony and exaggeration
of forms. The imitation of the supposed to be
original led art and style fashion in caricatural
falsity and to cheap copies (Baudrillard,1983).
Computer technology can imitate or reproduce
so well the original form that soon national
currency will be perfectly falsified by deceivers
and the governments will have to search for new
symbolic ways of circulating values of exchange.
Summarising, by the above phenomena one
can note that profanation of original desires
brings to alienating aimless routines resulting to
simulated forms and meanings while still claiming
for the original. Rationalisation, instead of
demystifying obscurity -as the dream of
Enlightenment could be- succeeded to bring new
scotadism: that of the falsification of reality.
Primitive desire for representing by imitation the
132 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
Divine - by identifying temporality the self in the
midst of the community with It -during the sacred
and respected rituals, has been replaced by the
actual desire to acquire more and more huge and
“clever” techno-gadgets under the pretext that
they “ make our lives easier” missing the purpose
of this eternal chase of acquisition. Postmodern
man , the same as his modern ancestor (but more
aided by technology and confused by media)
searches infinite ways to exorcise the unknown
of his existence and to expiate himself before its
absolute limit that is death. Postmodern
transgression of the sacred and original fear of
death -repulsed and exterminated out of the public
view and the media advertisements- is executed
by the poorest of the means that could make even
a cannibal to smile. Transgression of the originally
unknown -and consequently TRUE- by false
profane and poor processes cannot result but to
the final existensial alienation of the human. The
spectacularisation of everyday life and the
peeping through the magic glass of a TV screen
falsifies reality to the most and results to a total
illusion. To live with artificial -very well knownmaterial
things does not solve the problem of what
original -in form and meaning-could really and
truly be.
The sacred exorcised as a dangerous and not
commercialised force to the margin of social life
needs to transgress all previous falsification with
new true meanings and forms. Since humans
refused to live in small communities, the massive
function of the sacred seems impossible. The
sacred needs real participation of the persons
interested in common rituals designed by them
for this purpose, not virtual conditions and
simulative falsification of the reality. The sacred
needs harmony and not cacophony for its
expression and the liaison of the sacred desire to
be seduced by the Divine with the real and true
and also painful knowledge of the inner self,
constitutes a par-excellence Ethos in close
approximity with the original.
c. Latency in Late Postmodernity as a Mean for
Resolving the Impasse
Marcel Mauss, the eminent disciple and
nephew of Durkheim who continued the tradition
of the “Maitre”, tried to prove that society
preceded all cultural forms and meanings and gave
its flavour to their development. Also, the priority
attributed to the collective conscience versus the
individual, obliged Mauss to develop the theory
of the “ total social event”.After his posthumus
critics6. Mauss’ major contribution to the social
sciences is having demonstrated by his analyses
that the social by permitting the consciences’
communication operates as the mediator of
personal intentions. After him the impersonal
(collective) conscience was given to the man
before his personal conscience. Believing that
human was rational since his early “primitivism”,
Mauss considered the notion of mana as the
starting point -the famous “ point zero” - of every
symbolisation related to the holy or the sacred.
Also by this notion mana was the point of
insertion of the individual toward the social.
“Every collective representation had been
developed to myths the same as every general
idea born in the individual mind could not be
thought if not aided by concrete images”
(Mauss,1954).
Under this conception of premodern rational
man, ecstatic phenomena exercised in collectivity
or individuality , can be explained only as illusions
and manifestations of sacred but false manias,
the same as the first authentic physician of
Antiquity, Hippocrates7 classified manias not as
God-given gifts (as believed by the popular
tradition) but as illness of the psyche in urgent
need of a medical treatment aiming to a definite
therapy. To transfer our scenery to the today’s
postmodernity, extreme rationality of Logos as
applied in science technology and societal
organization aim to the extermination of whatever
could remind the primitive condition of passion
and enthousiasm. These psychic manifestations
are -the same as in the school of Hippocratesconsidered
as marginal and needing therapy
because deviating society from its organisation
and order. But these phenomena, collective or
mostly individual do exist even in our bureaucratic
western societies, operating in latency and in
margin of the society. When media have problems
of increasing their audiences , they present some
of the cases of sacred manias as bizarre illnesses
in a much spectacular and exaggerated style. This
falsification of the real happenings cannot
proceed to the analysis of the causes of such
manifestations. The task of actual Anthropology
should be to examine and analyse and also
interpret such phenomena not only in remote
continents but in the middle of our postmodernity.
The much exorcised “different” comes back in
our era and theorists of Postmodernity as Lyotard
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 133
developed theories on this notion since 1984.
Otherness also is a much discussed postmodern
theoretical notion meaning what is other from
what we are supposed to be (and maybe very
close to what we are but we do not dare to
recognise)8. Crossing borders of countries -that
are demolishing under the global perspectivemeans
rather the crossing of our own borders
that centuries of Logos have built as barriers or
as an imaginary Berlin Wall.
Our actuality also proved the increasing
importance of personal and individual insecurity
even in an era when extremely large amounts of
money are spent for assurances and security
measures. The probabilities of an aircraft to
smash are more dependent to the UNKNOWNand
for this reason completely unpredictable -
mechanical error of a computer that from a human
(pilot or engineer) error. The increasing
dependency of our lives to machines and
automatization, brings a much severe insecurity
than the optimist Sain-Simonism of Jules Verne
could imagine a century ago. The crisis of the
originality and hence of the authenticity derive
from this insecurity. The doubt about the
necessity of our acts is following this uneasy
social -and global- insecurity. The rational
profanation of the unknown and invisible sacred
is proved to be not much more secure even if
presented as real, true , well-known and visible.
Cybernauts are surfing into the virtuality or
uncertainty of the fantastical space named
cyberspace which has more things in common of
the ancient sacred than with the scientific
profane. The sacred is transgressing the profane
in late postmodernity because the tired citizen at
the end of this Millennium once distanced from
the illusive media, conceives reality as an
unknown and unpredictable mystery and tries for
the first time to “take the situation in his/her
hands” hence the triumph of individual creation
or adventure or decision. New latent sacred
manias that cannot be classified as illnesses
anymore are appearing massively but regarding
remote individual cybernauts while surfing the
Net. The famous IAD (internet addiction disorder)
could not be proved by academic phychiatrists
as real (it is interesting the attribution: disorder).
Our recent postmodern societies of false
impressive appearances and illusive mediatised
images for massive consumption, will succeed at
least to one matter: To the increase of the
individual degrees of freedom because of the
uncontrolable flexibilty that every citizen acquires
while transforming him/herself to netizen. Internet
that started as an effort of military control, is a
chaotic uncontrolable field where million of human
interactions are exercised out of any possible
censors every day! This social phenomenon
could not be imagined by the most optimist
aticipation 20 years ago. The sacred chaos is
getting over the ordered and rationalised profane
once more !
SECOND PART
INTRODUCTION
We shall not describe one more ecstatic cult.
Rituals exercised periodically in remote rural areas
usually refer to the community’s need for
economical and social prosperity and their
characteristics are mostly profane. However, after
the famous distinction first introduced by
Durkheim (Alexander, 1988; Bell,1979; Castelli,
1974; Pickering,1969), between the sacred and
the profane aspects of life, there still exist some
sacred aspects of agrarian cults in latency, such
as ceremonial sacrifice of an animal. The paradoxal
fact in the case of the ritual under examination is
the ceremonial dance that follows the sacrifice
exercised by some participants “elected by the
Saint” on the burning coals of a fire. These
dancers who walk and dance or even stay
immobile on the 300 degrees coals are
characterised as ecstatic while trying to identify
themselves with the protector Saint of the village.
The focus of our approach is neither on the
paradox of the dancers’ “akaia” (not burning on
the fire) nor on their general social attitudes, nor
even to prove that this ritual is purely Greek and
not Bulgarian (actually it is still exercised by
Bulgarians too) as generations of Greek folclorists
did insist with passion. A new method based on
the notion of “Ellipsis” or latency (literally deficit)
is proposed. The point is to precise what aspects
of the sacred are vivid in co-existence with the
everyday profanity of social life.
A “definition of situation” does not mean that
we can construct situations arbitrarily. On the
contrary, it can be interpreted that once we define
a situation autonomously or heteronomously,
whatever our attitude to it, the situation once
defined can remain real. Even if we define a
situation, we cannot execute complete control over
our product. Once produced/defined, the
134 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
situation is alienated from us as a “thing” and
become open to anybody’s interpretation. And
we do not fabricate realities “ex nihilo”. But we
refabricate on the horizon of a particular tradition.
Human beliefs have been in close relation with
analogous rituals or ceremonial collective acts
that enforce these beliefs. The situations created
during these acts are “seen” by the external
viewers as paranormal or impossible but nobody
can deny their reality. Thus, reality is not ever
operating under Aristotelian logic even if his
sophisticated epigones try to interpret it under
this only angle. The actors themselves cannot
give logic interpretations to their deeds since they
do not consider them as logical (such as their
everyday “ profane” acts). The phenomenal riddle
remain for actors and external viewers, but the
most possible is that Social Anthropology after a
century of rationalism and maturated from its
colonialism virus, can stand in the threshold of a
new Millennium as the only “human science”
able to search for “ alternative” or “elliptical”
(deficit) interpretations of bizarre and irrational
phenomena manifested during collective
ceremonial acts.
Some Remarks
Under this scope the study of a ritual such as
Anastenaria including ceremonial bull sacrifice
and fire-walking considered as “sacred” and
realised traditionally every year in the honour of
the Saints Constantin and Helen by Thracian
refugees fled from Eastern Romylia (ex Ottoman
and now Bulgarian) to Greek Macedonia, takes a
special value to a considerable degree for the
following six reasons:
1. The cult of the Saints as founders of the
village echoes analogous cults of the ancient
Thracians related to the dead ancestors but
this similarity serves not as a proof of
“revivals” of the glorious antiquity to our
modernity. On the contrary, the rich
ceremonial and ritual background of this cult
recognised as ecstatic may split new light to
our very modernity.
2. To say that the “sacred” cannot “cooperate”
with the “heroic”, is a doctrinal aspect, since
these two elements of human spirituality
operate as the two facets of the same coin.
In the ritual of Anastenaria the rich musical
repertoire of songs sung and/or danced
consist a perfect combination of heroic and
sacred scenarios that are present in the same
songs in the most of the cases (Dede,1978).5
3. Functionalism that served as a biological
starting point before turning to an
interpretative school of social Anthropology,
has been proved completely inadequate to
explain phenomena such as “akaia”
(resistance to the power of fire and high
temperature). The error of the Malinowskian
approach is that he did not evaluate the
importance that fantastical elements such as
symbols (Douglas, 1970) play in the life of
common people even more when people do
participate in collectivity in social rituals
inside a community. The study of
significative codes is never fruitful on the
level of the phenomenon itself, but rather on
the level of representation. We know that
the roots of theatrical representation come
from the eternal human need to imitate while
performing collective acts such as rituals
considered as important for the welfare of
the community. The beginnings of the Art
named theater-evolved further on to the
Greek Drama,-can be traced in the
supplicatory rural rituals of welfare and
prosperity.
4. Oral tradition, neglected by our scholarship
under modernity, is coming back in recent
times under the indirect ways of massive
iconic and virtual communications. The realm
of the written knowledge as propagated by
the academic education, seems to decline
and educators are re orientating school and
university curricula toward the new trend.
Human oral and spectacular expression
modes regain their former originality disputed
during centuries of written scholarship.
5. The complementary to the ecstatic dance
ritual of the bull sacrifice as committed by
the same actors, must be viewed not as a
...”revival” of analogous ancient sacrifices
such as Boufonia (expiatory sacrifices
committed in ancient Athens) but in relation
to the main ritual as an explanation of it. Fire
as the unifying common element
(Bachelard,1979) in both sacrifice and firewalking
is a purificatory power and also a
revenging force that punishes the transgressors
of an interdiction or taboo (Bataille,
1958). In all sacrifices the dialectics of the
sacrificer/victime similar to the carnival role
changes, culpabilises sacrificers (usually
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 135
humans) because of the transgression of the
murder interdiction. Certainly the cause of
sacrifice has been expiation but the sacrificer
needs to overpass his sin by the same way
of purification: by dancing and extinguishing
the fire. The sacrificer is usually one person
but he represents the whole community. In
their turn the community have to dance in a
collective manner on the fire to overpass the
collective sin and to purify the outrageous
deed of murder.
6. Finally, the double image of the Saint/hero,
young (micro-Konstantinos) and old
(“papous” or grand-father) constitute one
more manifestation of dual or complementary
twin symbols by which humans ever since
needed to express their ambiguity towards
the divine and sacred powers (Sahlins,1981;
Douglas, 1970). The form of the young hero
much related to Middle-Ages epic songs
does not carry the sacred but rather the
profane aspect of this bipole. The dancers
while dancing on the fire, identify themselves
more easily to a “possible” person , than to
the unknown grand-father attributed to the
historical personality of Constantine the
Great , the Roman Emperor who established
Christian religion as the only official one in
his Imperium in the fourth century A..D. The
holy icons carried by the dancers during the
dance ritual , represent this person and his
mother Saint Helen an influential personality
to his decision. This interpolation of the
sacred element in the heroic epic dance and
songs of the profane young hero can also
be interpreted as the need of the recognition
of this ritual (characterised as pagan) by the
official Orthodox Christian authorities. This
is succeeded by the reference to the
recognised Saint Constantine (old grandfather)
and his mother Saint Helen both
celebrated since the fourth century of our
era in May 21 in the Orthodox religious
calendar.5
As the eminent British Anthropologist
I.M.Lewis notices in the preface of his 1977
“Ecstatic Religion”:“ Belief, Ritual and Spiritual
Experience are the Cornerstones of Religion“.
The point is that the participants of a ritual
considered as sacred surviving in our late
modernity or postmodernity, such as Anastenaria,
do believe in their holy ritual and in the
same time they do have a spiritual and ecstatic
experience taking the dimensions of paranormal
since they prove by their participation that they
overpass the natural laws of heat produced by
fire.
The Songs and Dances of Anastenaria
It is doubtful whether the participants of the
fire-walking could even enter the ecstatic
condition needed for walking on live coals, if
besides their faith to their protector Saints
Constantine and Helen, they were not so full of
rhythm , dance and melody. These elements are
not only an expression of what Anastenarides
feel and believe, but they also “create” by their
musical means the sacred and enthousiastic
atmosphere needed to overpass the “pyros
menos” (the power of the fire). The verses of these
songs are not the same and the singers add,
compose or modify while dancing new ones that
do not fit in the meaning in all cases. The main
theme of the verses are however the heroic deeds
of the young hero. But we must distinguish the
songs sung during the crucial fire-walking and
the songs sung during the initiation of the
participants that is held in the “conaki” (the
village’s first ‘s house). Also, a third category of
songs, that of “tavlas” (on the table) are sung by
the whole community and refer to practical
aspects of everyday life. These songs that turn
to usual thracian popular modes, do not modify
or break the unity of the religious custom. The
modesty with which the Anastenarides amuse
themselves, underlines the very essence of their
ritual i.e. decency, piety and love of freedom and
peace , which only heroism and self sacrifice can
preserve. The rhythm of the sacred song of little
Konstantinos is 2/4 and in this rhythm the
“aghitikos” (dance of the Saints) is danced. That
is to say vv.vv.vv One more melody considered
sacred (no verses with that melody) is also in 2/4
or 2/8. This melody is performed like all the other
melodies of the feast , with their musical
instruments (lyre, davuli(drum) and gaida ( pipe)
but more enthousiastically. Thus, many
Anastenarides feel that the “ nerve” with which
this melody is played, is a very real requirement
for the performance of fire-walking.
Historically speaking, we know nothing about
the reason why these songs and dances were
adopted by the Anastenarides and are so tightly
connected with their ritual.. Even if they are
unable to explain the connection, the dancers
136 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
consider these songs as sacred and refered to
Saints Konstantinos and Helen. The confusion
of the two persons (Agios-Saint- Konstantinos
and small Konstantinos) is even more impressive.
For the dancers , both these persons fought
bravely against the enemies of Christianity.
Especially the small Konstantinos has all the
referents to be a historical person, since,
increasingly the heroes of the songs of the Acritic
Cycle appear to have been real persons.
Nevertheless, the most impressive element is
the decency of the songs and the dances. A
religious and heroic spirit prevails in the verses,
the melody, the steps, the movements of the arms
and above all the ecstatic faces of the persons
dancing. Both singing and dancing are in fact a
prayer, in which piety and heroism find a unique
expression through rhythm and melody.5
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The example of a collective sacred ceremony
such as Anastenaria proves that:
1. The spirit of sacred is not based mainly on
various interdictions as in official Orthodox
cult but rather on participatory pathos (mania)
of people committed in this ritual.
Institutionalisation of cult is replaced by the
seduction that fire as a sacred element exerts
on the dancers. This challenge of fire is not
an appearance or impression such as
postmodern simulation techniques used by
media to alienate human conscience. On the
contrary the seduction of fire invested with
all its symbols of heroic plus respected
persons (the double Konstantinos) is not
considered as a game of representation or
reality’s substitution with all its rules granted.
The very action of collective participation to
a ritual makes up its sacred character.
2. The essence of this form of sacralisation not
as an inversion of a profane reality but as a
moral deed “par excellence” consists on the
total absence of the aesthetic category
(Durkheim, 1906). The proof of this argument
is that the way of aesthetic production
(provided through imitation in the postmodern
way of production/ consumption) is not
important in Anastenaria ritual. Nobody
imitates anybody or an advertising message
or slogan. Originality is the only means of
succeeding to the sacred aim: the fire must be
won. Knowledge of the self is an absolute
necessity and this concentration to the self
through a communal practice takes the
dimensions of a sacred act. Participants have
the conscience of doing a holy deed otherwise
they will be “punished” by the most powerful
of the natural forces that is burning coals. We
consider this conscience of dancers and firewalkers
as an ethical act par excellence.
3. This ethical aspect of a participatory ritual
could not be operative if every dancer could
not succeed into the mastery and control of
his/her inner rhythms in harmonisation with
the rhythmical tempo of the drum and the
melodic sound of the lyre and the pipe. This
strange synchronisation of outer and inner
rhythms and melody -that is a perfect sample
of harmony- presupposes an original not
fragmentary knowledge of the self. Some argue
about a knowledge of the God but the
identification of dancers to the double symbol
of a young hero and an old Saint advocate
more for the knowledge of the self. The
Socratic motto : “ be thyself after you KNOW
yourself” seems to take its best application in
this case (Bohme,1959; Versenjii,1963).
For Durkheim the definition of religion passes
through the definition of what he considers as
sacred (Durkheim, 1954 (1912); Filloux, 1990;
Giddens, 1978). The content of this notion may
change with time and different cultural context
but as a reality it always exists and in this sense
sacred is timeless. This eternality of the sacred is
in contradiction with the temporality of its inverse
the profane. But since the sacred is a highly
absurd notion the same as alienation (both can
never been taken as granted) the best approach
would be to ask individuals or groups exercising
collective rituals what do they hold to be sacred
while declaring their experiences and describing
their attitudes. The participants of the
Anastenaria ritual do declare the holiness of their
pathos and the purity of their aims while sacrifying
the bull and dancing on the burning coals. The
mythological and even cosmological (ancestral)
background of Anastenaria social condition insist
for a religious faith but official Church claims them
as pagan or heretics. Their symbols are Christian
(icons) but the way they use them recalls rather
pagan festivities. Holy objects such as red
handkerchiefs tied in their necks during the dance,
are of major importance to them and their musical
instruments are considered as sacred. But the
most important aspect of their secular lives is that
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 137
their social organization is controlled by their
ritual hierarchy (Dede,1978).
The sacred element is surpassing or controlling
once more their socio-economic profanity.
Following the Durkheimian definition of the
sacred, social organisation of a community is the
best manifestation of a latent sense of sacred
provided that it is operating under moral terms.
Thus, the point is what can be the definition of
an ethical attitude (Durkheim, 1906; Eliade,1959;
Filloux,1990; Pickering,1990). If the expiation of
all social evil through ritual action can be defined
as a moral deed , we can theorize Anastenaria as
a sacred , moral, collective ritual traditionally
transmitted in oral ways. The interest of its
function is to note if it will succeed to survive in
the few next years of the fragmented and
simulated postmodernity that influence all the
same inhabitants of urbanised metropoles as well
as small villages in the periphery of our global
consumptive societies.
There is one more point in this argumentation.
The very essence of the sacred has been
successful insofar as it is hidden. Ritual that is its
manifestation is the “supplement” that
demonstrates its own lack; it is a reproduction
that seeks to renew for its participants the
experience of absolute originality. The believer
nevertheless affirms the social efficacy of ritual
and of its linguistic variant, the rhetoric of the
Saint-protector. By talking of this superior force,
the believer hopes to bring us closer together in
our otherness from him. The source of this
collective origin is itself original; it only appears
to increase with the “decline of public man”
because the evolution of the exchange system
provokes in us a sensitivity to the difference
between the public and private spheres
unavailable to our ancestors. The premodern
individual defines himself in the sacrificial
repetition of the original scene; his lack of a
“private” identity makes him less capable of
insight into the founding role of human mimesis
than his sceptical modern counterpart. For some
recent theorists such as Rene Girard culture,
violence and sacrality are all co-terminal realities.
Violence has to be expiated by the act of sacrifice
because it is a universal phenomenon. However,
in our case the social environment of the villagers
/participants on which the ritual is grounded has
never produced any violent manifestation. The
theory of violence as the universal source of all
expiatory sacrifices connected to sacrality does
not make any sense in the case of Anastenaria
sacred ritual and the sub theories of “ double
monstrueux” and “bouc emmissaire” as
enorchistrated by Girard are not verified.
KEY WORDS Sacred; transgression; profane; firewalking;
sacrifice.
ABSTRACT Individuals and crowds face a new challenge
in postmodern era. In contrast to modernity,
postmodernity is characterised by an extreme division
of the subject (fragmentation) and by a complete illusion
of means and aims , as propagated through alienating
mediated messages (simulation). A third feature named “
latency” has the sense of inconsistency of goals and the
flexibility of strategies. Both in the West and the Rest
(to use Wallerstein’s distinction), people conceive the
sacred under new influences coming mainly from the
media and computer intervention in everyday life.
Falsification of pictorial information in parallel with its
uncontrolled inflation are responsible for spacio-temporal
alienation. The result is the inversion of the classical
scheme sacred/profane (conceived as the transgression
of the former by the latter). One can speak today, rather
, of the transgression of our everyday profanity by new
forms of the sacred as developed and manifested under
actual post modern conditions. Focus here is on this
recent development of the sacred as manifested in
contemporary rituals such as Anastenaria comprising
ceremonial bull sacrifice and ecstatic fire-walking.
NOTES
1. A passage from D. Strangelove’s article in “Ottawa
Courrier” (Oct 1997), on Sacred , rituals, symbols in
postmodernity, is characteristic :
Once human behaviour is seen as symbolic
action—action which, like phonation in speech,
pigment in painting, line in writing, or sonance in
music, signifies—the question as to whether culture is
patterned conduct or a frame of mind, or even the
two somehow mixed together, loses sense. The thing
to ask [of actions] is what their import is” . Moreover,
culture is “public because meaning is”—systems of
meaning are necessarily the collective property of a
group—. When we say we do not understand the
actions of people from a culture other than our own,
we are in reality acknowledging our “lack of
familiarity with the imaginative universe within which
their acts are signs”.
Many anthropologists have examine how social
structure replicates the dominant pattern of symbols
within the social world. Mary Douglas described social
systems as constraining filters on how individuals
perceive the universe. A social system frames a
“potential symbolic field” and the selection of symbols
from this field is a social process that serves to “govern
choices in behaviour”. The selected symbols of a
particular social order represent the set of categories
that are in use within the social world. This set of “in
use” categories constitutes the social order’s unique
cosmology. For Douglas, the symbolic order (or
cosmology) is not merely an expression of the social
138 NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS
order. The operative symbols replicate the social setup
which generated the symbols themselves. How do
symbols exercise this control? The symbols themselves
lash back at the people and divert their attempts to
change their lot into channels which do more to
symbolise than to improve it. The natural symbols of
society create a bias with strong philosophical and
political as well as religious aspects.
Symbols exercise power over the social order by
establishing shared categories of perception,
categories which inevitably contain bias of one sort
or another. This bias is continually replicated in the
social order through ritual forms of social interaction.
Douglas equates ritual with symbolic action and
confirms Giddens’ description of ritual as a medium
of social reproduction. Rituals mediate symbols
between individuals. The symbols in turn carry the
bias of the surrounding social system. This mediation
process frames the possibilities of expression and
explains “how our different cosmologies imprison
us.” In modernity, with the extreme erosion of
traditional social forms, how is the content of the
social world’s cosmology mediated to individuals?
Rituals remain but the symbols rituals mediate are
selected by mass media systems where once they were
selected by the filter of the traditional social order.
Ritual provides a medium through which symbols
are communicated. In Purity and Danger: An analysis
of concepts of pollution and taboo (1966), Mary
Douglas describes how symbols flow through ritual
and control experience. Douglas’ ritual theory follows
in the tradition of Emile Durkheim, who identified
ritual as symbolic of social processes. She follow upon
Durkheim’s observation that rituals serve to control
experience. Douglas explores how symbols and rituals
surrounding the body create the framework of
consciousness. Her ritual theory continues the project
of Durkheim’s sociology of knowledge by relativising
the framework of modernity and the scientific
enterprise itself. Douglas’ analysis of how the body
acts as a symbol of society and how body symbolism
reproduces the surrounding social structure is not
relevant to our discussion. Scattered throughout
Douglas’ writings are observations about the role
ritual and symbols play in the social construction of
reality. Douglas describes the individual as a “ritual
animal”. Social rituals create reality through
“symbolic enactment.” Rituals draw selectively from
a common stock of symbols and thereby control
experience in the social world. The symbols which
rituals select and interpret frame experience by
communicating cultural themes and excluding alien
(“intruding”) themes. For Douglas, ritual
simultaneously creates and maintains a particular
culture through mediating symbols that are thick with
assumptions. These assumptions, latent within the
selected symbols, control experience when they are
communicated through the symbolic action of ritual
performance. The ritual process of symbolic
enactement is, for Douglas, a process of cultural selfknowledge.
Rituals give visible expression to the
particular form of social relations and thereby “enable
people to know their own society.” Ritual constructs
culture through the selection and interpretation of a
common set of symbols. Rituals also mediate culture
by communicating the structure of shared social forms
(such as kinship) and by communicating the basic
categories and standardized values which define
culture itself.
2. From the extensive literature on hooliganism and
youth related violence we select the following characteristic
recent books and articles:
a. Brake M. 1980. The Sociology of Youth Culture
and Youth’s Subcultures. London: RKP.
b. Brake M. 1985. The Sociology of Youth Culture.
London: RKP.
c. Cohen S.T. 1973. Folk Devils and Moral Panics.
London: Paladin.
d. Danzinger K. 1971. Socialization. London:
Penguin.
e. Dunning E. 1986. “The rise of the English soccer
hooliganism,” Youths and Society, 362 – 80.
f. Dunning E. et al., 150 .1984., “Spectator violence
at football matches” BJS 37. 221-243
g. Dunning E. et al., 1988. The Roots of Football
Hooliganism. London: RKP.
h. Eisenstadt S.N. 1956. From Generation to
generation. Glencoe Free Press.
i. Erikson E. 1968. Identity, Youth and Crisis.
N.York: Norton.
j. Frith S. 1984. The Sociology of Youth. Causeway
Press.
k. Gousgounis N. 1989. “Hooliganism and social
change” (in Greek), Intern Congress of Violence
in Athletic grounds, Athens.
l. Gousgounis N. 1994. Violence and Order in Youth
“subcultures”, Socioloski Pregled (in English), 4:
Beograd, 495-503;
m. Hargraves J. (ed). 1982. Sport, Culture and
Ideology. London: RKP.
n. Harre R. et al. 1985. Motives and Mechanisms An
Introduction to the Psychology of Action, London,
Methuen.
o. Humphries St. 1981. Hooligans or Rebels.
Oxford. Blackwell.
p. March P. 1978. Aggro, the Iillusion of Violence
London: Dent and Sons.
q. March P., E. Rosser and Rom Harre. 1978. The
Rules of Disorder. London: RKP.
3. From the literature on Primitive Christianity we
propose:
a. Bultmann Rudolf. 1950. Das Urchristendum,
Zurich, Artemis Verlag,, tr. Francaise 1969, Paris:
Payot.
b. Goguel M. 1946. La naissance du Christianisme,
Paris: Payot.
c. Foakes Jackson, Kirsopp Lake. 1920. The
begginings of Christianity, 33.
d. Hinneberg, P. 1922. Die christliche Religion.
4. For a short literature on Platonic morals and aesthetics
as well as the notion of the golden rule metron see:
a. Brumbaugh R.S. 1954. Plato’s Mathematical
Imagination, Bloomington;
b. Lodge R.C. 1950. Plato’s theory of Ethics. London.
c. Gould J. 1955. The Development of Plato’s Ethics.
CUP.
d. Huber C. 1964. Anamnesis bei Plato. Muenchen.
e. Rankin H.D. 1964, Plato and the individual,
London.
f. Schuhl P.M. 1952. Platon et l’art de son temps,
THE TRANSGRESSING CHARACTER OF THE SACRED IN THE DOUBLE RITUAL 139
Paris.
g. Wild J. 1947. Plato’s Theory of Man. CUP.
h. Robin L. 1957. Les rapports de l’etre et de la
connaissanced’apres Platon. Paris.
i. Martin G. 1969. Plato. Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag.
5. For an analysis and interpretation of sacrificial ritual
acts as related to the unofficial sacred see :
Gousgounis Nikos (1981), Anastenaria : Un culte des
ancentres morts en tant que Saints priotecteurs de
village en Thrace contemporaire, Unpublished
Doctoral Dissertation of 3th Cycle University Paris
VII Jussieu;
6. Mainly Levi-Strauss C, in his Systemes primitives de
classification;
7. About Hippocrates and his opinion on sacred diseases
see:
ON THE SACRED DISEASE, By Hippocrates, Written
400 B.C.E, Translated by Francis Adams
It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it
appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred
than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the
originates like other affections. Men regard its nature
and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because
it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its
divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it,
and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for
men are freed from it by purifications and incantations.
But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead
of one there are many diseases which would be sacred;
for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and
prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The
quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no
less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease,
although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see
men become mad and demented from no manifest cause,
and at the same time doing many things out of place;
and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and
crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping
up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason
until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and
rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and
this will happen not once but frequently. And there are
many and various things of the like kind, which it would
be tedious to state particularly.
And the disease called the Sacred arises from causes
as the others, namely, those things which enter and quit
the body, such as cold, the sun, and the winds, which are
ever changing and are never at rest. And these things
are divine, so that there is no necessity for making a
distinction, and holding this disease to be more divine
than the others, but all are divine, and all human. And
each has its own peculiar nature and power, and none is
of an ambiguous nature, or irremediable. And the most
of them are curable by the same means as those by
which any other thing is food to one, and injurious to
another. Thus, then, the physician should understand
and distinguish the season of each, so that at one time
he may attend to the nourishment and increase, and at
another to abstraction and diminution. And in this disease
as in all others, he must strive not to feed the disease, but
endeavour to wear it out by administering whatever is
most opposed to each disease, and not that which favours
and is allied to it. For by that which is allied to it, it gains
vigour and increase, but it wears out and disappears
under the use of that which is opposed to it. But whoever
is acquainted with such a change in men, and can render
a man humid and dry, hot and cold by regimen, could
also cure this disease, if he recognizes the proper season
for administering his remedies, without minding
purifications, spells, and all other illiberal practices of a
like kind.
8. On the notion of Otherness, see our article: Double
culture, risk and cosmopolitanism or “Multicultured
cosmopolitanism and the rhythms of eternal mystery, in
Haabrasi Vestrik No. 1(15) Alma Ata 2001 pp 148-154
(in English)
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