The therapeutic function of the Corybantic Rites in Ancient Greece
Imagery courtesy of Nikos Aliagas
In Delphi Awakening we are always fascinated to connect the dots between ancient and contemporary practices and rituals.
Here, I will discuss the relationship between the Corybantic rites in Ancient Greece and dance/ movement therapy (DMT) as it is practiced today.
Ritual dance in classical antiquity was seen as a form of imitation that had both religious and moral purposes. The ancient Greeks did not separate their daily life from spiritual life, effort from singing, song from God and God from dance (Papaioannou et al, 2015). Besides spirituality, the Corybantic rites had a specific focus on ‘curing’ mental health problems. Thus, the corybantic dance might be considered as some form of dance therapy in antiquity. According to Plato the Corybantes would cure ‘phobias or anxiety feelings arising from some morbid position’ (in Bremmer, 2014, p 52). In Aristophane’s Wasps (115-118), Bledycleon performed the corybantic rites to cure his father’s ‘madness’.
Who were the Corybantes?
The Corybantes were young dancing male attendants of the Great Mother who had many names (Rhea, Cybele, Adrasteia) and was the Mother of Gods and Men. The Corybantes were viewed as primal beings who would both cause and cure madness (Levenson, 1999). The title Corybantes was also applied to priests of The Great Mother who performed the rites (Ustinova, 1992-1998).
Extrapolating from the limited available literature regarding the Corybants, Bremmer (2014) suggested that it was both men and women participating in the rites. Although Plato mentioned only aristocratic men, inscriptions from Thessalonica and Erythrae, dating to the fourth and second century BC respectively, mention women (i.e; in Erythrae the majority of the participants seem to have been women). This gender difference is reflected in the presence of priests and priestesses says Bremmer (2014); the Erythraean inscription stipulates that the priests had to wash men and the priestesses women. Participation was not free and strangers paid more than locals.
The Corybantic Rites
Although the rites are not thoroughly described in one comprehensive document, one can extrapolate from Plato’s Socratic Dialogues and The Laws with regards to the process, the content and the purpose of these rites that were executed by the Corybantic cult. The evidence in Plato suggests that Corymbantic rites were a kind of homeopathic technique for healing mental disorders, i.e. to treat mania with mania (Ustinova, 1992-1998).
Initially, the patient listened to various types of sacred music; and based on their reaction to them, the priest could identify the God responsible for their illness and offer them a sacrifice to please them (Delavaud-Roux, 2016). In this sense this was a rite of possession and in particular of invasion of a supernatural being who causes illness and distress to the patient. Hanna (1987) suggests that in cases of possession, ‘dance may be used as a medium to exorcise and appease the being’ transforming the patient from being in a passive state to being an active agent’. In ancient Greece the word enthousiasmos was used to describe this kind of trance. An etymological analysis of this word suggests that the root words are en (inside) and theos (God) and it means to be possessed or inspired by a God. Billmann (2015) identifies this God as the Rhythm Dance which activates an internal force that causes the body to leap beyond its limits.
The priest-corybant and the Corybantic initiators played the same repetitive tune using flutes, tambourines and other musical instruments to create excitement in the patient. They sang, danced and raised a great din around him driving the patient to an absolute frenzy during which he began singing and dancing himself in ecstasy. The healer asked questions and sang incantations to intensify the frenzy. All participants were in a state of trance (Ustinova, 1992-98). The trance was intensified by whirling dances similar to the Turkish dervishes today (Bremmer, 2014, p. 52)
A later tradition suggested that those participating in the rites were given the gift of prophesy, they had divine inspiration or else expressed directly the will of the possessing God (Ustinova, 1992-98).
Following the ceremony the patients’ frenzy was regulated till the next reunion, the external symptoms were not cured but were contained (Delavaud-Roux, 2016). The patient would come to subsequent rites as an initiator.
The underlying processes of the Corybantic rites, and how they relate to Dance Movement Therapy
The rites served the function of an abreaction, ‘by induction of corybantic madness the mind was purged and its balance restored’ (a history of great ideas in abnormal psychology, p;14-15). As Hanna (1987) explains, the ecstasis leads to catharsis which is a release of distressful emotions and frustrations and helps to reduce anxiety and/or internal conflict. Catharsis etymologically stems from the word ‘catharos’ which means pure. Therefore the aim of the ritual seems to be one of purifying the soul having expressed the toxic and distressful emotions during the frenzy.
One main goal of DMT is to also help patients trough movement to express and work through both conscious and unconscious emotions, to detoxify their psyche. According to Sterlin (1993), much of the psychic distress of the postmodern and modern age is caused by the individuals’ inability to connect to unconscious or immediate forms of knowing. She claims that ‘dance therapy plays an important role in recovering the intuitive and imaginative powers to make persons whole’. During the Corybantic rites the participants dipped into the unconscious and danced out of fear and love for the Gods, deeply connected to their ultimate fears and instincts.
The group plays an important role in a similar way to DMT. Both in the Corybantic rites and in DMT, individuals express through movement their own impulses and internal conflicts whilst they relate to a group of people that serves as a container. According to Chaiklin (2009) `there is shared energy when being with others. It enables to go beyond our personal limitations and concerns’ (p.2). Within the frame of the rites or the DMT sessions mania or frenzy may be expressed in a safe way as they are contained by the frame and the group.
The regular meetings of the Corybantes, demonstrate that these were not considered as a one-off treatment for the soul. If we were to compare this to DMT, the corybantic rites consisted of a closed group that welcomed one new participant every time. The frequent participation suggests that like DMT, the therapeutic outcome relied upon the frame, that this was not seen a magical cure but as therapeutic work in progress supported by the group and guided by the priest (in DMT this person is the therapist).
Through reviewing numerous anthropological studies, Hanna (1987) posits that possession dance brings closer the human and the supernatural and helps humans to become integrated and to connect with other humans. As Hanna (1987; p. 126) explains, dance persists through historical time and geographical space because ‘people everywhere share unconscious biological attributes and urges which come into conflict with social constraints’. For example Bremmer noted that Henri Jeanmaire (1884– 1960), compared the possession of women in the African cults of Zar and Bori with possession in the maenadic and corybantic rituals and found that all these practices aimed at healing sickness including mental disorders. This demonstrates that there is a core connection between the psyche and the cosmos and this can be shared universally via dance.
Certain schools of dance therapy such as Primitive Expression (Billnan, 2015) suggest that dance therapy needs to reconnect with the dancing force of ‘enthousiasmos’ which celebrates the forces of nature. The Corybantic dance as well as other popular possession dances in Africa, the South of Italy (i.e. the tarantella and argia) used to be performed by groups who tuned in to the rhythm of a pulsating beat. According to Billmann (2015, p.38-39) ‘rhythm connects the dancer to himself by synchronising the registers which constitute the human being (i.e physical, social, mental and psychic). The rhythmic repetition of movement causes a resonance between the organic and the psychic body: the body, the unconscious and the conscious self vibrate to the same rhythm, creating something new: another self’.
In Conclusion
By examining and reflecting upon the available literature regarding the Corybantic rites and dance, it was evident that the therapeutic benefits of dance were based upon the specific frame and structure that were employed in performing these rites (i.e. closed-group participation, rhythm, the use of dance as a metaphor, symbolic representation, leader etc). Extrapolating from the available literature one could posit that the Corybantic Dance was one of the principal ancestors of modern DMT.
References
Bremmer, J. N. (2014) Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter
Chaiklin, S. (2009) ‘We Dance from the Moment Our Feet Touch the Earth’. In The Art and Science of Dance/Movement Therapy: Life is Dance, ed.Sharon Chaiklin and Hilda Wengrower, pp. 1-8. Routledge: Hove.
Chodrow, J. (1991) Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology: The moving imagination. New York: Routledge.
Delavaud-Roux, M. H. (2016) La danse grecque antique comme thérapie et l'inspiration antique dans les danses thérapies contemporaines / Ancient Greek dance as therapy and Antiquity in the countemporaneous therapy dance. 48th World Congress on Dance research, Nov 2016, Avignon, France. 〈https://www.avignonsectioncid.org/congres-2016/documents-photos-des-conférenciers/〉. 〈halshs-01429446〉
Hanna, J. L. (1987) To Dance is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Levenson, C. (1999) Socrates Among the Corybantes: Being, reality and the Gods. Connecticut: Spring Publications.
Papaioannou C., Mouratidou K., Mouratidis G. & Douka, S. (2011). Association of dance with sacred rituals in ancient Greece: The case of eleusinian mysteries. Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism 18: 233-239.
Schott-Billmann, F. (2015) Primitive Expression and Dance Therapy: When dancing heals. Routledge: Hove.
Serlin, I. (1993) Root images of healing in dance therapy. American Journal of Dance Therapy 15 (2): 65-76.
Ustinova, Y. (1992-1998) Corybantism: The nature and role of an ecstatic cult in the Greek Polis. Horos 10–12: 503–552.
Weckowicz T.E. and Liebel-Weckowicz H. (1990) A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B. V.