Category: Extracorporeal travel
The Arimaspeia is the oldest text we know about that described an out-of-body experience: a soul leaving a comatose body and flying over the world to its outer edge, and then returning, re-entering and reviving the body. This is most clearly described in two texts by the Middle Platonist philosopher Maximus of Tyre (here and here), and in a shorter text by Pliny the Elder that describes Aristeas’ soul flying as an image of a raven.
Herodotos, whose history is the earliest extant text to describe the Arimaspeia, gave a more confusing account, saying only that Aristeas traveled while ‘seized’ by Apollo, and then telling a story attributed to oral tradition that rationalized the Arimaspeia’s account of Aristeas’ flight into a years-long hiking trek. But Herodotos also told a story of Aristeas flying to south Italy in the form of a raven long after his natural life.
This category includes also other related about extracorporeal flight, which might have been influenced by the Arimaspeia or might reflect a broader tradition of ancient Greek oral stories about out-of-body experiences. Many of these other stories are near-death experiences, and their similarity to the Arimaspeia raises the question of whether the Arimaspeia’s journey to some extent mimicked more ancient belief that the souls of the deceased were led by divine beings over the earth to the world’s outer edge on their way to their final resting place.
Herodotos claims Aristeas traveled no further than the Issedones
Posted in Author and poem, Extracorporeal travel, IssedonesAnd as for the land that this account has begun to talk about, no one knows exactly what there is above it, for truly I am able to find no one who claims to know…
Herodotos on Aristeas’ account of his journey
Posted in Arimasps, Author and poem, Eastern Sea, Extracorporeal travel, Griffins, Hyperboreans, Issedones, Kimmerians, Seizure and possession, SkythiansAnd Aristeas son of Kaustrobios, a man of Prokonnesos, composed verses saying he reached the Issedones while seized by Apollo; and dwelling above the Issedones, the one-eyed Arimasps-men; and above them, the gold-guarding griffins; and…
Herodotos citing oral tradition on Aristeas’ journey
Posted in Author and poem, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAnd having said where Aristeas was from, I’ll tell the story I was hearing about him at Prokonnesos and Kyzikos. For they say that Aristeas, who was not of a lesser family among his townsmen,…
Herodotos on Aristeas flying to Metapontion 240 years after the Arimaspeia
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionAnd these things I know happened to the Metapontines in Italia, two [or three] hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I myself gathering in both Prokonnesos and Metapontion discovered. The…
Plato on divine inspiration and possession
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionPhaidros leads Sokrates to an idyllic spot connected with Nymph worship and reads a speech by Lysias on why men who don’t love each other are better for each other than lovers. Sokrates responds with…
Plato on Er’s near-death vision of afterlife and reincarnation (abridged)
Posted in Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel“Mind you, I’m not going to give you an Alkinoos’ tale,” I [Sokrates] said, “but the story of a brave man, Armenios’ son Er, by race from Pamphylia. Once upon a time he was killed…
Simias on reaching Hyperborea, the Massagetai, the Kampasos river and half-dog men
Posted in Eastern Sea, Extracorporeal travel, Hyperboreans, Kampasos, MassagetaiAnd up to the rich country of the far-away Hyperboreans, with whom once ago banqueted hero king Perseus. And there where the Massagetai, riders of swift horses, dwell confident in their quick-shooting bows.And I came…
Strabo calling Aristeas a wizard or charlatan
Posted in Author and poem, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAlong the coasting voyage from Parion to Priapos are the ancient Prokonnesos and present Prokonnessos […] Aristeas the poet of the so-called Arimaspeian verses is from there, a man [who was a] goēs if anyone…
Lucan on Apollo taking a woman on a tour in her mind of the Roman civil war
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionThese fearful predictions had terrified the masses enough, but a greater one is looming. For like from the summit of Pindus a reveler runs down filled with Theban Bacchus, just so a matron runs enraptured…
Pliny on Aristeas’ soul flying out of his mouth as a raven
Posted in Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAviola, of consular rank, revived on the funeral pyre, but since he couldn’t be helped to overcome the flames, he was burned alive. A similar case is handed down about L. Lamia, a man of…
Plutarch on a near-death vision of an untethered soul
Posted in Extracorporeal travel“Such was the notion, Pheidolaοs, that we for our part held about Sokrates’ divine signal while he was alive and still hold now he is dead; we have scant use for those who account for…
Apollonios the paradoxographer on Aristeas appearing in Sicily
Posted in Abaris, Cult of Aristeas, Extracorporeal travelEpimenides the Cretan is said to have been sent off to a country pasture by his father and father’s brothers to bring a sheep back to town. When night overtook him he wandered off the…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight and the vision of untethered souls
Posted in Deathlessness, Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionOnce there came to Athens a man of Crete named Epimenides, bringing a story that is difficult to believe as told. While lying in the cave of Zeus Diktaios in a deep sleep for many…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight to Hyperborea and claims of divine inspiration
Posted in Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Hyperboreans, Seizure and possessionAnd next, what do we think about Hesiod, shepherding around Helikon in Boiotia, encountering the singing Muses, being reproached for working as a shepherd, taking from them a branch of laurel, and suddenly he sings,…
Clement of Alexandria on Aristeas as predictor of the future
Posted in Abaris, Cult of Aristeas, Extracorporeal travelAnd even the great Pythagoras was always applying himself to prediction, and Abaris the Hyperborean and Aristaias the Prokonnesian, and Epimenides the Cretan, the one who came to Sparta, and Zoroaster the Mede, and Empedokles…
Antoninus Liberalis on Kleinis traveling to Hyperborea with Apollo and Artemis
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, HyperboreansNear the city of Babylon of what is called Mesopotamia lived a god-loving and rich man named Kleinis, who had many cattle, asses and sheep. Apollo and Artemis loved him exceptionally, and very often he…
Athenaios on Metapontine retribution for the looting of Delphi
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelIn the treatise written by Theopompos, About the Treasures Stolen from Delphi, he says: To Chares the Athenian, sixty talents from Lysander. Out of them he provided the Athenians with feasts in the marketplace and…
Origen versus Celsus on Jesus versus Aristeas
Posted in Abaris, Cult of Aristeas, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionNext, miracles have happened everywhere, or in many places, as even [Celsus] on this repeatedly cites Asklepios being a benefactor and foretelling the future to whole cities that were dedicated to him, including Trikka, Epidauros,…
Gregory of Nazianzos comparing Emperor Iulian to Aristeas’ disgraceful hiding
Posted in Extracorporeal travelIf [Iulian] has taken up the opinion that we [Christians] braved danger for the sake of drama, and not for the truth, let them play with the Empedokleses, Aristaioses, Empedotimoses and Trophonioses, and number among…
Proklos on resurrections, the flight of Kleonymos, and the seizure of Empedotimos
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionMany other ancient writers collected stories about people seeming to die and then coming to life again, including Demokritos the natural philosopher in his book On Hades. […] For it appears that this death [of…
al-Kindī citing ‘Aristotle’ on a Greek king’s near-death prophesies
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionAristotle has described the case of the Greek king who had difficulty breathing. He continued to waver between life and death for many days. While he recovered, he instructed people in the arts of hidden…
The Souda on Aristeas’ life and works
Posted in Arimasps, Author and poem, Extracorporeal travel, HyperboreansAristeas, son of Democharis or of Kaustrobios, from Prokonnesos, a poet. [He wrote] the verses called Arimaspeian, and it is a story of the Hyperborean Arimasps, 3 books. They say that his soul, whenever it…