Medicine Person "Equivalent?"

On top of my Olympianism practice, I also practice Traditional Swampy Cree Spirituality. The Swampy Cree are a Native American cultural group located in Northern Ontario. I don't consider myself to be a medicine person; at this point, I am more of an apprentice. I can give people spirit names which are names that one had before they were born into a physical form. A medicine person's role includes that as well as healing with herbs, counseling people on their issues, spiritual mediumship and healing the whole of a person.

My question is if there is an equivalent in Olympianismos. Circe the Pharmakaia seems to share a similar role to that of a medicine person and is portrayed in a similar manner to that of a medicine person.

TheSeekingDisciple wrote:On top of my Olympianism practice, I also practice Traditional Swampy Cree Spirituality. The Swampy Cree are a Native American cultural group located in Northern Ontario. I don't consider myself to be a medicine person; at this point, I am more of an apprentice. I can give people spirit names which are names that one had before they were born into a physical form. A medicine person's role includes that as well as healing with herbs, counseling people on their issues, spiritual mediumship and healing the whole of a person.

My question is if there is an equivalent in Olympianismos. Circe the Pharmakaia seems to share a similar role to that of a medicine person and is portrayed in  a similar manner to that of a medicine person.

Circe, well  . . . for one thing, she isn't human. She was also generally seen as a sorceress and a morally ambiguous character. In some accounts of her, she does helpful things, but she can hardly be considered a 'good' character. Her motivations in tales of her rarely have anything to do with healing anyone. 


There really is no equivalent of a 'medicine person' in Graeco-Roman religion, at least not in the way of the term's significance in Native American culture. Many, if not most, doctors, however, of the time, would probably be labeled at least partially medicine-men/witch-doctors/faith-healers today. Classical medicine did involve some modern, procedural medicine, of course, but also incorporated a heavy share of herbalism, astrology, alchemy, and dream evaluations, and often a dose of religion. 

Thanks Erodius. Interestingly enough, I have been asked by some people to interpret dreams. It seems that the Greek healers had more in common with Ayurvedic doctors in India.

TheSeekingDisciple wrote:Thanks Erodius. Interestingly enough, I have been asked by some people to interpret dreams. It seems that the Greek healers had more in common with Ayurvedic doctors in India.

Yes, I would say that is quite accurate. 

Ayurvedic and especially Middle-Eastern Yunani medicine are largely equivalent to the kind of medicine that would have been found in Classical Greece and Rome.