The worship of the Moon, the big eye of the night was widely spread with one way or another to all the people of the Earth. In Classical Greece, was restricted somehow, like that one of the Sun too, while Greeks of that era were considering that the worship of the of the celestial bodies was barbaric.However, there were Gods and Goddesses – like Artemis and Ekati – that had been worshiped as the” Queens of the Night” and had being identified with the Moon, but their worship was becoming in a disguised way.
It s worthy to say here that while to the most people of the Earth the Moon was being worshiped as a female Godess, there are also two exceptions: The Scandinavian people, that worshiped the Moon in the name of the God Manny, and Japan, that even in nowadays the God of the Moon is being worshiped as Kami Tsoukigiami.The main characteristic of those people is that the name of the Goddess that the Sun is being worshiped is female -Sole for the Scandinavians and Amaterasοu for the Japanese.
So, from earlier people had already connected the satellite of the Earth with many natural and supernatural phenomena, like the tides, menstruation, wolves and lunacy, which means the madness that is being provoked to some people the light of the Moon and specifically that one of the Full Moon.
Lunacy=Epilepsy
Of course, we know that the most incidents of Lunacy that have been reported from the ancient writers and those ones in the Middle Ages, lunacy was nothing else than crisis of Epilepsie.Sophisticated science says that Epilepsy is an exacerbation of the brain s operation that provokes spasms all over the body, foam in the mouth and loss of the senses. Scientists attach Epilepsy at the disruption of the normal brain electrical activity that maybe caused to infections, medication, other sort of brain damages or the genes action.
However, all the ancient civilizations were connecting the Epilepsy with the influence of the Moon considering that, depending with the existing religious or social habits of the times, as simply enthusiasm, and that had the meaning of a Goddess entrance in the body of someone Epileptic, as Demonic possession, which means the occupation of the patient s body from an evil spirit.
So for that reason in Greece, the Epilepsy had been defines as a “sacred disease”.Hippocrates,was the first who supported that Epilepsy was just another usual disease, and its source was only the brain itself. In addition, he was attributed the disease at the additional cold phlegm that flowed from the brain into the temperature blood.
At the 1 st century B.C. Plinios, is mentioning that the sailors of his time, were avoiding to sleep on the deck of the ship, during the Full Moon, fearing not to blind themselves or lose their brain. But their fear was justified, explaining that during the Full Moon, The Moon provoked an “unusual heavy night coolness», which was creating high moisture at the brain, and so in this way we had the crisis of madness or Epilepsy.
Such faith is widely spread even today in some provinces of Greece and many people consider that the sleep under the Full Moon might provoke at the best occasion nightmares and tremendous nervousness and at the worst occasion this might cause madness or death.
Possessed by the evil of Christ
During the middle Ages, the conviction, that Epilepsy was coming from an evil spirit, influenced also from The Gospels mentions, became more intense. People strongly convicted, were highly enhanced by the Church, were calling the disease «Evil of the Christ”.
Of course, the cures for the Lunatics were not always mild. A more drastic way, according to the wise people of the middle Ages for the eviction of the daemon, from the lunatic s body was a wild whipping. Even enlightened people, like Sir Thomas Moore, writer of the famous Utopia, were suggesting wholeheartedly, such a solution even to the relatives of poor lunatics!
In many places of Middle Aged and even today in Modern Greece, people believe that the Lunacy and the Lunatics could be cured during the Half Moon, where the influence of the Moon is being neutralized, so they put him to drink water that contained ” Αστραποπετρα“( Αstrapopetra= they believed it was a kind of stone that was falling from the sky with in a thunder).Probably, if it was an authentic one, then we might be talking about a meteorite.
Lunacy=Insanity
With the term Lunacy, the description of the disease Epilepsy is not being restricted here. Many times, the ancients, the Middle Aged and even modern people describes with this word and other sort of symptoms, even more scaring than the spasms and the loss of the senses.
Like we said before, the Lunacy was connected with madness since the ancient times and its Goddesses were those who provoking or even cured the disease according to the convictions of those who were believing (for instance, according to Sophocles, Artemis was the Goddess who provoked the Insanity to Aiandas (Ajax).
Αt the Western apocrypha Occult tradition, the Moon is being connected with the psyche, the dreams, the illusions, and so with the insanity. The 18 th Tarot Card of the Classic tarot Oracle, we have the picture of two dogs to bark under the Moon, which are also signs of this insanity.
So the word Lunacy,( Σεληνιασμός(Greek)=Seliniasmos),is being used to describe all those ( usually unexplained) symptoms of eccentric behaviour,and those who suffer lose the control of their body and their brain, attack to people around them,swearing,breaking objects, run like mad in through the night and generally acting like possessed for a period of time.
When the crisis has passed, usually they forget completely what they have done during the period of the Lunacy. If we will exclude, the occasion of the possesion, are there indications that these crisis might be caused a part of it or even the whole of them, at the influence of the Moon?
British gave a great significance, at the role play of the Moon to madness. The words Lunacy (σεληνιασμός) and Lunatic ( σεληνιασμένος) are being used even today to characterize the madness and the dangerous crazy people and of course they have their root from the Latin word Luna which means Moon( Σελήνη=Selini).Even at the 17 th century, Sir Mathew Hail, who was later the Minister of Justice in England, had supported at the Court himself, that Lunacy was certainly had it s cause at the influence of the Moon, specifically during the Full Moon.So,the criminals were a lot that were convicted that their crimes were caused to the Lunacy, so to get away perhaps with a lighter penalty.
Sir William Blexton,a distinguished lawyer that wrote the famous ,for his time, «Comments for the British Laws“,distinguised the lunatic, who was becoming and behaving dangerously only in specific days of the month under the influence of the Moon, from the insane ones, who were permanently psychotics!
In 1882, the German psychiatrist Koester published a monumental study that was connecting the phases of the Moon with hundreds of psychotics’ occasions. Εxaggeration?Perhaps…
PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH
The research of the American psychologist Arnold Liemper provoked the greatest sensation, about the influence of the Moon, who conducted at the Miami University during the decades of 1970 and 1980 and published the results at his best seller How the Moon Affects You.
In his book, Liemper supports that there is an important statistic increase of crime and psychotic crisis all over the world, during the period of the Full Moon and a little bit after the New Moon, and that is attached to the pull of the Moon on the waters, and that consists the greatest part of our bodies. His book accepted many criticsm, mainly for the way he used the laws of Physics, like the pull and the gravity of the celestial bodies, but also the way he is using the researches and the statistics.However, Liemper and his imitators are continuing to affect widely a huge group of people all over the world.
Despite the fact that the Formal Psychiatry is denying the impact of the Moon powers
at the temperament and specifically in phenomena like the crisis of Epilepsy or other kind of mental illnesses, very recent researches are showing that a huge percentage of professional psychiatrists and psychologists believe that the Moon, specifically during the Full Moon period, influence powerfully the psyche of the human beings!
Like it was said before already, thousands of researches the last few years have indications for the influence of the Moon over crime, suicides, murders and madness. Those who work in prisons, police stations,hospitals,asylums and people who are not in danger to lose their jobs or being mocked from the scientific incumbent, are able to confirm all the above, are being based on their own experiences.
Skeptics are also talk about selective memory that allow them to remember only the heavy incidents of the Full Moon period, and are not more than that accidentally happen during the other phases of the moon, and that s because they learn this through the pop traditions to combine the Full Moon with insanity and psychosis…
Maybe something really happens….
It seems that the Full Moon is not only influences our mood, but some other natural human functions, vegetables and animals too.Dr. Edison Andrews presented a medical inspection, a research which shows that in one thousand operations, the 82% of the people who have take out their tonsils οφ τηε post-operative bleedings take part during the phase of the Full Moon.
I also find in another scientific research that occurred a few years ago, in hospitals of England, and that was showing that during the Full Moon there are more cases of animal attacks, domestic and non, while in another page that the loggers of the tropical forests at the Amazon avoid to cut the trees during the Full Moon phase, because are full of juices, and with their smell attract hundreads of insects, which makes their treatment and transfer impossible.
How many of them do respond to the reality and how much have been affected from legends through the times, it s hard to know and say, but certainly we all feel an unexplained anger , nervousness or restless when we are alone under the light of the big eye at night.
Today, Science is trying to figure out the cause of the Epilepsy in gene mutations, the faith that the pale satellite continues to affect the mood of Epileptics but also the rest of healthy individuals, remains almost the same intense, like in the dark years of the Middle Ages.
Is it really a sign of weakness of the human temperament or a deeper cosmic truth?
