The Martial Arts of Ancient Greece

by Kostas Dervenis

  The athlete on the left reacts by rising slightly to relieve his leg from the pain and pushing down with his other hand captures his opponent’s heel and traps it under his armpit (B).

  Next, he falls back again holding tightly and twisting his opponent’s ankle and knee joints (C).

  4

  THE INNER PATH

  All of the mental effort that produced this book would be fruitless had we not examined the evolution and the psyche of the warriors who developed pammachon during the Bronze Age, in order to focus on the existence (or not) of an inner spiritual path pursued by these fighters. The possibility of doing this might at first seem inconceivable—how could we examine the psyche of people who do not exist anymore and have not left behind any kind of concrete evidence of their inner world?

  The answer to this question lies in the same process that enabled us to recreate ancient combat techniques, that is, a close examination of the archaeological archives and recognition of the fact that the functions of the human body are the same after ten thousand years. Similarly, we believe that we can reproduce the inner world of our ancestors with the same approach by exploring existing esoteric practices in the context of archaeological evidence of ancient spiritual rituals and mythological references. Looking at the facts under this spectrum reveals that the inner path of the ancient fighters is evident and real, and that it originated in the Neolithic Age, with the expansion of shamanism and the transfer of spiritual rituals from the worship of female deities of the earth and fertility to the worship of male gods of the heavens and thunder. The aim of this inquiry is also clear: technology has led modern life to a dead end. It may be beneficial to individuals and to society as a whole to study the activities of “primitive” peoples in order to rediscover a source of vitality and psychological health.

  SHAMANISM’S SPIRALS AND CAVES

  In order to examine this spiritual path in depth, we must take into account the progress of contemporary biophysics and recent experiments and research. We shall be able to fully comprehend the wisdom of our ancient ancestors with the aid of recent scientific discoveries and contemporary theories on physics and consciousness alone. However, as a first step, we shall tread on the path of religion.

  Shamanism was the first religion of sentient human beings, a religion whose concepts still persist among contemporary religions. Although the word shaman comes from the tribe of the Tungus nomads from Siberia, there is no doubt that the roots of this religion are European or North African, and that, generally speaking, it originated throughout the larger area of the Mediterranean basin.1 It seems that shamanism appeared in the first years of the Paleolithic in Europe, between 30,000 and 15,000 BCE, and spread to Asia and America (through Alaska) between 11,000 and 8000 BCE.

  The central idea of shamanism is that the universe consists of two connected worlds: the material world and the spiritual world. Those who live in the material world are influenced by the spiritual world. The forces of the spiritual world can be either ancestors or non-human entities, gods, or demons, who bring people good or bad luck, health or death. Therefore, a middleman is needed, who, like a good diplomat, communicates with the entities of the spiritual world and appeases them on behalf of the humans. This middleman is none other than the shaman. Through the shaman humans received guidance and advice from the spiritual world to improve their standard of living.

  Shamanism’s belief in two parallel, connected worlds probably influenced the course of more recent religious beliefs worldwide. Two vital motifs are met with regularly in the archaeological documents on shamanism, and both are directly connected with this study. The first one is the worldwide presence of spiral depictions, in places where there is shamanic influence in local religions. The second is the shamanistic worship of caves and underground spaces.

  Let us start with the second motif. The idea of a connection between the spiritual world and the inside of the earth is as old as humankind. The fact that Paleolithic and Neolithic humans considered caves as places of worship may have arisen from their observation of the ease with which shamans contacted the spiritual world while inside the earth. Anthropologists have discovered the most ancient cathedral in the world in the depths of the Tuc D’Audoubert cave in France, almost a mile below the earth’s surface. The findings date back to 13,000 BCE. Why did the pilgrims have to undergo the ordeal of crawling for a mile below the earth’s surface, through narrow passages? In Greece, the famous oracle at Acheron—where pilgrims went to speak with the spirits of their dead ancestors—is nothing more than a deeply dug hole in the ground.

  On the island of Crete, at Chania Cape on the Akroteri peninsula, there is another cave that illustrates the timelessness of this phenomenon. There are two Christian Orthodox monasteries in the vicinity of this cave. On the coast is Katholikos Monastery, built in the sixth century CE, which was deserted several centuries later due to pirate attacks. Higher up on the mountain, the monks built Gouverneto Monastery in the twelfth century CE. Roughly 300 yards down the road from the Gouverneto Monastery, between the locations of the old and the newer monasteries, there is a huge cave, at the entrance of which a small church has been built. A remarkable feature of this cave is a very large stalagmite in the central hall, which has the unmistakable shape of a bear. Archaeological research has proven that humans have made use of the cave of the Gouverneto monastery for at least 10,000 years. Neolithic people worshipped the Bear of the Caves and Mother Earth there.

  In the age of the Minoan civilization the cave was dedicated to Dictynna, a Cretan virgin goddess whose totem was the bear. In the classical era Dictynna was replaced by Artemis (the Roman Diana), one more virgin goddess for whom the bear was sacred. (We shall see later that the form of Artemis as Potnia Theron, or “Mistress of the Animals,” is directly related to the shamanistic motif.) When the Greeks of that area adopted Christianity (fourth to sixth centuries) the cave was dedicated to Panagia Arkoudiotissa (the Virgin Mary of the Bears) and a water tank was built on the stalagmite for christenings, supplied by a little spring at the base. It is obvious that the goddess that was worshipped in the cave over the past 4,000 years had her name changed several times, but not her essence, something that has happened to many cultural features of Greece.

  Of course the phenomenon of “sacred caves” is not exclusively a Greek feature; it is characteristic of all peoples in all geographical areas of the world. There is evidence of the correlation between underground spaces and contact with the spiritual world in China, India, North and South America, the Middle East and, naturally, central Europe, dating from the early archaic age onward.

  Besides the caves, there is another motif evident worldwide as a result of the expansion of shamanism: the helix and the spiral helix. Morphologically this motif often takes the shape of a swastika, or its counterpart, the yin-yang symbol made popular by Chinese culture. The swastika and the spiral helix present a symbol that can be found all over the world in archaeological findings from very ancient times; they are seen in Indian, Greek, Chinese, North and South American, Mesopotamian, Persian, and European excavations. What is indeed a wonder is how ancient peoples could understand that the spiral helix is a form that governs life in general and the space-time of our galaxy: our DNA, the structural element of our bodies, bears the structure of a double spiral helix, and our galaxy has the shape of a spiral helix with a central “compressed” spherical mass with four arms, more or less resembling a swastika!

  The frequent depiction of the helix by so many ancient peoples probably means that they also knew that the helix is a basic element of our existence in the material world (and perhaps beyond). In Greek, the word exelixi (“evolution”) comes from ex helikos (“from the helix”), which is most impressive in itself.2 The spiral helix is very significant in our organism as a whole, not only in our DNA. The “conveyors” inside our cells consist of spiral helixes of the protein tubulin, which are called microtubules. Microtubules were discovered in a study of single cell organisms, which do
not have nervous systems, in the effort to determine how they make decisions and receive information, in other words, how these living organisms think. There is a theory that in multicellular organisms microtubules form a local nervous system in each individual cell, so that it can have its own autonomous communication with every other cell of the body.

  Microtubules certainly play their part in the cohesion and communication system throughout our organism. The existence of micro-tubules may also explain another phenomenon that has been observed experimentally in the past twenty years: the cells of an organism have memory. Recipients of transplanted organs, especially hearts, frequently acquire the wishes, preferences, and fears of the donor. It seems that—besides our nervous system—we also think with our body, which is something Far Eastern populations in particular have known for thousands of years. It is quite possible that microtubules and the spiral helix may provide the solution to the paradox of this experimentally observed phenomenon.

  The form of the spiral helix that originates in the shape of our galaxy and culminates in our own DNA, with many levels in between, may explain fractally many properties of space-time, matter, and possibly our own consciousness. It is not by chance that indigenous populations came to the same conclusion tens of thousands of years ago. Lacking in the technological knowledge of today, they turned inward, using consciousness as a sense organ, because, according to modern physics, consciousness plays a major part in the shaping of space-time.3

  GRAVITY VS. NUCLEAR FUSION

  In January 2003, it was experimentally proven that the speed of gravity is equal to the speed of light, confirming Einstein’s equations. This evidence is substantial for the model we present in this chapter. Basically, this experiment proved that the expansive force of the electromagnetic spectrum (including light), generated by the stars, equalizes the forces of gravity and dark matter in the universe, giving shape to space-time.

  Contemporary science accepts the principle that, if there were no nuclear fusion to counterbalance gravity with its expansive force, our sun would have collapsed long ago, under the weight of its own gravity. This means that all stars are battlefields, where gravity fights against an unknown force that causes nuclear fusion, and that this battle between two polar opposites determines the form of our own space-time.4

  “War is the father of all,” Heracleitos wrote. When considering gravity, most of us remember the basics we learned in high school: that a mass exercises pulling power on another mass and this is the reason we fall to the ground when we lose our balance. But let us further analyze this principle, to offer a clearer description of this phenomenon: gravity is a force that wants to make all the matter in the universe collapse and be condensed to a single mass (and then into one singularity).5

  The nuclear fusion inherent to the stars is the expansive force that opposes gravity and keeps space-time in existence (in stars, nuclear fusion “wins” the battle against gravity, resulting in the generation and outflow of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum).

  War is the father of all. Our world is fractal in its nature. It is logical to accept as true that whatever happens in the macrocosm, happens in the microcosm. Is it possible that a battle that forms the central tenet of the universe’s substance would not reflect itself in our own existence as individuals?

  All ancient populations believed that it did.

  In ancient civilizations—probably influenced by the first global religion, shamanism—people believed the world was ruled by two opposing forces (or “breaths”) in the universe. The Chinese call these opposing forces yin and yang. The ancient Greeks spoke of Father Uranus and Mother Earth, about the “endless” and “form”; the Navajo of North America made corresponding references. The Indians and Tibetans spoke of a lunar and solar breath. It is interesting that all of these ancient peoples focused on the idea that both forces—yin and yang—transmit their energy in the form of breath to the entire universe. The ancient Chinese spoke of chi, the ancient Greeks of pneuma (within the context of a material substance that “evaporates,” like alcohol—in fact alcohol in Greek is called oinopneuma—“wine breath”), the Romans of spiritus, the Hebrews of ruach, the Tibetans of rlung, the Indians of prana. Strangely enough, all of the above-mentioned words mean “air,” “steam,” “breath,” “a material substance that evaporates.” According to the Eastern theory—which (based on the archaeological evidence regarding the sacred caves already mentioned) may have preserved some even older world wide creeds—yin ascends from the center of the earth, while yang falls upon us like a bright breath from our sun.

  Figure 4.1. Two opposing forces

  Figure 4.2. The spiral twisting together of the two universal forces on a stationary wave determines our existence, our karma: a) presentation on a vase at the Louvre, b) the chakra and nadi system of Hindu mysticism, c) reproduction from a wall drawing in a Chinese Taoist sanctum, d) the stationary wave in physics, and e) Hermes’ caduceus.

  On the wall of a Chinese temple in Java is a thought-provoking depiction of yin and yang. Instead of the well-known circular black and white depiction of yin and yang, familiar to the Western world, here the artist depicts the two energies as lovers, two dragons in a close embrace (figure 4.2c). The caduceus, depicting two snakes wrapped around a stick, is an ancient symbol widely spread all over ancient Greece, which was related to heralds and the god Hermes (figure 4.2e). The most ancient depiction of a caduceus that survives is in the Louvre, on a Mesopotamian vase (figure 4.2a), which also depicts two dragons around a central axis and dates to the second millennium BCE. It is really amazing that this symbol has been adopted by Orthodox Christianity and has become, in its simple form, the Archbishop’s and Patriarch’s crosier (figure 4.3). What does this symbol depict? Two streams of energy, wrapped together like lovers?

  No doubt, but something more important may be determined from such symbols. The key to this puzzle can be found in the presentations of wall drawings of Hindu Tantra, specifically those that are preserved from the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet starting from the eighth century CE. According to Eastern mysticism, human substance is determined by two powers that flow into channels (nadis) and wrap together in knots (chakras). One type of energy is perceived as solar, coming from the sun, and the other one as chthonic or lunar (and we can see again that there is a universal correlation of Earth worship and the moon’s phases), coming from the center of the earth. The entanglement of these two energies determines the energetic make-up of each individual. These energies form seven main knots (chakras) on the central body axis. In and around each chakra each of these energies moves separately in a spiral helix direction, in its own individual channel (while on the main axis both energies can move together). It does not seem illogical to suggest that these symbols depict standing waves of the two universal energies, similar to the standing wave one can see on an oscilloscope in such cases.

  Figure 4.3. It is highly likely that the Archbishop’s crosier in Orthodox Christianity relates back to the same helical entwining of energies that is referenced by all ancient civilizations. The symbol was adopted by the church as a result of Neoplatonic influences on Christianity during its development into an organized religion. Painting from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt. (Photograph by Kostas Dervenis.)

  HARNESSING THE POWERS WITHIN

  Considering the fractal expansion of the helix in our universe, and the fact that contemporary astrophysics has established that space-time is formed by the confrontation of two polar opposite powers, let us try to understand the beliefs of ancient populations. This task requires the use of more data and suggestions.

  “Form (the Finite) and the Infinite coexist within ourselves,” according to Plato.6 We shall return to this phrase of the great wrestler, after we have examined the beliefs of the ancients on this subject. As we have seen, the emphasis on the spiral entanglement of the two energies was found worldwide. This may offer an explanation regarding the myths of demi-gods and heroes told b
y all ancient peoples around the world. We dare suggest this for the following reason: the violation of limitations inherent to our existing biophysical model, as well as what may be called “superhuman powers,” has already been proven as attainable by human beings within a laboratory environment, their extraordinary powers the result of esoteric exercise and development.

  An amazing discovery followed scientific studies done in the eighties. Professor Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School, visiting remote Himalayan monasteries, certified that there were Tibetan monks who could increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by 17 degrees Fahrenheit, that is, up to 115 degrees. It is noteworthy that, normally, a human being suffers irreversible neurological damage and his life is in danger when his body temperature exceeds 108 degrees. In 1985, researchers in Benson’s team filmed half-naked monks overnight, who repeatedly dried three-by-six-foot wet sheets soaked in cold water (49 degrees Fahrenheit) using their increased body temperature, in a room where the temperature was 40 degrees Fahrenheit; in the process steam was produced from the heat (it took the monks about one hour to dry each sheet)! Next, they filmed monks outside the monastery, meditating half naked (wearing only one thin cotton garment, leaving one shoulder uncovered) on a Tibetan highland, at an altitude of 15,000 feet and a certified temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit (not counting the freezing influence of the wind-chill factor on the highlands!). The monks were squatting on the frozen ground meditating, not in contact with each other, and there was no indication of shivering or trembling. There is no explanation for this phenomenon, according to the existing biophysical model.

  Benson also discovered that these monks could lower their metabolism by up to 64 percent, which is unbelievable. This observation may prove significant as we proceed with our analysis.