Skip to main content

Bibliotherapy

This is our current little ‘Alexandrian Library’ renamed ‘Bibliotherapy‘ where we preserve and share ancient wisdom & teachings that have been experienced in their practical and humanistic virtues in our everyday life.

We need, each of us, to slow down and take the time to ‘cultivate our garden’, that is the healthy life dynamics of our body, our soul and our mind. As we strive to embody the preventive and healing methods used in the Asklepion, as we are under the safe guidance and creative care of HYGEIA, healing comes when the three bodies begin to see the bigger picture, thus restoring a lost vertical dimensional connection, and together work out common strategies to unfold a sustainable and harmonious life.

What we propose here are: excerpts from books of wisdom, from a wide range of cultures; presentations of ideas and concepts and ever-green writers from the past, whose voices have something to offer to help us face our current challenges. It is part of our HYGEIA ‘call to action‘.

Welcome to discover these gems and Bonne lecture!


While the word ‘bibliotherapy’ has been in use for almost a hundred years its history is much longer. The concept of bibliotherapy dates back to 300 BC when ancient civilizations placed inscriptions over library entrances that stated that within the building was healing for the soul. The concept links to the philosopher Aristotle, who considered literature had healing benefits, and that reading fiction was a way of treating illness. The early connection to libraries is even traced to William Shakespeare, ‘Come, and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow … ’

The word ‘bibliotherapy’ originates from the Greek words for book ‘biblion’ and healing ‘therapeia.’ An American minister, Samuel Crothers, combined the Greek words in 1916 to describe bibliotherapy as a ‘process in which specific literature, both fiction and non-fiction, was prescribed as medicine for a variety of ailments.’

Dr Susan McLaine, ‘Words that heal’


 

A Little Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim Sampler – Part I

| Nicolas for Hygeia
Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus. A 1927 reproduction of an etching by A. Hirschvogel, 1538. In the collections of the Welcome Trust. * Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is a little rare treat, the first part of a planned series devoted to Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus, (c. 1493 – 24 September 1541). Here in part I, with extracts from ‘The Gospel of a Wandering D…
all rights reserved Via Hygeia 2022