Observations placeholder
Empedocles - from Iamblichus’s Life of Pythagoras - Empedocles prevents murder
Identifier
005927
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
There were some interesting examples in a number of observations that I found of effecting psychological cures as opposed to physical sickness cures. There were cures for depression, rage, insomnia, even fear.
In this example, Empedocles played, the boy listened.
A description of the experience
Iamblichus’s Life of Pythagoras – Iamblichus [translated by Thomas Taylor]
When a certain youth also rushed with a drawn sword on Anchitus, the host of Empedocles, because being a judge, he had publicly condemned his father to death, and would have slain him as a homicide, Empedocles changed the intention of the youth, by singing to his lyre that verse of Homer
Nepenthe, without gall, o’er every ill
Oblivion spreads
And thus snatched his host Anchitus from death, and the youth from the crime of homicide