Ancient Healing Spaces – Templates for Sacred Healing Spaces Across Civilizations
From: The Sacred Healing Spaces Manual as given to Nancy Wyatt, aka, Ayanna Afi Adero-Saelion
Why the Templates Are Returning Now
We are not recreating the past.
We are re-integrating wisdom stored in our DNA, our dreams, and our soul archives.
You may feel an inexplicable pull to design spaces, arrange objects, or walk labyrinths.
You may be a temple builder, dream interpreter, or light weaver across lifetimes.
The ancients are not behind us. They are within us.
Remembering the Originals: What Ancient Healing Spaces Teach Us
Long before modern clinics and hospitals were constructed, the world’s wisdom cultures created spaces designed not just to treat the body, but to restore the soul. These sacred sites were living temples. Truthfully, they were orchestrated environments where architecture, intention, ritual, and cosmic alignment merged to facilitate transformation.
These were not random constructions. Every stone, pillar, and pathway reflected a divine order. Therefore, in studying these templates, we do not simply honor the past; we recover instructions for how to build again.
Ancient Healing Spaces | The Egyptian Per Ankh and the Temples of Imhotep
File: Imhotep, 664-30 BC – photo on Wikipedia donated by Padisu MET DP164134.jpg
In ancient Kemet (Egypt), healing was an integrated science of body, soul, sound, and geometry. The Per Ankh, or “House of Life,” was a place of spiritual instruction, medical treatment, and initiation. It functioned both as a university and as a temple in which scribes, physicians, and priests worked together under cosmic law.
The architect-physician, Imhotep, later deified, designed the first known stone structures. They were temples that harmonized energy through specific geometries and placement. Key features included:
– Alignment with stars and solar points
– Use of sound chambers and vibrational medicine
– Separation of spaces for purification, diagnosis, dreamwork, and rebirth
– Sacred pools for immersion and memory retrieval
Two thousand years after his death, Imhotep’s status had risen to that of a god of medicine and healing. Eventually, Imhotep was equated with Thoth, the god of architecture, mathematics, and medicine, and patron of scribes: Imhotep’s cult was merged with that of his own former tutelary god. ~ Wikipedia
(See also the Imhotep Museum)
These temples were not passive. They were transmitters receiving celestial light codes and embedding them into human form.
Ancient Healing Spaces | Greek Asklepeions: Dream Healing and Sacred Sleep
Photo by original file by Michael F. Mehnert – File: Asklepios – Statue Epidauros Museum 2008-09-11.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8718607
In Greece, healing was closely tied to Asklepios, the god of medicine. Sacred healing centers known as Asklepeions were built near natural springs and groves. These were places of rest, vision, and realignment.
Patients entered after ritual purification, then underwent incubation, a sacred sleep in the temple where dreams revealed the causes of illness or delivered healing directly from divine messengers.
These sites embodied:
– The integration of body, psyche, and spirit
– Dreamwork as diagnosis and cure
– Priest-physicians as interpreters of symbolic messages
– A sacred respect for rest as a form of medicine
The original Hippocratic Oath began with the invocation “I swear by Apollo the Physician and by Asclepius and by Hygieia and Panacea and by all the gods …”.[37]
From the fifth century BC onwards,[35] the cult of Asclepius grew very popular and pilgrims flocked to his healing temples (Asclepieia) to be cured of their ills. Ritual purification would be followed by offerings or sacrifices to the god (according to means), and the supplicant would then spend the night in the holiest part of the sanctuary—the abaton (or adyton). Any dreams or visions would be reported to a priest who would prescribe the appropriate therapy by a process of interpretation.[36] Some healing temples also used sacred dogs to lick the wounds of sick petitioners.[37] In honor of Asclepius, a particular type of non-venomous snake was often used in healing rituals, and these snakes—the Aesculapian Snakes—slithered around freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. These snakes were introduced at the founding of each new temple of Asclepius throughout the classical world. ~ Wikipedia
Ancient Healing Spaces | Vedic and Ayurvedic Sanctuaries in India
By HPNadig – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12401996
The Vedas describe healing spaces aligned with the elements and planetary forces. Ayurvedic retreats and temples to Dhanvantari, the deity of healing, were designed to balance doshas (body energies) using plant medicines, mantras, and sacred architecture.
Dhanvantari (Sanskrit: धन्वन्तरि, romanized: Dhanvantari, Dhanvamtari, lit. ‘moving in a curve’)[3] is the physician of the devas in Hinduism.[4][5] He is regarded as an avatar of Vishnu.[6] He is mentioned in the Puranas as the god of Ayurveda.[7]
During his incarnation on earth, he reigned as the King of Kashi, today locally referred to as Varanasi. Dhanvantari is also identified as the great-grandfather of Divodasa, the King of Kashi mentioned in the Vishnu Purana who is known as the father of surgery in Ayurveda.[8][9][10]
Core aspects included:
– Use of yantras (sacred diagrams) and mudras in treatment rooms
– Temple design based on Vastu Shastra (energetic directionality)
– Sound healing through mantra and sitar vibration
– Ritual offerings to the healing deities and nature spirits
Here, healing was always multidimensional—attending to karma, past lives, ancestral energies, and environmental influences.
Ancient Healing Spaces | Taoist Healing Gardens and Flow-Based Design
In ancient China, healing environments were created based on Taoist philosophy—balancing yin and yang, flow and stillness, earth and sky.
Taoist thought has informed the development of various practices within the Taoist tradition, ideation of mathematics and beyond, including forms of meditation, astrology, qigong, feng shui, and internal alchemy.[4] A common goal of Taoist practice is self-cultivation, a deeper appreciation of the Tao, and more harmonious existence. Taoist ethics vary, but generally emphasize such virtues as effortless action, naturalness, simplicity, and the three treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility. ~ Wikipedia
Feng Shui was more than decoration—it was energetic choreography.
Feng shui (/ˈfʌŋˌʃuːi/ [2] or /ˌfʌŋˈʃweɪ/[3]), sometimes called Chinese geomancy, is a traditional form of geomancy that originated in ancient China. The term feng shui means, literally, “wind-water” (i.e., fluid). From ancient times, landscapes and bodies of water were thought to direct the flow of the universal qi – “cosmic current” or energy – through places and structures. More broadly, feng shui includes :
astronomical, astrological, architectural, cosmological, geographical, and topographical dimensions.[4][5]
Historically, and in many parts of the contemporary Chinese world, feng shui has been used to determine the orientation of buildings, dwellings, and spiritually significant structures such as tombs.
Feng shui’s global uptake during the modern era has been complex. Its host of modern detractors has been very diverse, ranging from 16th-century Jesuit missionaries to the Chinese communist revolutionaries of the 20th century. Regarding its adoption within contemporary Western societies, one scholar writes that “feng shui tends to be reduced to interior design for health and wealth.
Taoist healing spaces integrated:
– Curving garden paths that echoed meridian flow
– Water features to promote emotional release
– Healing herbs planted in sacred directions
– Temples built into landscapes, not upon them
Stillness was medicine. Harmony was design. The healer’s role was to maintain balance, not impose correction.
Ancient Healing Spaces | Indigenous and First Peoples’ Healing Circles
Photo of The Big Horn Medicine Wheel, Medicine Mountain, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, by Ivy Merriot. Licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The space itself was a living relative. Healing required:
– Listening to the land
– Working with ancestors and spirit guides
– Cleansing through smoke, song, and sweat
– Returning gifts to the Earth after healing was received
There were no spectators in these spaces. All who entered were participants in the Circle of Life.
Common Threads in Ancient Healing Spaces
Despite differences in location and language, the sacred healing spaces of ancient civilizations share several truths:
– Alignment with celestial and natural forces
– Use of ritual as a gateway into altered states
– Holistic view of illness as disharmony
– Activation of symbols, geometry, and sound
– The healer as guardian of spiritual threshold
These are not historical curiosities. They are templates—offering guidance for how we might construct healing sanctuaries now.
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Note: I am NOT an expert in the topic of ancient healing spaces. Instead, I was guided to share this information with the public as part of a series designed to help individuals and professionals create sacred spaces for meditation, healing, counseling, and other forms of personal and spiritual growth. If you send a question or comment, and the communication should be “just between us,” we can correspond through email
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