Baths
BATHS in a religious context are sacred places where people bathe not for hygienic purposes, but rather to spiritually re-create themselves in both mind and body. Spiritual bathing may take place in sacred spaces in nature, for example in hot springs or in the water of a sacred river such as the Ganges or Nile, or in buildings made out of stone (Roman baths) or wood (saunas).
Sauna is a Finnish and Sami word for a building where one bathes for the purpose of cleansing body and mind. It has somewhat varied meanings, including commercial and erotic ones, in communities without a history of sauna culture. Sauna has been part of the Finnish life cycle for thousands of years—and, at the dawn of the third millennium, it still is, both in Finland, with its 2.2 million saunas for 5.2 million people (in 2004), and among expatriate and emigrant Finns.
Saunas in the form of log building are characteristic of the peasant architecture of Finnish-related and Slavic peoples living in northern Eurasian forest territories. Throughout its traditional area it is still central to ethnic religion and cultural habits. The sauna as a building and as a heated construction has undergone various changes, but as it has been adapted into new milieus, including urban environments, many sauna-related habits and rituals have shown remarkable strength not only in surviving but also in being revived as a form of socially shared group behavior among youth, adults, and environmentalist societies.
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