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Saturday, November 19, 2011

Hippie Roots & The Perennial Subculture

http://galleria.thule-italia.com/

By Gordon Kennedy & Kody Ryan

According to Webster’s dictionary (2003) a "hippie" or "hippy" is: "a young person of the 1960’s who rejected established social mores, advocated spontaneity, free expression of love and the expansion of consciousness, often wore long hair and unconventional clothes, and used psychedelic drugs".

This mass-media definition of the 1960’s dropouts has eclipsed all pre-1960’s uses of the actual word such as that mentioned by Malcolm X in his famous autobiography. As a 17 year-old hustler living in Harlem in 1939 Malcolm noticed, "A few of the white men around Harlem, younger ones whom we called "hippies", acted more Negro than Negroes. This particular one talked more "hip" than we did. He would have fought anyone who suggested he felt any race difference".

This echoes the familiar sentiments of Jack Kerouac from "On The Road" (1955): "I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night".

Clearly the actual word "hippie" was a form of Ebonics (black slang) from Harlem that passed it’s way through the beat era into the 1960’s, until Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle used it enough times by late 1965 to describe the young arrivals in their city…that the national media soon swallowed it whole and patented it.

But apart from the slick zoot suit clad "white Negroes" of 1930’s Harlem there actually were long-haired bearded individuals during this same era who wore sandals or bare feet and usually tended to favor mild subtropical places like southern California and Florida where they could forage their meals from the fruit trees that were so plentiful then.

"Nature Boys" as they were later called were without exception either German immigrants or American youths whose lives were influenced by transplanted Germans that spread their Lebensreform (life-reform) message to anyone ready for a radical departure from the accepted boundaries of 20th century civilization.

Modern primitives, naturmensch, wandervogel, bohemians, reformers, wayfarers, and vagabonds are all expressions that evoke a tone of something wholly apart from the orthodox.

So why Germany? What was happening there in the 19th century that caused a phenomenon like this to erupt so big?

Germany had always made a virtue of their late submission to Latin civilization and had glorified the natural man and woman with all of their virtues and vices. Over 2000 years ago (about 51 B.C.) Julius Caesar noted of the Germans: "The only beings they recognize as gods are things that they can see, and by which they are obviously benefited, such as sun, moon and fire; the other gods they have never even heard of."

The word "God" was neuter in gender in the Teutonic language (Das Gott, or in old Nordic "gud") and the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (98 A.D.) wrote: "According to German outlook, pronouncements of destiny seem to acquire a greater sacredness in the mouth of women. Prophecy and magic in a good as well as an evil sense is by choice the gift of women. If it is inherent in the nature of men to show the female sex a great consideration and respect, then this was particularly shaped on the German people from of old. Men earn deification through their deeds, women through their wisdom."

Thus the religiosity of the Indo-Germanic people, whenever their nature can unfold itself freely, emerges only in that form which religious science has described as "nature religion" or "earth religions". To remove the German soul from the natural landscape is to kill it. The Romans knew this so once Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire their missionaries were eager to chop down the German forests and set their temples on fire.

Whenever the church encountered Pagan elements that it could not suppress, it gave them a Christian dimension and assimilated them. These ancestral traditions were reinterpreted and revised, but the church never succeeded in effacing the German Pagan heritage.

Hermann’s victory (9 A.D.) had forestalled Roman colonization, thus Germany had thereby retained its ancient language and avoided early Christianization.

Meister Eckhart (c1260-c1328) possibly represented most strongly the development of the mysticism as a result of the revolt of the Teutonic Indo-European spirit against Roman Christianity.

During the Middle-Ages a group called "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit" existed in Germany and Holland. Also known as the Adamites, they were spiritual descendants of an earlier group, the Adamiani. They held nude gatherings in womb like caverns to achieve rebirth into a state of paradisiacal innocence.

In 1796 Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland of Weimar published his landmark study of aging "The Art Of Prolonging Life" using the word "macrobiotic" in the preface of the book, while the second edition used the word in it’s title. His emphasis on exercise and fresh air, sunbathing, cleanliness, regular scheduling, temperate diet, stimulating travel and meditation were all far ahead of their time.

Goethe’s (1749-1832) perspective erased the boundary between man and Nature altogether. The poet of Nature religiosity he believed "God can be worshipped in no more beautiful way than by the spontaneous welling up from one’s breast of mutual converse with Nature".

Another prophetic quote from Goethe (1832) "Man in his misguidance has powerfully interfered with nature. He has devastated the forests, and thereby even changed the atmospheric conditions and the climate. Some species of plants and animals have become entirely extinct through man, although they were essential in the economy of Nature. Everywhere the purity of the air is affected by smoke and the like, and the rivers are defiled. These and other things are serious encroachments upon Nature, which men nowadays entirely overlook but which are of the greatest importance, and at once show their evil effect not only upon plants but upon animals as well, the latter not having the endurance and power of resistance of man".

In 1866 Ernst Haeckel of Jena University first employed the term "ecology", thereby establishing it as a permanent scientific discipline for all future generations. Ecology as a concept had more in common with Buddhism and its recognition of the oneness of all life.

Also in the 1860’s an ex-Protestant minister named Eduard Baltzer published his four-volume book about naturliche lebensweise or "natural life style". He organized some vegetarians and founded a Free Religious Community, then later published a book on Pythagoras as the ancestor of his movement.

Baltzer’s writings had a strong influence upon a young painter named Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851-1913) who also went on to form several communities and workshops for religion, art and science. Diefenbach spent the last portion of his life on the Mediterranean isle of Capri, which was a retreat for other life-reformers. Two of his pupils, Fidus and Gusto Graser were to make a tremendous impact with their art and reform messages.

Fidus (1868-1949) was recognized as perhaps the greatest psychedelic artist ever, pre-dating the 1960’s multi-colored posters and albums by over a half century.

Gusto Graser later went on to become a close friend and teacher of the writer Hermann Hesse. Hesse’s report "Among The Rocks- Notes of a Nature Man" (1908) described how he, along with Graser lived the lives of natural men and hermits, sleeping in caves in the Swiss Alps and fasting for days and weeks. The guru-disciple relationship within Hesse’s novel "Siddhartha" (1922) was a mirror of his own association with Graser his teacher. Graser’s poetry appeared in some of the Wandervogel magazines.

In 1870 the population of Germany was 2/3 rural, but by 1900 it had become 2/3 urban. Near the end of the 19th century the German middle class had become superficial, coarse, complacent, gluttonous, materialistic, industrialized, technocratic and pathetic. As a response to this phenomenon many natural healing modalities came into existence and even more youth movements were organized.

In 1883 Louis Kuhne of Leipsic Germany published a book titled "The New Science Of Healing", and this work laid the foundation for what was later to become known as Naturopathy. Translated into 50 languages it was the inspiration for a whole generation of health practitioners and was also highly praised by Mahatma Gandhi who said it was very popular in India.

In 1896 Adolf Just opened his Jungborn retreat in the Hartz Mountains near Isenburg Germany, which was a model institution for the true natural life, and was meant to show how the most intimate communion with Nature could be re-established.

In his best selling book "Return To Nature" (1896) Mr. Just spoke out against air and water pollution, meat, vivisection, vaccination, coffee, alcohol, smoking and so-called education in schools. Gandhi again was so moved by Adolf Just’s rebellion against scientific medical treatments that it helped him to formulate his ideology for the future. When he was released from prison is 1944 he opened a Nature Cure sanitarium in India based on Just’s model

In 1904 German author Richard Ungewitter wrote a book titled "Die Nacktheit" (nakedness) wherein he advocated nudism, abstention from meat, tobacco and alcohol. He had to publish it himself, but it quickly became a bestseller. The vegetarian aspect focused on the purity of the body and soul, with adherence to a regular program of fitness. The German attitude towards nudity has not changed too much in 100 years because even now on a warm summer day people along lakes and rivers can be found enjoying themselves in the sunshine without clothing.

In the 19th century hiking societies proliferated in Germany. One group "Friends Of Nature" were into social hiking and used the slogan "Free Mountains, Free World, Free People".

Another group, called the "Wandervogel", was founded in 1895 by Hermann Hoffmann and Karl Fischer in Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin. They began to take some high school students on nature walks, then later on longer hikes. Soon a huge youth movement that was both anti-bourgeois and Teutonic Pagan in character, composed mostly of middle class German children, organized into autonomous bands.

Wandervogel members, aged mainly between 14-18 years and spread to all parts of Germany eventually numbering 50,000. Part hobo and part medieval, they pooled their money, wore woolen capes, shorts and Tyrolean hats and took long hikes in the country where they sang their own versions of Goliardic songs and camped under primitive conditions. Both sexes swam nude together in the lakes and rivers and in their hometowns they established "nests" and "anti-homes", sometimes in ruined castles where they met to plan trips and play mandolins and guitars.

Their short weekend trips became 3 to 4 weeks long journeys of hundreds of miles. Soon they were establishing permanent camps in the wild that were open to all. With no thought of pay, the bands worked at improving their campsites and building cabins for which they made the furniture-in all forming a complex of precedents underlying the youth-hostel movement which began in 1907 when Richard Schirmann opened the first hostel in Altena Germany.

Mostly the Wandervogel sought communion with nature, with the ancient folk-spirit as embodied in the traditional peasant culture, and with one another. They developed a harmonious mystic resonance with their environment.

The expression "Lebensreform" (life-reform) was first used in 1896, and comprised various German social trends of the 19th and first half of the 20th century.

Particularly:
1. vegetarianism
2. nudism
3. natural medicine
4. abstinence from alcohol
5. clothing reform
6. settlement movements
7. garden towns
8. soil reform
9. sexual reform
10. health food and economic reform
11. social reform
12. liberation for women, children and animals
13. communitarianism
14. cultural and religious reform: i.e. a religion or view of the world that gives weight to the feminine, maternal and natural traits of existence

Further south in Switzerland, Ascona was a little fishing village on the shore of Lake Maggiore, on the Swiss side of the border with Italy. In the year 1900 a counter-culture renaissance began and lasted until about 1920. Ascona became the focal point for all of Europe’s spiritual rebels.

Life experiments were in vogue: surrealism, modern dance, dada, Paganism, feminism, pacifism, psychoanalysis and nature cure. A few of the participants were Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Isadora Duncan, D.H. Lawrence, Arnold Ehret and Franz Kafka.

At the turn of the century Germany had 56 million people, and had as many large cities as all of the rest of Europe combined. Industrialism, technology, pollution and "affluenza" began a crisis amongst the over-privileged German-speaking of that period. The disenchanted began to arrive in Ascona by the hundreds.

The beautiful natural setting inspired urban people to sunbathe in the nude, sleep outdoors, hike, swim and fast. This village quickly developed a universal reputation as a health center.

Hermann Hesse was excited when he saw four longhaired men with sandals walk through his village on their way to Ascona. He followed them, settled in and then took a nature cure for his alcoholism. The year was 1907.


Born July 2, 1877, at the northern edge of the Black Forest in Calw, Germany, Hermann Hesse knew at age 13 that he wanted to be a poet or nothing. Beginning in the 1950's with the Beat generation, his novels became immensely popular in the English-speaking world, where their criticism of bourgeois values and interest in Eastern spirituality and Jungian psychology echoed the emerging revolt against the unreflected life. In the 1960's Hermann became the novelist of the decade, with "Siddhartha" (1922) and "Steppenwolf" (1927) selling in the millions, and capturing and shaping an American Audience. Legitimate history will always recount Hesse as the most important link between the European counter-culture of his youth and their latter-day descendants in America. (Photo from 1908.)



The people of Ascona refused eggs, milk, meat, salt and alcohol. Nature cure was a powerful idea in the German mind, and was a widespread and profound rebellion against science and professionalism.

On August 20, 1903, an anarchist newspaper in San Francisco, California published a large article about Ascona, describing the people and their philosophies. This was certainly one of the first times that detailed news of the European counter-culture had reached the California coast.

Perhaps the most central Neo-Pagan element in the German folk movements was sun-worship, believed to be the ancient Teutonic religion. From at least the Romantic era, sun-worship was offered by prominent Germans as the most rational alternative to Christianity. The solar images were at the center of a desire to return to natural Paganism and a natural lifestyle in harmony with the earth.

Eugene Diedrichs Publishing was the highly respected voice of Neo-Paganism and the religious-not the political-arm of the great Volkische movement. Diedrichs envisioned an "organic peoples state" (organischer Volksstaat) and like Carl Jung preferred a return to the nature religion of the ancient Teutons.

No one described solarism better than Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) the prominent scientist who first coined the word "ecology": "The sun, the deity of light and warmth, on whose influence all organic life insensibly and directly depends, was taken to be such a phenomenon [of naturalistic monotheism] many thousands of years ago. Sun-worship seems to the modern scientist to be the best of all forms of theism, and the one which may be most easily reconciled with modern Monism. For modern astrophysics and geogeny have taught us that the earth is a fragment detached from the sun, and that it will eventually return to the bosom of its parent. Modern physiology teaches us that the first source of organic life on the earth is the formation of protoplasm, and that this synthesis of simple inorganic substances, water, carbonic acid, and ammonia only takes place under the influence of sunlight….indeed the whole of our bodily and mental life depends, in the last resort, like all other organic life, on the light and heat rays of the sun. Hence in the light of pure reason, sun-worship as a form of naturalistic monotheism, seems to have a much better foundation than the anthropistic worship of Christians and other monotheists who conceive of their god in human form. As a matter of fact the sun-worshippers attained, thousands of years ago, a higher intellectual and moral standard than most of the other theists. When I was in Bombay in 1881, I watched with the greatest sympathy the elevating rites of the pious Parsees, who, standing on the sea-shore, or kneeling on their prayer rugs offered their devotion to the sun at its rise and setting."

As the 20th century dawned many Germans began to feel the weight of oppressive political forces, powers that would later lead their nation into 2 world wars and change the course of European history.

Between 1895 and 1914, tens of thousands of Germans left their homes and families and immigrated to America. After all America was the country of the future, and they saw themselves as pioneers helping to lead a new society by transplanting and nurturing the most valuable ideas from their homeland into their new dreams for the United States.

There were several key individuals who made a substantial contribution, but probably none more than Dr. Benedict Lust.

Born in Michelbach near Baden Germany February 3, 1872 Lust first came to America in 1892, became ill with tuberculosis, then returned to Germany and took a nature cure treatment from the famed Father Sebastian Kneipp. He regained his health and found his true purpose in life, then returned to America in 1896 to become a Kneipp representative in America.

Rightfully called "The Father Of Naturopathy" in America, Lust introduced all of the great naturist movements that were in vogue in Europe; hydrotherapy, herbal remedies, air and light baths, various plant-based diets and he also translated and distributed the German classic health works of Father Kneipp, Louis Kuhne, Adolf Just, Arnold Ehret and August Englehardt.

Near the turn of the century in New York City he founded a school of massage and the Naturopathic Society, then in 1918 he published Universal Naturopathic Encyclopedia for drugless therapy. Nature’s Path Magazine and a radio show devoted to natural healing were also some of his notable achievements.

Dr. Benedict Lust enjoys a sun-bath at "Sonnenbichel" sun and air park in Kneipp-Bad Worishofen, Bavaria, Germany on a return to the Fatherland in the summer of 1926. The "Father of Naturopathy" in America, no single individual contributed more to natural healing and lifestyle in the world than Dr. Lust did through his many schools and publications. Everything from massage, herbology, raw foods, anti-vivisection and hydro-therapy to Eastern influences like Ayurveda and Yoga found their way to an American audience through Lust. Though he was repeatedly harassed by Medical authorities and Federal agents, his devotion to promoting Nature's methods of healing finaly gained wide acceptance. Like so many others from his generation, he was a tough man. (Photo from Naturopath, February, 1927)


Dr. Lust’s school of Naturopathy was the starting point for hundreds of America’s natural health practitioners, while his magazines introduced the West not only to German Nature Cure, but also ancient East Indian concepts like Ayurveda and Yoga. Paramahansa Yogananda was one of several Indians who wrote articles for "Nature’s Path" magazine in the 1920’s gaining wide exposure to a large American audience.

Dr. Lust was "busted" repeatedly by American authorities and medical associations, for promoting natural methods of healing, massage and nude sun bathing at his Jungborn sanitarium. He was arrested 16 times by New York authorities and 3 times by Feds. One news headline read simply "They Have Lust Again".

As many as 30-40% of the graduates of Dr. Lusts school of Naturopathy were women, and his magazines were full of enthusiastic letters and praise from practicing Naturopaths in India, Jamaica and all over Latin America. No one was more devoted to introducing nature cure to the Spanish-speaking world than Dr. Lust.

Another influential Nature Doctor, Dr. Carl Schultz, arrived in Los Angeles California in 1885 and became the Benedict Lust of the west. In 1905 he created the Naturopathic Institute and Sanitarium and also opened the Naturopathic College on Hope Street. Most of the practicing nature doctors in the west were graduates of this college.

In 1906 Bill Pester first set foot on American soil having left Saxony, Germany that same year at age 19 to avoid military service. With his long hair, beard and lebensreform background he wasted no time in heading to California to begin his new life.

He settled in majestic Palm Canyon in the San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs California and built himself a palm hut by the flowing stream and palm grove.

Bill Pester at this palm log cabin in Palm Canyon, California, 1917. With his "lebensreform" philosophy, nudism and raw foods diet, he was one of the many German immigrants, who "invented" the hippie lifestyle more than half a century before the 1960s. He left Germany to avoid military service in 1906 at age 19, for a new life in America. (Photo Courtesy of Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California)


Bill spent his time exploring the desert canyons, caves and waterfalls, but was also an avid reader and writer. He earned some of his living making walking sticks from palm blossom stalks, selling postcards with lebensreform health tips, and charging people 10 cents to look through his telescope while he gave lectures on astronomy.

He made his own sandals, had a wonderful collection of Indian pottery and artifacts, played slide guitar, lived on raw fruits and vegetables and managed to spend most of his time naked under the California sunshine.

During the time when Bill lived near Palm Springs he was on Cahuilla Indian land, with permission from the local tribe who had great admiration for him. His name even appeared on the 1920 census with the Indians, and in 1995 An American Indian woman Millie Fischer published a small booklet about Palm Canyon that included a chapter on Pester.

The many photos of Pester clearly reveal the strong link between the 19th century German reformers and the flower children of the 1960’s…long hair and beards, bare feet or sandals, guitars, love of nature, draft dodger, living simple and an aversion to rigid political structure. Undoubtedly Bill Pester introduced a new human type to California and was a mentor for many of the American Nature Boys.

In 1914 another German immigrant, Professor Arnold Ehret arrived in California. The philosophy he preached had a powerful influence on various aspects of American culture. Ehret advocated fasting, raw foods, nude sun bathing and letting your hair and beard grow un-trimmed. His "Rational Fasting" (1914) and "Mucus-less Diet"(1922) were literary standbys within hippie circles in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the 1960’s.

The husband and wife team of John and Vera Richter first opened their Raw-Foods cafeteria the "Eutropheon" in 1917, and during it’s lifetime it hosted thousands of customers and taught many people how to prepare such raw treats as sun-dried bread, salads, dressings, soups, beverages and many other healthy alternatives to the typical Los Angeles cuisine of the 1920’s-1940’s.

John’s powerful lectures were attended by many young health enthusiasts, who later went on to become well known health teachers and authors, and Vera’s recipe book was the precursor to many of the modern Live-Food recipe books.

Some of the young employees of the Eutropheon were Americans who had adopted the German Naturmensch and Lebensreform image and philosophy, wearing their hair and beards long and feeding exclusively on raw fruits and vegetables. The "Nature Boys" came from all over America but usually ended up in southern California. Some of the familiar ones were Gypsy Jean, eden ahbez, Maximilian Sikinger, Bob Wallace, Emile Zimmerman, Gypsy Boots, Buddy Rose, Fred Bushnoff and Conrad. This was decades before the Beats or Hippies and their influence was very substantial. In "On The Road" Kerouac noted that while passing through Los Angeles in the summer of 1947 he saw "an occasional Nature Boy saint in beard and sandals".

But in the spring of 1948 eden ahbez became an internationally recognized personality when his song "Nature Boy" was recorded by Nat King Cole. Photos and story of eden and his wife Anna appeared in Life, Time and Newsweek magazines that year.


eden ahbez, 1948. Part-time yogi and full-time mystic, this 1940s "hippie" always spelled his name with small letters because he believed that only God and Infinity should be capitalized. (Photo courtesy of Gypsy Boots)

Born in Brooklyn New York, April 15, 1908 "ahbez" had walked across America 4 times, hopped freight trains and lived in a cave in Tahquitz Canyon before he penned his #1 hit tune, which was on the hit parade for 15 weeks.

The song itself was part autobiographical but was also a nod to his German mentor Bill Pester who was 23 years his senior and had been a Nature Boy for decades when eden encountered him in the Coachella Valley of southern California.

Another one of the Nature Boys, Maximillian Sikinger was born in Augsberg Germany in 1913 and spent most of his childhood and youth living wild in the environs of various European cities. Through his wanderings, personal contacts and outdoor living he developed a keen interest in various aspects of natural healing; nutrition, water cure, fasting, sitz baths, deep breathing and sunshine.


Nature Boy, Maximillian Sikinger, at home in the Santa Monica Mountains, 1946. Max left Germany in 1935 then made his way to Southern California where he inspired many American kids to become "Nature Boys". By the 1960s, he was a regular fixture at pop festivals and concerts and was considered a guru to many Topanga hippies.

Max left Europe in 1935 at age 22, arrived in America then eventually made his way west to California where he traveled with the Nature Boys who valued his introspective and philosophical ideas very highly. Maximillian’s world travels and rugged background had given him deep insight into many of life’s puzzles.

But the one Nature Boy to pass the torch from the old era (circa 1930’s-40’s)…into the 1960’s hippie generation was Gypsy Boots.

Born in San Francisco in 1916 to Russian Jewish parents "Boots" grew up in the San Francisco area where he quit school at an early age to travel and live a life close to nature. He met Maximillian on the beach at Kelley’s Cove in 1935 and it was then that his life began to change. Boots noted in his autobiography: " It was with Max that I first experimented with fasting and special diets, and also learned much about yoga".

In the 1940’s Boots lived wild in Tahquitz Canyon with all of the Nature Boys, bathing in the cool mountain water, eating fruits and vegetables, sleeping on rocks or in caves, hiking and selling produce in Palm Springs.

In 1953 he married Lois Bloemker, settled near Griffith Park in Los Angeles and had 3 sons. In 1958 he opened his "Health Hut" in Hollywood, which was a big hit, and shortly thereafter began his career as a serious health teacher and example of optimum living.

In the early 1960’s he appeared on the Steve Allen show over 25 times to an audience of some 25 million households. Steve Allen had originally started the "Tonight" show, then began his own show featuring guests like Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac, Frank Zappa and the psychedelic band Blue Cheer.

When the Beatles and Rolling Stones arrived in Los Angeles in the mid 1960’s their "pudding basin" hairstyles seemed tame when compared to a local rock band "The Seeds" who wore shoulder length hair, thanks to the influence of Gypsy Boots and his ilk. "Seeds" singer Sky Saxon, a vegetarian, had invented a new type of music…."Flower Punk". Even Jimi Hendrix had a front row seat to a Seeds concert, and the Doors played second bill on a Seeds tour.

When the Love-In’s began in Griffith Park in 1966 some of the Flower Children who were stoned on Owsley acid looked up in the big trees to see Gypsy Boots swinging and climbing from branch to limb, then exclaiming "what’s that guy on…. I’d sure like to have a hit of that!" But Boots "high" was always induced from his sun-charged foods like figs and grapes, as well as his fitness regime.

At the Monterey and Newport Pop festivals in 1967 and 1968 Boots was a paid performer along with acts like the Grateful Dead, Ravi Shankar, The Jefferson Airplane and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Two of Boots greatest admirers were Mama Cass Elliot of "The Mamas And Papas" and Carolyn ("Mountain Girl") Garcia, Jerry Garcia’s wife.

Those best informed also agree that Boots’ influence helped inspire members of several Los Angeles rock bands to become vegetarian, notably Randy California of "Spirit" and Arthur Lee of "Love", as well as Sky Saxon of the "Seeds." Mickey Dolenz, the zaniest member of the TV pop foursome "The Monkeys" was also a Boots fan, while Frank Zappa appeared in the cult movie "Mondo Hollywood" (1968) with Boots, and they must have been the only 2 bearded long-haired guys in L.A. preaching a "no dope" philosophy in the late 60’s.

"Surf Bohemians" with shaggy hair, goatees and vegetarian lifestyle, rode their redwood boards on un-crowded waves in the early 1950's in the Malibu area. The surf scene of the late 1950’s in California and Hawaii was a precursor to the counter-culture that began in 1964, including components like long hair, natural foods, trips to Mexico, psychedelic music, living outdoors, unique vocabulary, anti-authoritarian posture and global travel destinations. A surf band called "The Gamblers" had a hit song titled "Moon Dawg" in 1960, and the B-side was the song "LSD 25. Dick Dale, the undisputed King of the surf guitar had a hit with "Let’s Go Trippin" in 1961, which was later recorded by the Beach Boys (1964). Noted surf artist Rick Griffin later became a respected hippie artist as well.

On the east coast of America professors Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and Ralph Metzner were busy in the early 1960’s with their psychedelic research, first at Harvard University then later at the Millbrook estate in New York. They were quick to recognize the strong correlation between L.S.D. induced archetypes and their many Germanic antecedents available from 20th century scientists, artists and writers.

L.S.D. was first synthesized in 1938 by Dr. Albert Hoffmann in Switzerland. In the fall of 1963 Dr. Leary and his colleague German born Dr. Metzner, published an article in their quarterly magazine "The Psychedelic Review" titled: "Hermann Hesse: Poet of the Interior Journey". Although Hesse’s novels "Siddhartha"(1922) and "Steppenwolf"(1927) were published in Germany many decades before the 1960’s, they considered them the most important psychedelic literature available. Partly through the influence of this article these two novels sold millions in the 60’s and rode in the backpacks of a whole generation. Nearly all hippies read Hesse!

In 1964 Leary, Alpert and Metzner published their landmark book "The Psychedelic Experience" which was quickly labeled the "bible" of the hippie movement. In the introduction they included a tribute to Swiss psychologist Dr. Carl Jung who had committed himself to the inner vision of internal perception. Dr. Jung, a one time resident of the commune at Ascona (1900) had witnessed first hand many spiritual purifying rituals involving fasting, diet and excessive hiking, that could sometimes induce a psychedelic-type high.

"Herbst" (Autumn), mural sketch by Fidus, 1934
(Note "peace" symbol on top)


As the 1960’s flowered the "peace" symbol (used by Fidus as early as 1934) became a familiar icon in artwork and graffiti…while the Volkswagen bus became the most quintessential symbol for hippie transportation and even lifestyle. The bus was created and engineered in 1949 by technicians of the Wandervogel generation.

Nature Boy eden ahbez sat in on the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" recordings in 1966. And while the Beatles popularity reached it’s absolute zenith by 1968….most of their fans never knew that the once scruffy bar band from Liverpool received their first big break playing in clubs in Hamburg Germany in 1960. The four English lads with greasy slicked-back 50’s style hair radically changed their image and hairstyles after meeting Klaus Voorman and several of the other German art students who wore shaggy long hair with bangs. George Harrison said that German photographer Astrid Kirchherr "invented" the Beatles with her camera giving them tips on dress and posing, and capturing their images in some priceless early photo shoots.

As a deep heartfelt thanks to their faithful German fans the Beatles later recorded "Komm gib Mir Deine Hand" (I Want To Hold Your Hand) and "Sie Liebt Dich" (She Loves You) singing in German.

Klaus Voorman designed the cover and drew the artwork for the Beatles landmark "Revolver" (1966) album. The Beatles German period can be viewed in the video "Backbeat" (1994). Psychedelic music exploded from a ferocious British band called The Yardbirds (1963-1968) whose lead guitarists included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Virtually every heavy band from Jimi Hendrix and Cream to Black Sabbath and Van Halen used the formula invented by The Yardbirds.

After the 60’s ended the 70’s became the decade when more people went back to the land than any other period in the 20th century.

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, later, July of 1972 saw the first "Rainbow Gathering" near Granby Lake in Colorado. It began as a healing gathering with spiritual nature-loving participants, and according to long time Rainbow focalizer Michael John: " Our roots are in the Pagan festivals of the Middle Ages, and the time after Christ when the way we celebrate the summer and our union was here, something has called us to that memory, to give us the chance to re-experience that. I think that the Rainbow Gathering is just the resurfacing of the ancient Festivals". (From: "People Of The Rainbow" Michael Niman-1997)

Also in the early 1970’s many hippies in California and Hawaii embraced the most radical form of earth habitation…living in caves (and sometimes tree-houses) in the wilderness, native style. Most of the larger watercourses in southern California like Tahquitz, Deep Creek, Sespe and The Big Sur River had young cave dwellers in their canyons.

This was an echo of the Naturmensch and Wandervogel with their wild seasonal forays in the Alps and farther south into Italy, some 50 years before…and of Bill Pester who came to California in 1906 to live in Nature.

The "Ferals" of eastern Australia are yet another present day link in the chain of youths who have abandoned urbanism and returned into forested areas where they live mostly in nomadic tipis in the Nimbin/Byron region of New South Wales, sometimes numbering as many as 10,000.

By the mid 1990's there were as many as 10,000 "Ferals" living in the forests of eastern Australia, many of them in the region surrounding Nimbin and Byron Bay in New South Wales. Small nomadic tipis are the preferred habitation and nearly all of these Gen-X kids come from the big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, and are a modern-day echo of the German Naturmensch and the American youth movements in the 1960s.


After the high times of the 1960’s were over many people began searching for new ways to maintain clarity and health, "graduating" to things like yoga, pure diet, meditation, hiking, environmental activism, etc.

Fred Hirsch, the man who published Professor Arnold Ehret’s books for over 50 years in his office in Beaumont California was host to many "acid heads" who had shifted to "sun-foods" during the 1970’s to maintain their high as well as a strong connection with the plant kingdom.

The Green political Party began in Germany in the late 1970’s as an outgrowth of the 1950’s anti-nuclear movements in Europe, later spread to other parts of the world including America.


"Fruhlingsodem" by Fidus, 1893

For a brief period in the 1980’s the Hippie lifestyle seemed passé and years out of style, but it re-charged itself vigorously in the 1990’s. Even though the media tends to anachronize young hippies, Rainbows and environmentalists as remnants of the 1960’s, anyone can see by looking at the photos that accompany this article that Hippiedom is really just a perennial sub-culture…as old as the first humans that ever walked upright, and as new as the 30,000 plus members on the Hip-Planet site.

That’s why hippies will never go away…because they’ve always been here anyway.


Gordon Kennedy is the author of "Children of the Sun", a book about the origins of the Hippie Movement in Germany and the ideas they introduced to the US in the early 1900s.

Copyright 2003-Kennedy/Ryan Nivaria Press; All rights reserved including the right of reproduction of text or images.[Excerpts taken from “Children of the Sun; A Pictorial Anthology From Germany To California, 1883-1949”-By Gordon Kennedy 1998 ISBN 0-9668898-0-0]




http://www.hippy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=243

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

INF swimming gala

The International Naturist Federation holds the swimming gala the first weekend in November. Venues for the gala change annually and are hosted by that year's host country. The gala has been ongoing since 1971 and more information is available on the INF-FNI website.


By Jessica Hatcher

As I take my place on the starting block, a hush sweeps around the spectators at the side of the swimming pool. A race is about to begin.

The Union Jack is emblazoned on my swimming cap and to my left - poised and at the ready - are two lithe and toned Germans. I am competing for Great Britain at an international swimming competition and it should be a great honour.

But I can't shake the feeling that there is something very, very wrong. For, apart from a silly stretchy hat, I am completely and utterly stark naked. And about to take part in the world's largest nude swimming gala in front of hundreds of total strangers.



So how on earth have I ended up in such a predicament? Isn't this the kind of situation that comes to people in their worst nightmares?

It all started innocently enough a few months ago, when I discovered the gala while browsing on the internet. In the name of journalistic research, I emailed the organizers to see if I could go along to witness it. It sounded unique to say the least and fun at best, and they agreed. Then, a few weeks later, they called me back. Apparently there was a lack of competitors in my age group. Could I take part?

I immediately got cold feet (and cold almost everything else). I am a competent swimmer, but I dislike competitive swimming almost as much as I do being naked in front of strangers (I've only ever stripped in public once - in a female communal shower after a yoga class - and it was fairly terrifying). Yet while the thought of parading my naked body in front of hundreds of people filled me with abject horror, I couldn't help but feel intrigued. Was I just getting worked up over nothing? And besides, I told myself, I've been summoned - my country needs me. And that's how I came to find myself poised on a block, wobbly bits and all, about to launch my bare body, fingers first, straight into 50 metres of frantic front-crawl.

The International Naturist Federation is about as important as it gets in the nudist world.

The global swimming championships were first launched in 1971. National teams from eight countries have come to take part: Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland. Today, they are gathering at the Ken Marriott Leisure Centre in Rugby - oh, the glamour. It's only the second time in 17 years that Britain has played host.



They have hired an entire leisure centre because, as Andrew Welch from British Naturism tells me: 'We can't have "textile (clothed) people" wandering around.' It's a common misconception, I'm told, that naturists never wear clothes. It's just that they believe there is a time and a place to be naked, that's all. The day begins when I arrive at the centre and am met by Andrew. He jokes that we won't need separate male and female changing rooms today. I blanch at first, but then I see why.

Male or female, old or young, everyone disrobes without ceremony - most take off their trousers and pants first. I see every shape I've ever considered and more besides, yet no one apart from me seems to be doing anything different to what they were doing with their clothes on. Perfectly normal conversations are taking place all around me. An enormous man wearing nothing but a tattoo with the words 'There is no wealth but life' on his back asks where the pool is. I can barely look him in the eye - but then I don't know where else to look either.

I lock myself into a cubicle to get undressed, still clinging onto my towel as a last defence. I venture forward and peer nervously out. The German team are to my right. A youngish chap who a minute ago, when he was dressed, looked like a heavy-metal fan is now standing tall and proud in just a sleek silver swimming cap with the German flag on it. He smiles and says hello.

On my left, Bart, the Dutch swimming coach, is giving out orders to his team. I like Bart. I met him earlier at the teams' hotel. I asked him whether his team were looking strong. "Better than the Britons," he said eventually, "but not as good as the Germans." I smiled. The Germans. Very good at naked swimming, apparently. (Presumably in this case the rule should be: don't mention the 'phwoar'.)

The competition is taken seriously. People speak in reverently hushed tones of Tom Hummer, the 21-year-old German naturist who can swim 50 metres in just over 25 seconds.



This is nearly Olympic standard - the men's 50 metres freestyle record is currently 23.86 seconds. For the British team, it's not so much about the swimming, although many of them train regularly (in the nude). 'Anyone will tell you,' Andrew explains, 'that if they ever have to wear a swimming costume, they find it most uncomfortable.'

Each competitor belongs to a regional naturist club that either has its own premises or hires out a pool on a regular basis.

The leisure centre's 18-year-old 'textiled' lifeguard, Glen, tells me he was a bit scared when he first heard about the gala - 'I had a feeling it was going to be a bunch of people running around naked.' As Glen is talking, the enormous tattooed man walks past us, drops his goggles, bends to pick them up, and walks on. Glen's eyes are like saucers.

The windows of the swimming pool building are blacked out with curtains and bin bags so members of the public can't see in. Occasionally, shafts of sunlight break through. It is a beautiful day and I think for a minute what I wouldn't give to be frolicking outside - with my clothes on.

The large pool area is a hive of naked activity. A middle-aged man is whirling his arms around his head in a windmill-style warm-up routine (I won't tell you what the physical effects of this are). Another is stretching his hamstrings.

In the pool, people are doing lengths. I suddenly feel self-conscious. I still haven't removed my towel; I can't, for some reason. Yet being the only one not naked is making me feel even more awkward.



So I decide it's time. But how best to do it? Drop it to the waist first? Bare my buttocks before anything else? A rush of adrenaline takes over as, in the end, I whip my towel off like a plaster.

I'm naked! I feel exceedingly pleased with myself. My body feels like a suit of armour - my skin is doing the job my clothes used to do. And my body hang-ups have gone.

In bikinis, I'm forever sucking in my stomach and rearranging my breasts, but naked, there's nothing to rearrange. I suddenly feel much bolder and braver than I thought I would. 'That's better!' those around me cry. They pat me on the back. Annette from Team GB bounces up to me. 'Isn't it the most fabulous sensation?!'

For most naturists, the sensation is what it's about - the feeling of water on bare skin, a body free of ill-fitting clothes and rejoicing in the natural bounce of its bits and bobs.

I spot Tim, a 37-year-old property consultant, and take a seat by him, being careful to put my towel on the chair first (naturists always sit on towels).

'You can't explain naturism. You have to try it,' says Tim. 'It's about being free. Being naked makes me feel good. Swimming in the nude is even nicer, it's the most natural thing you can do. 'On the practical side, there's no soggy costumes and I find people are more friendly. Everyone interacts better.'




I thank Tim and march off down the pool with a new sense of pride. Occasionally my eyes wander to where they shouldn't, but people don't seem to mind. I think they understand that I'm a beginner.

I am pleased to note that, of all the male eyes in the pool, I don't see any lingering on me. Then, suddenly, the whistle goes. The races are about to begin. There is a tension in the air and I remember that getting naked is only part of the reason I'm here. I am competing for Great Britain in three races: freestyle, breaststroke (no sniggering please) and backstroke. The idea of doing backstroke naked initially filled me with horror, but now I am naked a bit of additional exposure doesn't seem too bad.

What worries me more are the people I am up against. In all three of my races (for females aged 25-29) it is just me, Marina and Mirjam.

It would appear female naturists are scarce in my age-group. Marina and Mirjam are both from Germany and look like proper swimmers - they have toned shoulders, pert breasts, flat stomachs and strong thighs.

I take my position on the starting blocks for the 50 metres breaststroke. The race is a blur. I finish third. Emerging from the water in a splutter, I hear a roar of applause from the British camp. I smile and wave up to my supporters enthusiastically - this naturism business is infectious. I have won a bronze medal for my country! I am grinning ear-to-ear.

I bump into Tim the property consultant again. I've been hearing rumours he's the star of the British team. He certainly looks the part; Tim is buff. He has been a naturist for ten years, he tells me. It began on a holiday in Croatia.
Croatians are even keener on naturism than the Germans - 20 per cent of Croatian tourism is naturist. Tim concedes that we don't really have the weather for it over here. I agree.

Tim's girlfriend, Rachel, is quiet. It turns out it's her first time being publicly naked, too. They only met in June. Tim told her he was a naturist on their first date. Apparently there was a long silence before she could reply. But she has an admirably open outlook: 'It's like anything - you can't give an informed decision until you've tried it.' I ask how she feels. 'I feel very safe here. Everyone is very respectful.'

A packed lunch is served in the canteen. Mary and Stephanie, the uniformed leisure centre staff, are behind the counter serving drinks. From the safety of their Slush Puppie machine, they tell me they were at the British national nude swimming gala earlier in the year as well.

They are smiling and giggling and I am smiling and giggling back. It really is difficult not to smile when you or the person you are talking to is completely naked.
By the end of the day, I have won three bronze medals. The British declare it a great victory. Since I came last in each of my races I disagree, but find I am too swept up in their enthusiasm to care.

The President of British Naturism, Angela Russell, has spent the day sitting behind a laptop computer at one end of the pool, studiously typing data into a spreadsheet.
She is a large lady with breasts like giant spaniels' ears who is both charming and highly efficient.

Angela tells me, at first glance, the Germans are the overall winners, the Brits have come second, and the Dutch third. This is good news. Tim bounds up to give me a hug. He has won a gold for butterfly. I hug him back. And then I remember that I am naked. It's very strange - I hadn't expected it to be something I would forget so easily.

Julie, one of the catering managers who served our lunch, tells me she might like to try it, but only if there was no one else there she knew. She raises an interesting point - naturism seems to be good for meeting new people.

There is something about being naked that means you are obliged to be friendly and welcoming. When all your defences are stripped away and you don't have the identity of your clothes to hide behind, all you're left with is exactly the same as what everyone else has.

As I'm leaving the pool area, I stop for another quick chat with Glen the lifeguard. I wonder how he found it. 'Not too bad. I quite enjoyed it actually,' he says, grinning. And then he pulls a face.

'They're quite open though, aren't they?' I follow his line of sight. A round bellied Irishman is lolling open-legged on a plastic chair at the side of the pool with a benevolent expression on his face.




The Irishman sees me looking, gets up and walks over. 'I've had one of the best days ever,' he tells me, a teary look in his eye. I nod, because part of me really has enjoyed casting off my 'textile' skin.

As I'm heading back to the changing rooms, I bump into Andrew from British Naturism and he invites me to another swimming event they are hosting next weekend.'You should come! There's even going to be a naked disco.' My gulp is audible. I may have swum for my country, but a disco? I'm a little too well upholstered for that.

Friday, September 2, 2011

growing tomatoes

I grew tomatoes in 2010 and they exploded due to too much water uptake. i mulched in 2011 and that problem was less but I had much less fruit from the variety.

growing pole beans

In 2011 I grew pole beans it did ok but I wasnt too interested in the bean.

growing cucumbers

In 2011 I grew a bush cucumber variety. Got two cucumbers from it but it wasnt much of a success.

growing strawberries

nothing in two years very disappointing.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Dinka: Legendary Cattle Keepers of Sudan

meal I made: gnocchi,shrimp,asparagus


gnocchi with shrimp, asparagus and pesto


February 22nd, 2010





I’m all for 30-minute meals. But I’m an even bigger fan of 15-minute meals!! :)


So yes, allow me to introduce you to a new favorite main dish that came about today somewhat randomly. I have been trying to clean out the freezer this week, and wanted to use up some shrimp and frozen “ice cubes” of pesto that were calling my name. And since I’d also picked up some beautiful asparagus at the store this week, did a quick google search to see if any creative recipes came up. I was expecting pastas, or a stir-fry, but to my surprise, this yummy recipe popped up for gnocchi — fun!! Already had a package in the pantry, so decided to give it a try.



I admit — calling for just 4 main ingredients had me a little skeptical. But holy cow, I was wrong. This turned out fantastic!!! The combination of the starchy gnocchi with the fresh asparagus and pesto was fantastic, and it was totally packed with flavor (I used homemade pesto, but if you buy storebought, get a good brand!). But the best part was that it literally took less than 15 minutes to prepare. Fannnnnntastic.


Already looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow… :)




Gnocchi with Shrimp, Asparagus and Pesto

(Adapted from CookingLight)


Ingredients:




  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil

  • 1 lb. asparagus, tough ends removed, and cut into 2″ pieces

  • 1 lb. large shrimp, peeled and deveined

  • 1 (16 oz.) package vacuum-packed gnocchi

  • 1/4 cup pesto, homemade or store-bought

  • salt and freshly ground black pepper


  • (optional garnishes: parmesan and toasted pine nuts)


Method:


Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add asparagus and saute for 3 minutes. Then add shrimp, season everything with salt and (lots of!) freshly ground black pepper, and continue sauteing until shrimp are cooked (pink and no longer translucent). Remove from heat.


Meanwhile, bring 2 quarts water to a boil in a large pot. Add gnocchi to pan; cook 3-4 minutes or until done (gnocchi will rise to surface). Remove gnocchi with a slotted spoon; place in a large bowl. Add asparagus, shrimp and pesto, and then stir until everything is evenly coated.


Add extra garnishes if you’d like. Serve immediately.



Ali’s Tip:


Instead of seasoning the shrimp with freshly ground black pepper, feel free to add in some blackening seasoning, smoked paprika, or other favorite seasonings! I love spicy seafood or meat mixed with pesto! :)



Also, I imagine that frozen asparagus and/or pre-cooked shrimp would work well with this too.





Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Camp Harmony

Surely the Abrahamic faithful, the Jew, the Christian, the Muslim, must realize they have abandoned their own convictions by spreading themselves to every corner of the globe no notion of how far removed from their garden of Eden they have become? In so few words mankind walked away from Eden never to return in desire. Adam and Eve were naked and vulnerable to the elements but the conditions must have been favorable for nakedness until something caused Eve to eat from the tree of life. The serpent is believed to have tempted Eve to eat from the tree but Reginald knew that something must have caused Eve to approach the tree. Possibly the sight of a boundless horizon inspired Adam and Eve to venture to the far reaches of Eden and there they encountered the cold and the realization that nakedness imposes limits on the capacity of man. This moment was man's first conflict with nature, the realization of boundaries . Reginald had set himself on a lifetime journey to ponder this question and to live in the state of Adam and Eve before they became conflicted with nature and expelled from the garden. He happened upon Sunny Salvation twenty three years ago and found in the owner, Thaddeus, a sojourner of similar conviction, albeit limited in conviction to the extent to which a pilgrim should commit oneself to regaining a life in Eden.

Sunny Salvation was, to be honest, a practical answer for a man desiring to live as a nudist in the State of Kentucky that found nudism to be a criminal proposition. Sunny Salvation Camp the property of Sunny Salvation Christian Church was the legal loophole necessary to remain in a hostile environment. Thaddeus did not take his church and his role as pastor casually. The presence of Jesus was inescapable inside and out of the camp. The long standing rumor perpetuated by Thaddeus was that Walt Disney visited Sunny Salvation in the 1950's and Walt's land of amusements sprang forth in an epiphany of marketing genus. Thaddeus always added to his declaration of Walt Disney's visit a reminder to visitors that your visit to Sunny Salvation would be kept a secret to protect your privacy. Walt's visit was a historical moment however.

Rainy Acres

compost

The Naturist Humanist

In the beginning ...

Saturday, August 13, 2011

medical emergency

I almost had to check myself into the emergency last month due to heat stroke. My blood pressure was sky high. Since then I have gone to the doctor and my major problem is asthma. I also have high blood pressure and my lipid panel needs improvement. So I have sworn off high sodium foods and will attempt the DASH diet.

The records of my attempt to live naturally have not been kept up to date. I have cheated on the fast food and soda. But because of my health scare I have to commit myself to dropping microwave meals.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Henry Pudor

Henry Pudor, (* August 31 1865 in Loschwitz in Dresden , † December 22 1943 in Leipzig ) was a folkish -national publicist and one of the pioneers of naturism in Germany. He also used the pseudonym Heinrich Ernst shame and German.
Contents
[Verbergen]

1 Life
2 Other publications (selection)
3 Literature
4 External links
5 References

[ edit ] Life

Henry was the son of Frederick Pudor Pudor, director of the Royal Conservatory born in Dresden. After the visit of the Cross School , he used previously begun studying music at the Conservatoire of his father. 1886/87 he studied at the University of Leipzig ( physiological psychology , philosophy , art history ), then he moved to Heidelberg , where in 1889 about Schopenhauer's metaphysics doctorate of music in his World as Will and Idea.

Before accepting Pudor early 1890s the legacy of his late father as head of the private nor the time to the Royal Conservatory, he traveled to France and Italy . The travel sketches created there - 1893 and 1895 also successfully published [1] [2] - established his reputation as a travel writer, later continued by descriptions of Scandinavian countries. Already in his inaugural as head of the Dresden Conservatory, he came by his opinion, to teach only German music, with vehement criticism of both the teachers and the city of Dresden, then sold that Pudor the Conservatory in June 1890.

After founding his own publishing Pudor Heinrich (Munich, Berlin, later New York), in which he published only his own writings - mainly books of poetry and devotional writings, the life reform advocated. In 1891 he married a Jewish woman Susanne Jacobi, from whom he divorced seven years later, and moved into a villa in Loschwitz in Dresden. In 1892 he gave up with the Dresden weeklies for its first arts and culture magazine, whose appearance in the same year but was reinstated. 1893 his family moved to London, recently appeared in Dresden Pudor Naked people. Rejoicing of the future, the first important German-language works to naturism . His two years ago introduced vegetarian lifestyle Pudor gave up after health problems in London. In the following years he published numerous publications, both for life reform movement as well as all sorts of other themes (including architecture, linguistics, social policy, cultural studies).

1898 Henry Pudor returned after he tried in vain to distinguish itself as a painter, sculptor and musician, returns after traveling extensively through Europe to Germany. In Berlin Pudor married Linda Prill (the marriage lasted until 1923) until 1907, he published descriptions of travel by Scandinavian countries. That same year he moved to Leipzig. 1910 Pudor discovered the craft for himself and founded the association for protection of German quality, a year later he moved the magazine Unfair competition. Communications of the Association for the Protection of German quality.

As of 1912, Henry published Pudor almost exclusively anti-Semitic writings, mostly published in his publishing house. The prelude for this was the book of Germany for the Germans. Preliminary work on laws against the Jewish settlement in Germany and the journal Anti-Semitic armor of the German People's Council (in 1918 he was an organ of the German People's Council also good German. Messages of the German People's Council. Unit folkish associations out of the German People's Council, however, was probably at the time Pudor only from itself). After 1915 anti-Semitic armor was prohibited, he renamed the magazine in the Iron Ring and gave it out to 1923. Other publications followed with similar content, several times had to be Pudor because hostility to leading German politicians responsible to justice. Having Gustav Stresemann for his "treacherous foreign policy" threatened with murder on 17 Pudor March 1926 to a monetary penalty to one year in prison.

In September 1933, was banned Pudor new magazine called Swastika in which he the leader cult around Hitler and the party dictatorship of the Nazi Party criticized. He also deplored the publication in the "toleration" of the Jews by the new rulers of Germany, along with attacks against leading politicians regarding their origin and way of life, against, among others, Hitler and Goebbels, [3] . Of 14 November 1933 until 5 July 1934 Pudor in protective custody, taken as he illegally after the official ban on the magazine spread.

After the prison was surrounded by socialists and communists Pudor published many autobiographical writings in which he portrayed himself as a pioneer of the German national movement. 1943 was against publishing Pudor investigation for continuing fraud (he was trying to sell older writings to publishing in illegal conditions to booksellers), Henry died before the ruling on 22 Pudor December of that year. [4]
[ edit ] Other publications (selection)

A serious word about "Rembrandt as Educator", Dieterich, Göttingen 1890
(Heinrich shame): Mother's milk. Revelation of nature, London 1893
(Heinrich shame): Kirtara. Gaieties and longings, Leipzig, Fleischer 1894
(Heinrich shame): sexual love? Paradise votes, Leipzig 1895
The women's dress reform. A contribution to philosophy, hygiene and aesthetics of the dress, sailor, Leipzig 1903
Hygiene movement, 1906
The Gender, 1906
Bisexuality. Studies on the general bisexuality of human beings. Against Wilhelm Fliess, 1906
Sex life and marriage, 1907
Social Policy of the middle class, 2 volumes, 1911
Solid in the faith! A return from monism to Christianity. Leipzig 1913
The homeland security and financial security in the war against world Jewry, 1933
Peoples breath of God. Atlantis Heligoland, the Aryan-Germanic race high breeding and colonization mother country. Leipzig, 1936
The international family relations of the Jewish high finance, 1933-1937, 20 volumes
The soul. Ongoing research about the term 'soul' and his statement and replacing it with a reliable scientific and scientific-biological terminology, 1937
My life. Fight against Judah for the Aryan race, 1939-1941

[ edit ] References

Adam Thomas: Henry Pudor - health reformer and publisher In: The moving book.. Book trade and social, national and cultural movements in 1900, eds. Lehmstedt Mark & Andreas Herzog. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999th (= Publications of the Leipzig working group in the history of the book, writings and testimonies to the history book, 12). ISBN 3-447-04206-0 p. 183-196

[ edit ] External links

Michael Peters: Pudor, Henry . In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, p. 759
Literature by and about Heinrich Pudor in the catalog of the German National Library
Thomas Gräfe: Henry Pudor . In: Saxon Biography , ed. from the Institute for Saxon History and Folklore eV Edit. by Martina Schattkowsky .
Views of Henry Pudor about architecture
Stanislaw Przybyszewski: Homo sapiens [5]

[ edit ] References

↑ Henry Pudor. Heretical Art Letters from Italy. Dresden 1893
↑ Henry Pudor. French travel sketches. Pudor'sche travel library. Dresden 1895
↑ swastika. A political magazine. New Series 2-3. [Leipzig 1933]
↑ Adam Thomas: Henry Pudor - health reformer and publisher In: The moving book.. Book trade and social, national and cultural movements in 1900, ed. v. Mark Lehmstedt and Andreas Herzog. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999th P. 183-196
↑ The Polish writer mentioned Przybyszewski Pudor as cranky people in this trilogy of 1896

Arnold Rikli

Arnold Rikli (* February 13 1823 in Wangen an der Aare , Canton of Bern , † April 30 1906 in St. Thomas , Carinthia , Austria-Hungary ) was a Swiss naturopath. He is the founder of the "atmospheric cure" to play with the light-air baths and a substantial role. Riki was a supporter of the so-called reform of life .
Contents
[Verbergen]

1 Life
2 Riklis cures
3 Literature
4 External links

[ edit ] Life

Riki was born as the son of a prominent politician and owner of a dyeing . As a boy he was a very strict upbringing angediehen, which should serve at the request of parents, especially the employees in the factory. At 20 he joined his father's dying, to set up in 1845 with his brothers Karl and Rudolf one yarn dyeing plant in Seebach Seeboden (Carinthia). His main interest was already in those years of natural medicine , and last but not least is probably why his company ran into financial problems. During these years he constructed a steam-bed apparatus and earned a reputation as a water doctor.

1854, after he had successfully cured himself of a disease, he moved with his family in the climatically favorable location Velde in Gorenjska in today's Slovenia , to found a hospital. He treated during the summer months - probably with some success - mainly easier cases, which he could choose themselves and gathered a considerable number of followers. In the winter months he treated first in Ljubljana , then in Trieste and Gries in Bolzano severe illness and even some others failed even with his own children. Conflicts with doctors often ended in court, but Riki remained until his death in self-conscious and loyal to his theories was convinced to have made an important contribution to medicine.

Since 1989 the annual Arnold Rikli Prize of Light Foundation in Atlanta (USA) will be awarded. The award recognizes work that deal with the biological effects of light on humans.
[ edit ] Riklis cures

Riki, who was also called "Doctor Sun", treated his patients with water-air-light therapy, employment in the fresh air, intense sun exposure ( heliotherapy ) and a vegetarian diet . Its spa guests spent the nights in open huts in the area were "air park" as the "Riklikum" or the "Arnold height," so to speak fitness courses, where his patients minimally clothed and barefoot walked. In the spa buildings in the guest bath basin and proceeded under steam baths and showers, were on the roofs, spacious sun terraces. The main principle of treatment consisted in "changing atmospheric charm" of water, air and light, which should restore the physical and mental balance.

As Riki scientific findings of his time did not believe he resisted conventional medical treatments such as vaccinations or surgery and became a bitter opponent of the medical profession. The naturopath however, raise his achievements and contributions to date (including light therapy) out.

Not least thanks to Riki Velde was an important spa and experienced in the years leading up to the First World War a remarkable boom, and even today are modified forms of treatment in today's Riklis Bled offered. Among his "students" belonged to the painter and social reformer Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851-1913) who founded a commune in Vienna according to the principles of Riki. In Riklis Kuranstalt met in Bled is also the son of industrialist Henri Oedenkoven , the pianist Ida Hofmann and the brothers Karl and Gusto Graser , together in the autumn of 1900 the vineyard above Ascona populated. They named their company, which included a natural sanatorium, "Mountain of Truth - Monte Verità ". This institution also followed the ways of healing of Riki, but beyond that it was a meeting place of cultural revolutionary spirit, the "cradle of alternative culture . "
[ edit ] References

Alfred Brauchle : The owner of Arnold Rikli dyeing. Doctor In The Sun:. The same: the history of naturopathy in life paintings. 2nd ext. Ed by Great natural doctors. Reclam Verlag, Stuttgart 1951, p.204-218
Zdenko Levental. The sun doctor Arnold Rikli Gesnerus 34 (1977) 3-4, p. 394-403.
Friedhelm Kirchfeld, Wade Boyle, Nature Doctors. . Pioneers in Naturopathic Medicine Medicina Biologica, Portland, Oregon; Buckeye Naturopathic Press, East Palestine, Ohio, 1994.
Martin Green: Mountain of Truth. The Counterculture begins. Ascona, 1900-1920. University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 1986.
Robert Jütte : History of alternative medicine. From folk medicine to the unconventional therapies of today. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1996. ISBN 3-406-40495-2
Harald Szeemann (ed.): Monte Verità. Mountain of Truth. Electa Editrice, Milano 1979th
Kai Buchholz et al (eds): The reform of life. Proposals for the redesign of life and art around 1900. Volume 1 Häusser Verlag, Darmstadt 2,001th ISBN 3-89552-077-2
Eberhard Mros: Monte Verità phenomenon Volume 1:. The Settlers (1900-1920) Ascona 2007..

[ edit ] External links

History. The beginnings of tourism: Arnold Rikli (contribution of the town of Bled, English)
Arnold Rikli from cheek post by Zdenko Levental in the yearbook of the Oberaargau 1977
Arnold Rikli in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland

Fidus

Fidus (Hugo Reinhold Karl Johann bourgeois Höppener [1] , * October 8 1868 in Lübeck , † February 23 1948 in Woltersdorf ) was a German painter and illustrator.
Contents
[Verbergen]

1 Life
1.1 Early years of life
1.2 1890-1931
1.3 1932-1945
1.4 After 1945
2 discount
3 Literature
4 External links
5 References

[ edit ] Life
[ edit ] Early life years

Hugo was born on 8 Höppener October 1868, the son of confectioner Höppener Julius and his wife Camilla (nee Stender) was born in Lübeck. Easter 1887 he was sent by his parents at the preschool of the Munich Academy. Only three months after he left the academy and became a pupil of the painter and nature Apostle Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach in Höllriegelskreuth , from whom he received his stylistic imprint and the artist name "Fidus" (Patriot). He devoted himself to the lebensreformerischen ideas of vegetarianism , belief in the light, the naturist and a nature-friendly lifestyle. Anarcho-socialist ideas of land reform and vegetarian pacifism ruled the intellectual world of the young Fidus. Thus Fidus among the other member associations lebensreformerischen German Garden City Society , the Association of German land reformer and member of the Federation for all-round reform of the entire life of Germans in the Association of Physical Culture and the German Association for reasonable physical discipline . [2]

1889 continued Fidus continued his studies at the Munich Academy. The acquaintance with the Theosophists Wilhelm Hubbe-Schleiden led to work as illustrator of the journal Sphinx . [1] Fidus henceforth represented a mystical nature, religion and sat down ideas for a sex-reform one. The specific Art Nouveau was now his paintings with esoteric symbols - lotus flowers , egg shapes, crosses enriched - and sun sign. The cyclic structure of the life cycle, the return of the man in the divine womb, the merging of the sexes and the redemption of the light were recurring motifs. He also drew up plans for massive temple complexes of a new religion of nature and light, in which the people should gather to worship. His most famous picture was in multiple copies, the first time in 1908, resulting "light prayer." It shows a young, slender, almost androgynous man on a mountain top, arms in the form of a Lebensrune spreading and sun worshiping. That image became the icon of the youth movement. [3]

In 1895 he left his first marriage to Amalie kingdom. This was not a legalized marriage but a free combination of the then ehereformerischen beliefs accordingly. Other marriages followed in the years 1900 and 1922, with Elsa Knorr Elsbet Lehmann-Hohenberg. [4]
[ edit ] 1890-1931

The early 1890s undertook Fidus trips to Norway, Switzerland, Italy and Istria. In 1892 he settled in Berlin and there was contact with the literary bohemians, established himself as an illustrator and became a member of the newly formed literary and artistic magazines Pan , Simplicissimus and youth . [1] In Berlin Fidus also joined the Theosophical Society and was co-founded in a Theosophical Lodge [5] (presumably Esoteric Circle or DTG ).

Fidus' first exhibition was held 1883rd [1] In addition to his graphic work that the naked man presented without the usual allegorical or mythological "skins" painted, Fidus landscape paintings in which he reworked impressions of his first time in 1894 undertaken north-country trips, and since 1903 he organized to present slide shows of his paintings. [1] In 1900 was one of the most famous painter Fidus Germany.

Substantial contacts exist at the time of this intellectual environment, for example, Pastor Willy or Arthur Moeller van den Bruck , just to Friedrichshagener poet circle to the Heinrich and Julius Hart and Gustav Landauer included. He also maintained close contact with the garden city movement, the land reform movement and migratory birds . In 1912 he founded the St. George's society that would turn against the "dragon of materialism".
So-called "Fidushaus" in Woltersdorf, which was built between 1908 and 1910 to designs by the artist in the "home style"

Fidus has illustrated many books. May Day 1905 appeared in the special issue of the journal Social Democratic " forward "with a title page designed by Fidus. 1906 received Fidus the financial means to establish a self-designed studios, which was in the Woltersdorfer Villenkolonie Schönblick east built by Berlin and extends from 1908/1909 to a residential wing, where he lived with his wife Elsa, his two children, the friend of Elsa poet Gertrud Prellwitz and Franz Bernoully. [6] The House "became a kind of pilgrimage of the reform movement." [7]
So-called "Fidusdenkmal" in Woltersdorf, which was built to designs by Fidus in honor of fallen soldiers Woltersdorfer the First World War

Broke out in 1914, the First World War, Fidus had through the influence of Wilhelm Schwaner nationalist ideas face. However, he spoke out against the general jingoism, demanded instead that Germany should free themselves from foreign cultural influences in order to fulfill a moral mission for the world. After 1918 Fidus lost in artistic influence, including material it was him worse. He made ​​this mess for the artistic internationalism ( Expressionism , Dadaism and " New Objectivity ") and the capitalist market trends responsible.
[ edit ] 1932-1945

Fidus in 1932, the Nazi one. But by 1925 he had turned in the paper "The race-Rassler acts" against the utopia of "racial purity". The Germans were thus historically a mixed people, and it would depend only on the Sun-drenched soul of man, not on racial characteristics. Despite hopes to the new governance, despite pleading letter to Hitler and Goebbels, to support financially its temple art, it was largely rejected by the new rulers. The SS-newspaper " Das Schwarze Korps "referred to him in 1936 as a cheapening of Nordic art. His request for the introduction he developed "Neugermanischen writing" was brusquely rejected in 1936. A planned exhibition on the art Nuremberg Nazi Party in 1936 burst, because Hitler had already been encountered at the sight of monumental portraits so "disgusted" that he ordered to return all of the works.

1937, Fidus folders confiscated and banned the sale of Fidusdrucken. Hitler was also the distribution of his painted portraits of Fidus ban on postcards. Demoralized Fidus criticized the Nazi cultural officials as a "cultural bigwigs" and "barbarians". Stylistically, he was true to his unconventional, in the very unusual time, "soft Art Nouveau" faithful. On the occasion of his 75th Birthday, he was appointed in 1943, despite its distance from the Nazi regime as an honorary professor. [8]
[ edit ] After 1945

Even after the Second World War, he represented his "light-German" thoughts continue. In order to gain better access to food, Fidus painted images on behalf of the Soviet Union of Stalin and Lenin and the Order of the SED Rudolf Breitscheid . [9] in 1946 he joined the free-religious community in Berlin and known as the voters CDU . On 23 February 1948 Fidus died of a stroke in Woltersdorf.
[ edit ] Estate

A portion of the estate of Fidus is located in the archives of the German youth movement , to the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg belongs. It was developed in 2005/2006 and to digitize the works contained therein, for the most part. Another part of the estate is in the archive Fidus Berlinische Gallery store. Another legacy is already developed part of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Another still untapped portion estate is located in the Haller's Family Archives, Reichenberg. Fidusforschung also interesting for the estates of Fidus publishers Fritz Heyder (1882-1941), which is also located in the Academy of the Arts, and Max Brunswick Municipal Archives in Minden .
[ edit ] References

Oskar Beyer: Fidus . In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, p. 138
Claudia Bibo: Naturalism as a worldview. Biologistic, theosophical and German-nationalist imagery in poetry, illustrated by Fidus (1893-1902). With an appendix. Organization of the German believers movement Frankfurt am Main, etc. 1995
Rolf F. Lang (ed.): Fidus - Hugo Höppener, diary, January-July 1945th
Berlin-Friedrichshagen 1999th 198 pages, 9 figures, notes.
Wolfgang de Bruyn (Eds.): Fidus. All artists Lichtbaren, Berlin 1998
Janos Frecot , Johann Friedrich Geist , Diethart curbs : Fidus. To escape the bourgeois aesthetic practice movements. Expanded edition, Hamburg 1997
Jost Hermand: From Art Nouveau to the Deutsch-hippie dreamer. In: Jost Hermand (eds): The glow of the beautiful life of Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 55-127.
Michael Neumann: Fidus - iconographer of youth. In: Gerhard Ille, Gunter Kohler (eds): The migratory bird. It began in Steglitz. Berlin 1987
Marina Schuster: Fidus - an artist of the nationalist spirit cultural movement In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner , Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 634-650
Marina Schuster: Fidus. Painter chaste nudity. In: free body culture and life. Studies on pre-and early history of nudism in Germany. Edited by Michael Grisko, Kassel 1999, p. 207-237
Marina Schuster: light prayer. The icon of the reform of life and youth movement, in: A Century of Images. 1900 to 1949. Edited by Gerhard Paul. Göttingen 2009, p. 140-147
Manfred Wedemeyer : Fidus - Magnus Weidemann, an artist friend from 1920 to 1948. Kiel 1984
Claus-Martin Wolf blow : the painter Fidus and assess its work in the light of postwar research. In: Yearbook of the Conservative Revolution. Wesseling 1994
Rainer Y: Fidus the temple artists. Phil Thesis, Göppingen 1985 (2 volumes)

[ edit ] External links

Literature by and about Fidus in the catalog of the German National Library
Find estate agents in the Fidus archives of the German Youth Movement
Fidus Archive Berlinische Gallery
ak190x.de : Prof. Dr. Wyss: FIDUS - Hugo Hoeppner 1871-1948, Summer 1993 - On the influence on the youth movement and thoughts on racism.
Fidus project , Fidus and his visits to Switzerland and its relations with people who have lived in Switzerland.
Biographical Life Reform in Switzerland
German Historical Museum : 2 Fidus works from the exhibition of the life reform movement from sheep Elective Affinities

[ edit ] References

↑ a b c d e Marina Schuster: Fidus In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 904-905, here p. 904th
↑ Uwe Puschner: The Nationalist Movement in the Wilhelmine Empire. Language - race - religion, Darmstadt 2001, p. 167, ISBN 3-534-15052-X
↑ Marina Schuster: Fidus - an artist of the nationalist spirit cultural movement In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 634-650, here: p. 642
↑ Hinrich of Hope: Names and Works, Volume 4, Dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, p. 51 ff
↑ German Biographical Encyclopedia & German Biographical Index. CD-ROM, Saur, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-598-40360-6 .
↑ Marina Schuster: Fidus - an artist of the nationalist spirit cultural movement In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 634-650, here: p. 641
↑ Marina Schuster: Fidus In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 904-905, here p. 905th
↑ Frecot / spirit / curbs: Fidus 1868-1948, Rogner & Bernhard, December 1997, p. 210
↑ Marina Schuster: Fidus - an artist of the nationalist spirit cultural movement In: Manual for the "Nationalist Movement" 1871 - 1918.. Edited by Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich etc. 1996, p. 634-650, here: p. 644