For some time I thought „to vacate“ was the correct term to describe the practice of going on a vacation. Recently my supervisor told me that it is not, that it meant „to empty“ or „to . Funnily, of course, the term „to vacate“ fits quite well to my topic. Sheldon and Bushell have pointed out in their anthology on wellness tourism (2009:6): „The Latin term vacare – meaning to empty, to let go – is what many think a vacation should accomplish.“ Exactly my point!
Most people enter the Austrian Gasteinertal through a narrow gorge that leads into the cul-de-sac valley surrounded by high alpine mountains. The further one advances, so it seems, the more dominant ‘nature’ becomes. The mountains move closer and the valley’s last village is even built onto the precipice of the ‘Ankogel’. Honouring ‘nature’s’ sublime power, its imperial baroque buildings are arranged around a giant waterfall. Further up the road, leaving the last buildings behind, there is an entrance into the mountain. In the Heilstollen – the radon galleries – people cure their pains by absorbing the radioactive element radon provided by the mountain. “Gastein”, visitors as locals comment “is healthy.” But who or what is healthy here? Is it the radon galleries? Is it the Gasteinertal? Or is it not rather the people seeking cure, who become healthy?
It hinges on a relation between an experienced process (becoming healthy) and qualities of a place. This relation is however more than metaphoric: Things like washing the cells or sweating out toxins need special places that can to a certain degree take in the role of purifying agent. The relation between place and body might thus be understood as magical in the sense of Levy-Bruhl’s concept of participation. Susan Greenwood elaborates in her book on „the anthropology of magic“ (2009) in quite some detail what this „participation“ means: It refers to the connectedness of things that is determinate to magical thinking. It connects things (like place and body) where rational science does not see a connection. However, rational science is not the way „we“ experience everyday life.
An open question to all this is however the following. Imagine for a moment that the healing power of a specific place could be measured using scientific method. Are we then still talking about magical thinking? Or is it then science? Or do the two then overlap?
I have in the past years been searching for the reason for bodily pollution. Stress, bad eating habits, nicotine an environmental pollution seemed to be named as the main reasons for it. These resulted in toxins that in turn could be expulsed from the body in different ways.
Today I had a look into a little advertising folder I collected last year in the Austrian Alpine valley Gastein (looking at the pictures it must however be at least 10 years old). It does nowhere mention anything about cleansing or detoxifying the body – at least not in a narrow sense. In contrast it seems to rather highlight Gastein’s cure as something scientifically proven just as I have experienced in many conversations with local marketing reps. What is interesting about the folder however, is that it does give the very same reason for doing a cure in Gastein as the reasons promonents of detox point out: stress, wrong alimentation, too little exercise, alcohol and nicotine. They all lead to illnesses at some point – so why wait for it to happen instead of doing a cure in Gastein?
It seems thus that stress, foodstuff and nicotine are not specifities of ideas of pollution but of an understanding of bad and illness in modernity. Only in the one case the cure proceeds with radon, physiotherapy, sports, etc. while the other proceeds with measures of expulsion.
Angeblich war das Thema Verjüngung in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren sehr populär. Prominentestes Beispiel sind die Versuche, die der Wiener Arzt E. Steinach mit Ratten durchgeführt hat. Gegen Mitte/Ende der 1930er Jahre verlor die Verjüngung allerdings an Popularität und tauchte in ähnlicher Dimension erst in den 1980er Jahren wieder auf. Könnte das vielleicht mit einer stark alternden und zugleich affluenten Gesellschaft zu tun haben? Oder umgekehrt, war es eine z.B. durch Krieg ausgejüngte Gesellschaft, die Ende der 30er Jahre zum Ende der Verjünungskur geführt hat? Wer soll sich schon verjüngen, wenn die Alten arm und wenige sind?
Einsortiert unter: Ökonomie, Kur, mayr | Tags: mayr, translation, werbung
Wie soll man “Die Mayr Medizin legt auf richtige Ernaehrung viel wert“ uebersetzen? Klingt „The Mayr medicine attaches great importance to correct alimentation“ besser, oder nicht vielleicht doch “Mayr medicine attaches….”? Keines der beiden, wenn es nach meinem Englisch-Tutor geht, denn beides wirkt eigenartig, weil Mayrs Zugang in Ausmaß und Tiefe nicht unbedingt vergleichbar ist mit Traditioneller Chinesischer Medizin oder vielleicht sogar Schulmedizin. Deswegen waere es doch viel besser das Ganze eher mit „The Mayr approach…“ oder „Mayr’s therapy“ zu uebersetzen. Dagegen spricht aber doch, dass die Mayr Praktiker selbst von Mayr Medizin sprechen. Oder ist das vielleicht viel eher nur ein Hinweis darauf, dass die Mayr Praktiker gerne Mayrs Zugang eine Aura der Medizin verleihen? Weist es darauf hin, dass Mayr durch das Attribut der Medizin groeßer und wichtiger wird?
Einsortiert unter: Uncategorized
detox ist nichts anderes als ordnung für den körper.
Einsortiert unter: Uncategorized
Pollution in the context of environment is always a question of how much of a substance is to be found in a designated area. E.g. a place will only be considered contaminated with mercury if there is more than a certain amount of mercury to be found there. One possibility of purification e.g. of water is to dilute it with clean water.
Could we consider some types of bodily detoxification a type of dilution? E.g. the F.X. Mayr gets rid of old intestinal residues and fills the body up with well chewed bread-roll. The body might not be considered clean afterwords, and bread-roll might not be considered entirely clean either, but it might at least dilute bodily toxins.
Einsortiert unter: Uncategorized
F.X. Mayr seems to not be the only one applying colon cleansing as a method of detox. There’s also the Effektive Cleanse which will together with the Acai Detox apparently lead to a super muscular sixpack body.
Einsortiert unter: Uncategorized | Tags: authenticity, culture-nature, Nature of Purity
Could we say that the authentic describes ‘culture’ in the same way as the pure describes ‘nature’?
Einsortiert unter: Reinheit, thermal water | Tags: cleansing power, deluge, thermal water, water
How can one find out if this is „true“? Do we have to talk to the people who „produce“ thermal baths aka banks, designers, architects, marketing experts, ingeneurs, cashiers, etc.? Or should we rather ask people who „consume“ baths? Well, as it appears the marketing indeed sometimes talks about cleansing power of thermal water. However in Bad Hofgastein cleansing does not be part of a dominant discourse. Neither ‘producers’ nor ‘consumers’ talk much of cleansing power. Rather the marketing emphasises relaxation and pampering as key motivations for visitors to go to thermal baths; and indeed the visitors do largely agree.
So, how come, the cleansing idea does still come up here and there in the discourse? I suppose an easier way of argueing thermal water’s cleansing power is to show how water in most cases of use leads to some sort of cleansing: from the great biblical deluge to the cleansing effect of the everyday shower: if water thus most often leads to cleansing, then it is very likely that it also does so in the thermal bath.
