When Mud Is Not Mud – The Spa Experience Transformed

The young woman seemed to have been captured and recreated in nature’s youth, and to contain within herself a spring which rose up bubbling against the crystal of her eyes. (Gabriel d’Annunzio)
Donned in the robe that marked the initiate, I entered the shadowy chamber lit by a multitude of candles, the dancing flames emitting a fragrant, calming scent into the air. The silent stillness was disturbed only by the soft tumble of water on stone and the quiet movement of the others as they came and went when summoned.
Finally it was my turn. The woman beckoned me through a set of double doors into the inner sanctum. Like entering the cave of a secret cult, I followed her down the silent passageway until finally she stopped at a single door on the left, where the ritual would be performed. We entered and, at the woman’s urging, I de-robed and lay down on the table in the center of the room.
I watched as she prepared her magical potion. Various scented oils were added to the mud base; herbs and other soothing balms promised to transform my body and my soul. As she began to apply the earthy mixture over my entire body, I felt myself drift away...
That was the beginning of my day at the spa.
Not long ago, health spas were relatively rare in America; one might have had to travel long distances to partake of their special brand of healing. However, today the day spa phenomenon is growing fast. It’s now a $15 billion business and is showing no signs of slowing down. Here, a quick Yelp search shows 13 day spas within three miles of my home!
So what draws us to the spa experience? Is it simply the need for relief from the growing stresses and tensions of everyday life? Is it that we have more disposable income now and, therefore, can spend more on treating ourselves to enjoyable pursuits? Or is there something deeper, more primal behind the growing desire to experience these ancient healing therapies. For ancient they are: Massage is referenced in the Egyptian tomb of the healer, and massage is referenced in ancient Greece, Thailand, China and more. Ayurvedic medicine in India, even the Buddha’s physician refer to acupressure and acupuncture. And ancient Rome was famous for its baths.
Yes, there is evidence we have been seeking healing waters, oozing muds and the healing touch of human hands since the beginning of recorded history. And right now, today, it can be found on nearly every corner of our bigger cities. Why?
Perhaps mud is…well, not mud. Perhaps in the ancient acts of covering our bodies with earthy matter, dipping our nakedness into healing waters, rubbing essential oils into our tired muscles, even retreating into the candle lit world of silence, we are actually seeking a deeper connection to the earth, to our primordial roots. These rituals existed before our transition from hunting the vast wildernesses of our planet to the ordered, linear streets of our cities. Perhaps the popularity of the spa today reflects an inner aching to reconnect to that our earthy roots and the wildness that still lives inside us, that part of our deep unconscious past that dwelt in caves and roamed with the animals.
By invoking the four elements through the use of fire, water, earth and air, the spa experience as an alchemical appeal that lures the psyche to its prima materia essence. It is as though the inner animal is seeking to retreat to the primordial ooze from which it emerged at the dawn of time, when the natural world was the seat of the soul. To immerse oneself in mud; be scrubbed from head to toe with healing salt; experiencing the full-body, human touch of a massage harkens the psyche to its deeper strata. The spa harkens to soul to remembers the sacred groves of Mithra, where “the mystery of rebirth was performed” (Carl Jung 81) and when it retreated to the dark temples of Asklepios to incubate for a time, so that it may dream the cure (Ellenberger 32).
Though the simple treatments found in today’s spa pale in comparison with those great, ritualized wonders of the past, there are few remaining opportunities for the psyche to experience even a modest ritual passage, so it is drawn to even this.
And while the spa is also a true expression of the modern economic paradigm that rules today, within its walls one may still experience a true alchemical union of one’s inner and outer realities, for the stage has been set where contemporary myth and ritual collide, creating a ripe ground for the soul to recall its roots.
According to Campbell:
The ancient myths were designed to harmonize the mind and the body. The mind can ramble off in ways and wants things the body does not want. The myth and rites were a means of putting the mind in accord with the body and the way of life in accord with the way that nature dictates. (The Power of Myth 70)

The health spa is a modern attempt to hold on to those ancient rites that opened up the opportunity for healing by returning one to harmony with nature. It is as though one is still reaching for nature to nurture, as though slathering mud all over one’s body will transform in some way much deeper than the mere physical act would allow. Indeed, for those few precious hours it does:
As I lay there on the table, the woman performed the ritual and the mud began its work. I felt myself slipping away…
It seemed to me that I was swimming in pure ether and being engulfed by the universal ocean. But the inner joy in which I was swimming was a thousand times more infinite, more luminous and more incommensurable than the atmosphere with which I was thus mingled. (Alphonse de Lamartine qtd. in Bachelard 132)

Works Cited

  1. Bachelard, Gaston. Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter. Dallas: The Pegasus Foundation, 1983
  2. Jung, C.G. The Earth Has A Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung. Ed. By Meredith Sabini. Princeton: North Atlantic, 2002.
  3. Campbell, Joseph. With Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
  4. Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. N.P.: Basic Book-Perseus, 1970.