"In a sauna," says an old Finnish proverb, "one must conduct oneself as one would in church."  Still today, many Finns, as well other peoples around the world, see the sauna as a spiritual place, not just a quiet spot to sweat out toxins, although that’s an important function, as well.

The Finns also tell of a farmer who thought using the sauna could help him escape the fires of hell.  The folktale is still told, probably to frighten children into taking baths.

Anyway, the old farmer would heat his sauna to extremely high temperatures.  Before long, rumor around the neighborhood had it that he could withstand more heat than any sauna could create.  Before long the devil heard about the farmer’s tolerance and came up to see what was what. 

The devil found the farmer and invited him to come to a place where the heat really would be more than the farmer could stand.  The farmer was eager to give it a try, so he went with the devil to hell.  There, the devil called for more heat and more heat until he couldn’t make it any hotter.  The old farmer just smiled.

"Get out of here," the devil screamed, humiliated, "and never show your face around my hell again."  So the farmer left and never returned.

In the past, the Finnish sauna was used as a place for women to purify themselves before getting married and as a birthing room when they had children.  When people grew old, they would take themselves to the sauna to die.

Of course, for Native Americans of many tribes, the sweat lodge, which is a variation on the sauna, was and is a place of meditation and purification.  It is an integral part of religious practice.  And the custom likely came across the Bering Strait with the first settlers of the North American continent long after becoming established practice in places like Siberia.

Human beings have a fascination with the sacred, and they will create holy places almost anywhere, whether in a bedroom with a shrine on the bureau, or a woodland glade where the sun falls a certain way creating a special kind of light or in a cave decorated with paintings of animals and hunters.

For many people, the sauna has become that kind of place, probably because entering the sauna is like leaving the day-to-day world and entering the dominion of contemplation.  A session in a sauna encourages the mind to wander into unfamiliar regions, and the feeling of well-being following the session certainly adds to the effect.

Perhaps, as the sauna experience becomes more accessible because of the introduction of home sauna kits and portable saunas using far infrared sauna heaters, more people will be able to get in touch with their more spiritual side and rediscover a sense of the sacred.