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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThere are separate public sessions for men and women and by ethos, if not rule, it is a \u2018textile-free\u2019 facility. Booking a slot requires several weeks planning so the bench seating for eight is generally full. The resulting proximity may not be to every taste. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confinement and intimacy have their compensations, however, because the heat is extraordinary. It comes from a meter-tall cage of baking rocks, and the frequent application of water. There was a pretence at obtaining consent for each ladle from the bucket, but sauna is one for those who like it hot. Wave after wave of steam hit, searing my skin and loosening my muscles like few other saunas that I have sampled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I shared the sauna with a group of 30-65-year-old professionals. None were Finns. Most had travelled across London for the pleasure. All were return visitors. Chat was friendly, inclusive, and unchallenging. I was reminded of the exchanges that develop on a delayed train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I interspersed heat with coldish showers and moments of recovery in the changing area. Sessions last 90 minutes, but an hour was enough for me. I was the first to dress. Feeling eviscerated I sat upstairs for a while recovering my faculties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I resumed my nocturnal pedal home through the sheeting rain of a bleak February maelstrom. Cold water quickly got the better of my waterproofs and so began my third cold immersion of the evening. But I carried the inner glow of the sauna with me. No matter how miserable the enveloping tempest, I had absorbed sufficient heat to see me home, spirits undimmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But did being scorched in agreeable company bring me closer to God, as the folk tale portends?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traversing Deptford and then Lewisham, my thoughts returned to the old Finnish farmer. His story\u2019s reported message seemed to miss the point. Whatever connection there is between sanctity and sanitary practices, the real moral appear to be that heaven and hell are rather more alike than we imagine. The stark divide comes not from objective conditions, but how we frame our experience. To master that is to take true command your destiny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Might I have arrived at this revelation without being cooked half alive in roomful of naked strangers? Perhaps. On balance, though, it was steam well expended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*As related by Mikkel Aaland, in Sweat (1978) Capra Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A sweat-bath revelation at the seamens’ mission A Finnish folk tale equates saunas with the pursuit of godliness. An aged farmer, so the story goes, found fame for enjoying the hottest of sweat baths. His reputation spread until word reached …<\/p>\n