Sauna Culture, Sweat and Spirituality On the Architectonics and Cosmology of Sacred Space

This book explores spiritual and sacred practices in Finnish saunas and Native North American sweat lodges through a comparative study. It also sheds light on ancient traditions from Ireland and Galicia, tracing their evolution and shared spiritual features. The book further analyzes gendered rituals, woman-centered lifeways, and cyclical worldviews rooted in rebirth and regeneration.

This book shows how these practices reflect a deep, cross-cultural matrix of symbols celebrating Heaven and Earth. It presents the Delaware Sweat Lodge and Big House as prototypes of sacred structures for world renewal and their connections to sauna cultures worldwide.

By defining key concepts from patriarchal, feminist, and Indigenous perspectives, this book challenges normative, unquestioned notions of the sacred and the divine. The book's interdisciplinary approach will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of gender studies, Indigenous studies, cultural studies, religious studies, philosophy, and anthropology interested in a better understanding of how ancient rituals hold ecological significance for addressing today’s planetary crises and social imbalances, revealing like-mindedness across diverse faith traditions.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Methods, Approaches, Definitions and Key Concepts.- Chapter 3. Patriarchal Politics of the Profane and Sacred.- Chapter 4. Feminist Spirituality.- Chapter 5. Indigenous Views on the Spiritual.- Chapter 6. Proto-Saunas and Spiritual Ceremonies –the Case of the Delaware Big House and Sweat Lodge.- Chapter 7. Native Elders on the Sweat Lodge Today.- Chapter 8. Research on Sweat Lodges and Healing.- Chapter 9.  Iberian/Galician Saunas.- Chapter 10. Old Europe and Pueblo Kivas, “As Above, so Below”.- Chapter 11. The Irish Sweathouse as Site of Healing.- Chapter 12.  Delaware Big House and Irish Sweat Houses—Comparisons.- Chapter l3. On Sauna Culture, History and Herstory.- Chapter 14. Summary. Archeomythology and Old European Spiritual Lifeways.

Kaarina Kailo, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor at Oulu University, Finland, and a writer, scholar,  politician, and former professor of women’s studies, as well as a self-made artist who illustrates her books, to make science visible and more aesthetic. She has published hundreds of texts, articles, and books on comparative mythology, mother goddesses in the North, eco-mythology, ecofeminism, spiritual saunas, and sweat lodges, Northern women’s culture, the gift imaginary, and the bear religion. She has held women’s studies positions in Canada and Finland and as a senior fellow at the Finnish academy. She is a fellow of the Archeomythological Institute's European branch and focuses on peaceful, egalitarian cultures such as the Danube Civilization and healing traditions, especially in the sauna.