Spa Cultures: Ancient, Actual, Avant-garde & Eternal
Spa Consciousness & Cultures: Ancient, Actual, Avant-garde & Archetypal (Past, Present, Future & Forever) presents a brief review of spa as a civil institution for individual and social regeneration in world cultures, global civilization, & the cosmos.
Looking back and re-viewing the lengthy history and deeper meaning of spa throughout world cultures, we can discern and identify a vastly expanded context, forms, and processes of spa that can serve a higher purpose for the future of civilization and cosmos.
Outlining some fundamental terms, definitions and language for a discussion of spa cultures, we search, scan and scrutinize the archetypal roots, stems and flowerings of spa culture, especially in the western world and speculate as to what these origins might mean for the future of global humanity.
Dr. J. Paul De Vierville
Dr. Jonathan Paul De Vierville is Professor of The Humanities, History, Interdisciplinary & Global Studies. He received his Bachelor and Master of Arts in American Studies from Bowling Green State University, Ohio and later a Master of Science in Social Work from The Worden School of Social Work, Our Lady of the Lake, University of San Antonio, Texas. Before completing his formal Ph.D. work and a two volume doctoral dissertation on A History of American Spas and Healing Waters, with The Department of American Civilization at the University of Texas, Austin, he attended the Universities of Copenhagen and Zurich as well as trained four years at The C. G. Jung Institute for Analytical Psychology, Zurich and several years later attended The Sebastian Kneipp School, Bad Wörishofen, Germany.
His teaching interests and research experience is in American, Western and World History and Humanities with a special concentration on Spa Cultures, Civilization and the New Cosmology. Other fields of interest include natural therapeutic health care systems, spa medicine, hydrotherapy and balneology which he has taught at the university and college levels as well as at spas and health resorts in America, Europe and Asia. He has also taught analytical, Jungian and archetypal psychology and dream work at the graduate school level and community seminars and workshops.
A Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Social Worker – Advance Clinical Practitioner and Texas Registered Massage Therapist, he maintains a private practice with personal and corporate consultation services.
A frequent presenter at The International Spa Association, The World Congress of Health Resort Medicine and Spa Therapy, and World Spa Summits in the America, Europe and Asia, he contributes to The Global Medicine Education Foundation and Conferences of the International Society for the Study of Dreams. He is a member of International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations and Institute for Noetic Sciences
Currently Director of the Alamo Plaza Spa at the Menger Hotel and President of The Hot Wells Institute, San Antonio, Texas, he serves as Secretary of the International Spa Association Foundation and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the International Society of Medical Hydrology and Climatology. Annually he directs “The Avant-Garde Spa Culture Seminar: Eco-Social Dreaming Matrix and Liquid Sound Workshop” at Bad Sulza, Germany.
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