The Best Early History of Prepperism
Lebensreform and the back to earth movement
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A 3 - Minute Read
Prepperism A Poem
There are many prepper skills,
Learning them isn’t always a thrill.
Canadian prepper, city prepper off-grid and more,
A doomsday prepper can disappear in an hour offshore.
Think of survival prepping and SHTF prepping for catastrophes,
Better be prepared to avoid calamities.
These folks set prepper pantries alright,
While cruising through some prepper website.
Just so you can get your survivalism smarts up to tee,
Here is some prepper history.
American prepperism and survivalism began with the Mountain men in the American old West. At about the same time that the influence of Mountain men and women was growing in the American West, a back-to-nature movement was forming in Europe. This movement would have a major influence on aspects of prepper-thinking and practices.
“Lebensreform” ("life-reform") is the name used to describe the many European back-to-nature reform social movements that flourished in late 19th century and early to mid-twentieth century Germany and Switzerland. Common features were the criticism of industrialization, materialism, and urbanization combined with striving for the state of nature. These various movements did not have an overarching organization, but there were numerous associations. Some turned political, and when they did they ranged from the gentle pacifist to extreme right-wing ideologies that led to Nazism. Whether the reform movements of the Lebensreform should be classified as modern or as anti-modern and reactionary is up for debate.
Some important Lebensreform proponents were Sebastian Kneipp, Louis Kuhne, Rudolf Steiner, Hugo Höppener (Fidus), Gustav Gräser, Adolf Just, and Benedict Lust. Lust was the founder of Naturopathic medicine in the USA and Canada. All of these individuals had a strong influence on many of my own teachers and mentors. My teacher in naturopathic practices, Dr. Jesse Mercer Gehman, was a direct student of Benedict Lust.
The Reformhaus health food stores in Germany today, began with the Lebensreform movement as did the development of health and natural food stores in North America.
Representatives of the Lebensreform propagated a natural way of life with ecology and organic farming, a vegetarian diet (often refraining from the use of alcoholic beverages and tobacco smoking), German dress reform, and naturopathy. In doing so, they reacted to what they saw as the negative consequences of social changes in the 19th century. Spiritually, the Lebensreform turned to new religious and spiritual views, including theosophy, Mazdaznan and yoga. Many late neo-romanticism elements were also taken up, along with a glorification of living the "simple life in the countryside". Dozens of magazines, journals, books, and pamphlets were published on these topics.
Members of the Lebensreform movement were mainly middle-class and women were extremely influential in its growth. In the body culture (Körperkultur), it was about providing people with plenty of fresh air and sun to compensate for the effects of industrialization and urbanization. The movement influenced many wellness pioneers in the United States, including John Harvey Kellogg MD, and Bernarr McFadden.
Some areas of the Lebensreform movement, such as naturopathy or vegetarianism, were organized in associations and enjoyed great popularity, which is reflected in the number of members they had. To disseminate their content and principles, they published magazines such as Der Naturarzt (The Naturopath) or Die Vegetarische Warte (The Vegetarian Observer). Part of the Lebensreform movement also included the freikörperkultur (FKK, also naturism), the physical culture, gymnastics, and expressionist dance. The rock group, the Eurythmics is named after one of these dance forms.
Many in the movement had experienced an estrangement in modern society, especially from the effects of the industrial revolution, and tried to realign mankind and nature. They usually organized themselves in a traditional way, with lectures, clubs, and magazines.
Some leaders of the Lebensreform movement later founded important back-to-nature intentional communities. These communities attracted many artists and writers from all of Europe, especially World War I conscientious objectors from Germany and France. Among the most known of these was the great Hermann Hesse. Some in the movement were models for the master characters in Hesse’s books.
Some of the less well-known protagonists of the movement in Germany, such as Bill Pester, and Arnold Ehret, emigrated to California at the end of the 19th and until the mid-20th century, where they strongly influenced the later hippie movement. One group called themselves the "Nature Boys", and settled as a commune in the California desert. One of the most influential of these “nature boys” was Gypsy Boots (Robert Bootzin). By 1933, Boots had dropped out of high school and left home to wander California with a group of self-styled vagabonds. In the 1940s, Bootzin, along with 10-15 other "tribesmen," lived off the land in Tahquitz Canyon near Palm Springs, slept in caves and trees, and bathed in waterfalls.
Decades ahead of the Hippie or prepper movement, Bootzin and his companions had long hair and beards, lived a carefree existence, and were seasonal fruit pickers. The group became known as "Nature Boys." A combination of the philosophy of the Nature Boys and the growing counterculture of the 1950s and 1960s in California may have been responsible for the emergence of California spirituality in the 1960s, and the burgeoning human potential movement.
Eventually, a few of these Nature Boys, including Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California in 1967, just in time for the Summer of Love in San Francisco. I had the opportunity to spend about three hours with some prepper friends and Gypsy Boots in NYC in the mid- 1980s. He told us endless stories. My favorite is how he received national exposure in 1955 when he appeared as a contestant on Groucho Marx's network TV show You Bet Your Life (September 30, 1955 Season 5 Episode 3). Introduced as "Boots Bootzin," he cheerfully espoused his philosophy of clean living, exercise, and healthy eating. Even though he was over 40, he acted like a gangling, goofy, but polite teenager, causing mildly sensational reactions from the audience. Groucho, who usually displayed little tolerance for extremists, admired Bootzin's rugged individualism and said so, on camera.
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Author: Hey there. My name is Lewis Harrison, and I am a poet, wellness coach, teacher, and prepper. I am a proponent of entrepreneurism and also a writer and seminar leader. The author of over twenty books, and numerous self-improvement, business success, and personal development courses, I am the former host of a talk show on NPR Affiliated WIOX91.3 FM, I can be contacted directly for my Life Strategies Playbook Courses, business coaching, and coaching/mentoring in prepper/survivalism or just how to win the game of life, at LewisCoaches@gmail.com
You can read long-form articles about prepping, survivalism, and intentional living at askLewisHarrison.com
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