Gymnosophy 4: Oh Yes They Call it the Streak (Boogity, Boogity)

Streaker Michael O'Brien being escorted from the field at Twickenham

Photo by Ian Bradshaw (20 April 1974)

I. Don't Look Ethel

Released in the late-spring of 1974, The Streak was a smash hit single written and performed by the country western singer Ray Stevens, that comically cashed in on the then popular craze of streaking; i.e. the act of running naked through a public place - usually as a prank, although sometimes as an act of protest - and often chased by officials or policemen lending it Keystone Cops appeal.

The Streak sold over five million copies and topped the charts in both the US and UK. I didn't buy it, but I remember it with a certain fondness as one of the tunes of my childhood - probably due to the fact the record features a slide whistle - even if I found the phenomenon to which it referred somewhat disturbing.   

II.  A Brief History of Streaking

Like most things, streaking isn't without a longer and more complex history than people imagine ...

One might, for example, discuss it in relation to the behaviour of the Neo-Adamites in medieval Europe, who passed naked through towns and villages; or, indeed, the 17th-century Quaker Solomon Eagle, mentioned by both Daniel Defoe and Samuel Pepys, who would run naked through the streets of London with a burning brazier upon his head (à la Arthur Brown), crying Repent! Repent!   

Having said that, I'm not entirely convinced of the legitimacy of attempting to tie streaking in the modern sense to Christian asceticism; nor even to place it within the context of naturism. It's also distinct from flashing in the pervy sense, in that the intent is generally not to cause shock or outrage.* Ultimately, it makes more sense to see it as something that has its origins within American campus culture, with incidents of (male) college students running around naked beginning in the early 19th-century.  

It wasn't until the 1960s and '70s, however, that streaking became a much wider cultural phenomenon; suddenly everyone wanted to get naked and exhibit themselves to the world and its cameras. Even supposedly uptight Brits were throwing caution - and their clothes - to the wind and you could hardly turn on the TV without having to see some idiot interrupt the rugby or cricket.

Whilst many streakers seem to have a penchant for running naked in front of cheering and/or jeering crowds at sporting events, perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was Robert Opel who ran across the stage at the Oscars in 1974 - an event broadcast on live tv and so witnessed by millions of viewers around the world.

Bemused host David Niven quipped: 'Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and revealing his shortcomings.' Which is funny, but not quite the amusing ad-lib that people at the time took it to be; for there's evidence to suggest that the whole thing was a stunt that had been arranged by the show's producer and that Niven's line was scripted.      

In Hollywood, even nudity is a game of artifice and spontaneity well rehearsed ...

Notes

* It should be noted, however, that unlike in the '70s, anybody now arrested for streaking in the United States risks being charged with indecent exposure and consequently branded a  sex offender upon conviction. Just one more example of the neo-puritanism that blights our times ... 

Play: Ray Stevens, 'The Streak', single release from the album Boogity Boogity (Barnaby, 1974): click here. 

Gymnosophy 1: naked philosophers: click here.

Gymnosophy 2: naked Germans: click here.

Gymnosophy 3: naked witches: click here. 

Gymnosophy 3: Ye Shall be Naked in Your Rites (Redux)

The original poster for the fifth paper in the 

Treadwell's Sex/Magic series (2005)

I. Opening Remarks

For this third entry in the gymnosophy series of posts, I thought it would be nice to (re-)examine the role of nudity played within modern pagan witchcraft - and to do so by offering an edited version of a paper first given at London's finest occult bookstore, Treadwell's, way back in March 2005.*

The essential argument of the paper was that truth doesn't, in fact, love to go naked - despite what many witches insist on believing, and that there is nothing natural or authentic about nudity. Indeed, working skyclad, very often exposes more than the flesh; not least a lack of style which, like culture, is ultimately founded upon cloth.

Having said that, ritualised nudity as practiced within Wicca isn't simply a naive exhibitionism. It is, rather, a symbolic gesture rich in philosophical and political meaning, involving as it does questions to do with power, freedom, and the body. Whatever it might signify, taking your underwear off in a public space is never simply an innocent act.      

II. Five Good Reasons to Get Naked According to A Witches' Bible

The Wiccan penchant for performing ceremonies naked is often justified on the grounds that it's an ancient pagan practice. However, whilst it is certainly the case that ritual nudity does have a long tradition within magic, it should be noted that it was extremely rare within a religious context until it was assigned as a central feature of the witches' sabbat by Christian writers keen to imagine all manner of transgressive activity taking place within the woods at night.

According to Janet and Stewart Farrar, however, this doesn't really matter - "whether or not the widespread Wiccan habit of working skyclad is mainly a phenomenon of the twentieth century revival […] or the continuation of a secret custom […] is hardly important […] what matters is its validity for witches today" - and there are, they claim, at least five good reasons for working naked:

The first is that it challenges the metaphysical division between mind and body. In other words, by working naked and affirming the beauty and potency of the flesh, witches are making a quasi-deconstructive gesture.

Whilst I'd probably not describe this mind/body division as the cardinal sin of the patriarchal period,  I’d agree, as a Lawrentian, that it has been modern man's fate to be self-divided in this manner, so that the upper centres of consciousness dominate and exploit the lower centres of sensual and intuitive feeling. I'd also support any attempt to counter this which values nakedness as something positive and pristine and helps us overcome the bad conscience that has attached itself to the body and its forces and flows.

Secondly, according to the Farrar's, a naked body is far more sensitive and responsive than a clothed one and trying to work magic whilst dressed is "like trying to play the piano in gloves". There is, therefore, a sound practical reason to disrobe.

Unfortunately, never having attempted to raise psychic energy whilst naked - nor play the piano whilst wearing gloves - I cannot personally vouch for this. Neither can I confirm or deny their additional claim that "the naked body gives off pheromones far more quickly and efficiently than a clothed one, so it may well be that [...] a skyclad coven is exchanging unconscious information more effectively than a robed one", though this seems reasonable (if, that is, human pheromones actually exist).

The third reason for working skyclad, say the Farrar's, is because it allows one to be oneself.

This psychological claim leaves me profoundly depressed: to suggest that undressing is a "powerful gesture of image-shedding, a symbolic milestone on the road to self-realization" reveals naivety at almost every conceivable level. The Farrar's also assert that when naked we are able to see others for what they really are and to relate at a truer level; one that is entirely unmediated and closer to universal nature.

Of course, they are not alone in believing such nonsense. Indeed, the idea of nudity as a way to reach (and/or liberate) an essential self regarded as the origin of all truth and goodness, is common within Western culture. Our society is filled to bursting with intellectually challenged and emotionally disturbed people striving to achieve authenticity and to create identities in which their deepest selves are expressed.

The fourth reason for witches to get naked is a political consequence of the above. Subscribing as they do to the untenable hypothesis that modern man is sexually repressed and, therefore, in need of sexual liberation, it comes as no surprise to find the Farrar's insisting that people are fearful of nakedness in much the same way that the slave is fearful of throwing off their chains and embracing freedom.

However, whilst the moral prohibitions of Judeo-Christian culture have undoubtedly shaped our thinking and behaviour, it's not in the straightforward and simplistic - not to mention entirely negative - manner that the Farrar's imagine. And couldn't it be that our fear of the naked body is as much due to an aversion for corpses and animality, as it is a sign of our repression ...?

Finally, the Farrar's argue that nakedness is a way of overcoming personal vanity and teaches those who would otherwise be seduced by "the appeal of splendid robes" to realise that "psychic effectiveness comes from within". 

I have to admit, it's particularly disappointing to discover just how many witches seem to have a puritanical mistrust of fine clothes and expensive make-up. Do they not know the etymology of the term glamour? Historically, hasn't the witch always been a woman dressed in a striking fashion, with her pointed hat, full-length cloak, cat-skin gloves, and long-toed shoes? Hasn't she always understood the magic of colourful cosmetics and exotic perfumes?
 
So hostile are the Farrar's to the idea of wearing clothing during a ceremony that it is only with great reluctance that they make one small concession: menstruating women may, if they wish, keep their knickers on - providing they are of a plain cotton variety and nothing too frilly, colourful, or seductive. I'm afraid that as Nietzsche said of 19th-century feminism, we might say of 20th-century pagan witchcraft:

"There is an almost masculine stupidity in this movement [...] of which a real woman [...] would be ashamed from the very heart."

Today's witch should, in my opinion, revolt into style and dare to look splendid; not only delighting in her own appearance, but actively striking a blow against the drabness of the secular world with its blues and browns and sensible footwear. If she risks being thought a whore in her emerald-green stockings as she struts through town, better that than to be identified as just another office worker or shop assistant on her lunch break.

III. Closing Remarks

It's ironic, as Ronald Hutton points out, that in the ancient world pagan goddesses were most often associated with the city and with the arts and learning; i.e. with culture and society, not nature.

The goddess as Earth Mother is essentially a post-Romantic notion, created by poets like Swinburne and James Thomson. The latter, for example, published a verse in 1880 entitled 'The Naked Goddess' in which the heroine, Nature, comes to town only to be told by the local authorities to cover herself up immediately in either the habit of a nun, or the robes of a philosopher. Only the children appreciate her innocence and the beauty of her nakedness and, when she leaves the town, they return with her to the woods.

This is a nice story. But to make it into a kind of foundation myth, as neo-pagans seems to have done, is, I think, mistaken. Ultimately, whilst it may be magical to go wild in the country - swinging from the trees / naked in the breeze - so too is it a blessing to have a new pair of shoes and a warm place to shit.

Notes

* This and other papers from the series can be found in Vol. 1 of The Treadwell's Papers, by Stephen Alexander, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).

Jane and Stewart Farrar, A Witches' Bible, (The Crowood Press, 2002), pp. 195-98.

Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, (Oxford University Press, 2001). 

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1990), VII. 239. I have slightly modified the line quoted here. 


Readers interested in part one of this post on naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here.

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked body culture in modern Germany, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.

Gymnosophy 1: On the Naked Philosophers of the Ancient World

Medieval image (c. 1420) of Alexander encountering the γυμνοσοφισταί

I.

Ascetic - often militant - nudity has a very long history, predating skyclad witches, free-loving hippies, and German naturists preaching their vitalist philosophy of Lebensreform and whilst I'm mostly interested in the modern world, I thought it might be fun to provide some ancient historical context for more recent expressions of Nacktkultur. 

The term, gymnosophists, was used by Plutarch when describing an encounter between Alexander and a group of Indian wisemen who regarded both food and clothing as detrimental to a life of pure contemplation and so followed a strict vegetarian diet and went around naked at all times.

What Alexander made of these holy fools who prided themselves on their extraordinary impassivity and indifference to suffering, I don't know. But reports of these (and other) naked thinkers obviously got back to Greece and seem to have influenced the development of various schools of thought; they are believed, for example, to have served as role models for the Cynics, who loved to sit naked in the marketplace.    

It's also worth noting that Pyrrho - along with Anaxarchus - had accompanied Alexander on his trip to Asia and exposure to Eastern philosophy seems to have inspired his own ideas and ethics. Having said that, however, it's important to remember that his ideal of ataraxia has roots in earlier Greek philosophy and it would be mistaken, I think, to push the Indo-Greek connection too far here.   

Similarly, the Greeks didn't need any foreign encouragement to go round naked ...

II.

In Ancient Greece - as in other ancient Mediterranean cultures - male nudity, particlarly within an aesthetico-athletic context, was the cultural norm.

Only women were expected to do the decent thing and cover up and, apart from Aphrodite, goddesses too were normally portrayed clothed in the Classical period, or posed in a modest manner with hands strategically placed. It might surprise some readers to discover that the (admittedly misogynistic) phrase Put 'em away, love is first recorded in a fragment of text by the comic playwright Aristophanes.

Socrates and his mates would often head down to the gymnasium to admire the bodies of youths working out or competing in sports. The love of beauty was an important component of Greek philosophy and this certainly included the beauty of the human form; indeed, this was often regarded as the most exceptional form of beauty - the mark not only of civilisation at its highest, but an unfolding of the sacred. Thus it was that participants in religious ceremonies were also often nude. 


III.

Whilst there are still plenty of naked saints and gurus wandering round India, devoted to their gods, practicing yoga, posing for the tourists, etc., the modern Greeks have pretty much covered up and full nudity is not officially sanctioned even on beaches (although often tolerated in practice).

As for gymnosophy, the term was bandied about in the late-19th and early-20th century by several groups and movements in Europe and the USA, denoting an ideology that insisted truth loves to go naked and that mankind needs to return to a more natural way of living (one that often involved asceticism and meditation, as well as nudity and eurythmics).

The English Gymnosophical Society was founded in 1922 and numbered Gerald Gardner among its early members. Gardner, of course, would later become a central figure within naturism and neopagan witchcraft or Wicca, as he termed it. I shall explore these and other connections in future posts ...   

Readers interested in part two of this post on naked Germans, should click here.

Readers interested in part three of this post on naked witches, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four of this post on streakers, should click here.