Lebensreform was a social movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 that propagated a back-to-nature lifestyle, emphasizing among others health food

Health food

The term health food is generally used to describe foods that are considered to be beneficial to health, beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. However, the term is not precisely defined by national regulatory agencies such as the U.S...

/raw food/organic food

Organic food

Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...

, nudism, sexual liberation, alternative medicine

Alternative medicine

Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....

, and religious reform and at the same time abstention from alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and vaccines.

Important Lebensreform proponents were Sebastian Kneipp

Sebastian Kneipp

Sebastian Kneipp was a Bavarian priest and one of the founders of the Naturopathic medicine movement...

, Louis Kuhne

Louis Kuhne

Louis Kuhne was a German naturopath primarily known for his cold water hydrotherapy methods that were meant to improve detoxification functions of the body by stimulation of the lower abdomen....

, Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach

Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach

Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach was a German painter and social reformer....

, Fidus

Fidus

Fidus was the pseudonym used by German illustrator, painter and publisher Hugo Reinhold Karl Johann Höppener . He was a symbolist artist, whose work directly influenced the psychedelic style of graphic design of the late 1960s.Born the son of a confectioner in Lübeck, Höppener demonstrated...

 (Hugo Höppener), and Adolf Just

Luvos

Heilerde-Gesellschaft Luvos Just GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of medicinal clay-based products for both internal and external application. Four different fineness grades of loess in both capsule and powder form are available from the company, as well as cosmetics products...

. Some practitioners of Lebensreform such as Bill Pester, Benedict Lust

Benedict Lust

Benedict Lust, ND, DO, MD , was one of the founders of naturopathic medicine in the first decade of the twentieth century.-Biography:He was born in Michelbach, Germany, in the Black Forest, where he was raised...

, and Arnold Ehret

Arnold Ehret

Arnold Ehret was a German health educator and author of several books on diet, detoxification, fruitarianism, fasting, food combining, health, longevity, naturopathy, physical culture and vitalism.- Background :...

 emigrated to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in the late 19th (Lust) or first half of the 20th century and directly influenced the later hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 movement. One group, called the "Nature Boys", settled in the California desert. eden ahbez

Eden Ahbez

eden ahbez was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s-1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential on the hippie movement...

, a member of this group, wrote a hit song called Nature Boy

Nature Boy

Nature Boy is a song written by eden ahbez and later popularised by Nat King Cole. It may also refer to:In music:* "Nature Boy", a song by Primus from their album 'Pork Soda'...

(recorded in 1947 by Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

), popularizing the homegrown back-to-nature movement to mainstream America. Eventually, a few of these Nature Boys, including Gypsy Boots

Gypsy Boots

Gypsy Boots , born Robert Bootzin , was an American fitness pioneer, actor, and writer. He is credited with laying the foundation for the acceptance by mainstream America of "alternative" lifestyles such as yoga and health food...

, made their way to Northern California in 1967, just in time for the Summer of Love

Summer of Love

The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...

 in San Francisco.
One noticeable legacy of Lebensreform in Germany today are the Reformhaus

Reformhaus

Reformhaus is a German/Austrian retailer that specializes in groceries and personal care products according to the principles of the 19th-century Lebensreform movement, for example the products are vegetarian, often organic, and free of synthetic preservatives...

("reform house") retail stores that sell naturopathic medicine and organic food.

Contemporary books that influenced Lebensreform

• Adolf Just: Return to Nature: Paradise Regained (1896), ISBN 0787304859 — PDF
• Richard Ungewitter: Nakedness (1904), ISBN 0965208516
• Arnold Ehret: Mucusless Diet Healing System (1922), ISBN 0879040041 — PDF
• Hermann Hesse
  Hermann Hesse
  Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
  
  : Siddhartha
  Siddhartha (novel)
  Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.The book, Hesse's ninth novel , was written in German, in a simple, powerful, and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential...
  
  (1922)