Our mission is to establish an English-language Pirts School with Latvian scholars to expand access to these healing medicines and train, support, and connect practitioners globally.
The Pirts School
Reviving an Ancient European Healing Tradition
Baltic Wisdom is building the world’s first English-language Pirts School, an educational platform dedicated to Latvia’s ancestral sauna healing tradition. For thousands of years, pirts has served as a place of purification, rebirth, and connection to nature, spirit, and community.
Today, it remains one of Europe’s few surviving native healing systems, carried forward primarily by women and protected through oral tradition. To ensure the knowledge is preserved accurately and ethically, we are partnering with respected Latvian pirts masters and scholars, and are making it accessible to those ready to learn.
An important part of this initiative is translating the book, Latvian Healing Traditions, in partnership with the author, Dr. Ieva Ancevska based on her PhD thesis work, which collected and documented ancestral knowledge of the earliest folk medicine traditions from rural elderly.
What will it offer?
Bilingual online courses
Recorded teachings with Latvian pirts masters
Live workshops and Q&A sessions
In-person intensives and apprenticeships
Certification for new pirts practitioners
A global directory of trained providers
What will students learn?
History & Cultural Foundations
The history of Latvian pirts
Comparison of sauna traditions across cultures
Traditional pirts rituals and their symbolism
The power of language, song, intention, and the animist worldview in pirts
Elements as Medicine
How to work with heat, steam, medicinal plants, and cold immersion
Understanding how elemental shifts support physical, emotional, and spiritual healing
Ritual Structure, Safety & Ethics
Proper sequencing of a pirts ceremony
Trauma-sensitive facilitation and reading body cues
Contraindications, consent, and practitioner ethics
Protecting participant safety and the integrity of the lineage
Ritual Skills & Techniques
Building and preparing a pirts
Working with water, fire, stones, and steam as living allies
Use of herbal whisks (pirts slotas) and their energetic properties
Aromatherapy and plant-based treatments
Classical massage, aromatherapy massage, and energetic touch
Song, Story & Worldview
Sacred song (dainas), voice, and vibrational healing
Mythic folklore and ancestral cosmology
The animist understanding of fire, water, plants, and breath as living forces with spirit
Guiding a Full Pirts Ceremony
Preparing the space and creating a safe healing container
Supporting the body through heat, release, and integration
Reading emotional and energetic cues
Providing grounded aftercare and closure
Healing, Health & Physiology
Anatomy and the body’s response to heat and cold
Detoxification and immune support
Water therapies and hydrotherapy principles
First aid in pirts
Stress management and longevity medicine
Spirit, Energy & Consciousness
Working responsibly with altered states of consciousness
Energetic “beating” techniques (enerģētiskais pēriens)
Relationship work: pirts for couples, family systems, and reconciliation
Ethical practice and cultural integrity
In this video, a Latvian pirts meistars (sauna master) uses whisks made of oak and linden branches to rhythmically tap and brush the body.
The warmth, scent, and sound of the branches help release tension, stimulate circulation, and bring awareness back into the body.
Through touch and connection with natural elements, the practice restores balance between body, mind, and the living world.
Contact Us.
If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming launch of the Pirts School, our mission, or ways to support this work in any capacity, we would love to hear from you!