Eleanor from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is pondering navel-gazing after being surprised to learn that her adult son was unfamiliar with the term. Staring downward at one’s belly to induce a mystical trance has a long history: The Medieval Greek word omphalopsychoi denoted 14th-century mystic monks of Mt. Athos, Greece, a combination of omphalos, or “navel,” which is cognate with Latin umbilicus, and psyche, or “spirit.” In the mid-19th century, this word was adapted into English as omphalopsychite, and still later the term omphaloskepsis was used as a joking way to refer to the practice of staring fixedly at one’s navel to induce a mystical trance. A similar idea appeared in Robert Vaughn’s 1856 book Hours with the Mystics where he describes the monks of Mt. Athos gazing toward their navels and refers to them as Navel-contemplators. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Staring at One’s Own Navel”
We received an email from Eleanor Hubbard on Martha’s Vineyard, and she writes,
On a recent Sunday morning, our son called from Boston to check on his parents quarantined at home on Martha’s Vineyard.
In the course of the conversation, he asked what I was going to do now that my art exhibit had been canceled.
I’ll just spend a month in my studio navel-gazing, said I, and chattered on.
Not one to skip a beat, he immediately chimed in with, what?
Navel-gazing? Mom, what are you talking about? What is navel-gazing?
And Eleanor explained it as being wrapped up in feelings and thoughts of the self.
And then she suggested that they research the etymology and call us about it.
And Grant, I’m so glad she did, because that gives us the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite words from medieval Greek.
The fancy name for it?
Yeah.
Wait, so you get to talk about the classics and a Greek etymology, and you’re excited.
Okay, let her rip.
Surprise, surprise.
Like those firecrackers.
Throw the gasoline on the fire.
Thank you, Eleanor.
Well, the word that I got so excited about in Greek is ompholoxikoi, which is a sarcastic term for medieval monks in Greece who did a lot of mystical contemplation in a position that made it look like they were gazing at their navels.
Maybe they were gazing at their navels.
That was a sarcastic term in the 14th century.
And it’s a cool term because the omphilos is a word that means belly button or navel.
It’s related to Latin umbilicus.
And the sukoi, the psyche, has to do with spirit.
So, omphalopsikoi. And a version of this jocular term found its way into English in the mid-1800s as omphalopsikite. O-M-P-H-A-L-O-P-S-Y-C-H-I-T-E, omphalopsikite, which means somebody who stares fixedly at his navel in order to induce a mystical trance. And the word you may be thinking of, Grant, also is umphiloskepsis. That’s right, yeah. Yeah, which was an early 20th century joking word for that practice.
And later on, we got the words navel contemplator and navel gazer and navel gazing. But what preceded them was umphiloskepsis. That’s outstanding. Now, there may be an origin for both navel contemplator and navel gazing. There is a book by Robert Vaughn from 1857 called Hours with the Mystics, where he talks about the holy monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece.
And he talks about these mystics with their chins on their chest, centering their minds on their hearts, searching for an inward divine glory for days on end.
And he uses the phrase navel contemplators, but he also uses the phrase gazing at their navels.
So it’s possible that if people read that, that was the origin after some switcheroo of navel gazing.
But that’s the mid-1800s that you were talking about.
Yeah.
This idea of assuming a certain position to try to get yourself into a mystical trance, I mean, it really goes back to Hebrew scripture and the book of Kings, where Elijah puts his head between his knees to pray.
That’s outstanding.
Eleanor has an inquisitive mind.
Tell us about your life and the words you’ve come across and the things that you want to discover and share with us.
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