No Woo Zone

I don't understand why the internet shows me so much of the wooniverse, even though I know I'm only getting the tip of the iceberg here.  I mean, I do know why: because people I know actively engage in this, and their algorithms influence mine, or however the dastardly social media works.  

I have my theories about why this preoccupation is growing so quickly among the Gen Z set, or even among people my own age, but whatever the reason, it's gone too far.  I'm so tired of people creating their own set of bugaboos and then grappling with them publicly using fake solutions, as though they're doing something. 

It's called conspirituality, the seeming unlikely convergence of spiritual/woo/yoga/holistic culture with antivax beliefs that belong more in Q-territory than anywhere else.  On one hand, it seems interesting that that yogini crowd proved so susceptible to toxic, idiotic beliefs, but...is that interesting?  It was cute when they were were sageing their houses and drinking tea made from dandelions found in their yards, but of course it couldn't stop there.  Now they're refusing to vaccinate their children against anything and using essential oils to deter diseases.  People I know are doing this.  Just hearing about it is detrimental to my life. 

I've always been semi-familiar with this stuff because of my grandmothers' search for meaning in the 70s and 80s.  They would attend lectures about everything from Buddhism to Feng Shui and ESP.  They followed various gurus, passively, and their bookshelves were packed with yellowing, dusty guides to harnessing your inner spirit, telling the future, embracing the divine within.  And, of course, there was some woo Christian-lite in there too, because that's how they got in.  Most of their interests were on the deeper side, though - they were more into "exploring the meaning of being" than telling the future or gaining the upper hand on other people through supernatural means.



I'd probably accuse them of toxic positivity today, one buzz phrase that I do embrace.  I could never complain or tantrum without being asked to investigate myself, or without being challenged to find something sympathetic about the person who had made me mad.  I would be admonished to not say "hate," to imagine "love," and to send good thoughts to anyone who upset me.  Obviously this made me totally crazy, because my instincts have always tended towards vengeance or at least unfettered expression of my natural (hateful) feelings.  Send love to my mean 5th grade teacher?  I don't think so, Grammy. 

My grandma still has a room full of kooky books, and my mom is always harping on her to get rid of them.  "Not so fast," I say, from 1,000 miles away.  "Don't get rid of anything old before I see it first (including Gram haha)."  Those dusty old books called things like "Edgar Cayce Speaks," and tomes about past lives are valuable now!  As much as I hate the inheritors of this shit, the vintage books are, yanno, cool, and certainly fun to peruse.  This whack shit is my heritage and those books are mine.  They still got rid of them, though.  :(

Growing up adjacent to that environment had made me pretty complacent with it all.  I didn't believe, but it didn't bother me.  I remember watching some documentary with a friend that mentioned this bullshit guru named Braco who supposedly heals people by standing in front of rooms full of people and gazing spiritually at them.  I remembered with a start: "I've seen him. LIVE!"  I had forgotten all about it.  "WHAAT?"  Yeah, I've been healed by Braco (pronounced Brrrat-so), it's no big deal.  My Gram asked me to go with her, so I did.  I went in totally blind, had not bothered to check into this "phenomenon" beforehand.  So he came out, stood on a stage and stared at the room in a knowing and sympathetic way for 5 minutes (long time in this context), then quietly existed stage left.  People cried!  $40 a head.  Gram knew enough to elbow me at lunch afterwards and ask slyly, "So, are you healed or...?"  Yep, all set.  She's not a full crazy, just interested in it on the side.  By the way, people think Braco murdered his mentor to take his following.  Probably not the people who go see him, though.

This new generation of woo is too much to take, though.  The antivax Earth mother raising filthy longhaired forest children on diets of bone broth and bitter wild strawberries or whatever.  Get out of here with that self-aggrandizing navel-gazing I-apparently-have-nothing-better-to-do bullshit.  Please leave the grid!  The arrogance of some fool with a trust fund who thinks her own body can heal cancer by itself is just, the way it pisses me off is almost indescribable, even though I will try.  This person thinks sage can cure disease, and that positive thinking and a root tea is all you need.  Positive thinking along with some crystals probably mined by slaves from the darkest corners of South America.  There's something so out of touch and oddly snide and mindless about it all, to reject western medicine after benefiting from it for your entire life, including the crucial years in which you were vaccinated against the diseases that brought prior versions of the world to its knees.  And then to be evangelical about shitting on it.  I've been exposed to a lot of people like this, and summarizing them is like trying to pull individual pieces of broken furniture out of a tornado, it's all just so wildly bad that you barely know where to start.

And maybe it's the familiarity with the originating philosophies that makes me hate them so much.  I expected them to stay in the lane where I first found them.  I don't get as angry at the country dwelling, Jesus-loving, hunting, monster truck Trump-supporting element because I've rarely even known anyone like that, or not intimately.  But the know-nothing arrogant earth witch/love priest who thinks there's an oil for every problem and who constantly tries to bestow their wisdom upon others despite rarely living by their own beliefs just burns me up.  

MY problem is that I love wacky witchy stuff here and there, when it's done right.  Obviously I accept that western medicine doesn't know everything and, less seriously, that straight white conservative American culture is lame as hell!  I just wish we didn't have to jump every single shark.  Especially as someone who formerly felt like they could be into weird shit without having to make a disclaimer that they're not patently insane.  

In the less questioning bud of youth, I watched all those movies made in the 60s about witchcraft, which, according to some 1960s publications, was taking over America.  After my Grammy died (I don't expect one to follow the baby names, but differentiating between Grammy and Gram, two different grandmas), I went through trunks in her storage room, and found an issue of LOOK with Anton LaVey on the cover, fingers splayed around a yellowed human skull.  I couldn't believe she had kept it all those years, but it was in a lot of old stuff that I know she never looked at.  There were papers from the day Kennedy was shot, from the moon landing, from other events.  I wish I could have asked her about this issue of LOOK, because it is pretty fucking odd that she would have kept such a thing.  But I must realistically assume there was probably something else in the magazine that she was actually interested in keeping.  Or was there!  

Look how young he is tho

She died when I was in my teens, at a time when I was most interested in the Church of Satan, because it flew in the face of everything I had ever been made to respect, and I wasn't aware of anything better that was as transgressing but maybe less old-mannish.  I bought all of LaVey's books, which is why it didn't go much farther.  They were the expected amount of shocking, but not exactly inspiring for a person like me.  In reality, the books proved to be underwhelming and disappointing.  I had already absorbed the whole Ragnar Redbeard thing already, and there was nothing else of substance to LaVey beyond that philosophy.  If you don't know what RR said, then look it up yourself, and don't blame me if it's offensive now.  I haven't revisited it since 1999.

But, I still liked the kicky dark vibes.  Who wouldn't?  Psychedelic swinging 60s Satanism, with knives and jeweled goblets and go go dancers in body paint.  Pet lions, black walls, red carpet, big jeweled rings, snakes with glinting ruby eyes.  I wanted it to be cool and it was, but passingly because it was all built on one person who was just good at cultivating a vibe and cast of characters.  And I had beyond missed it all anyway.  It's always influenced my home decor, long before this post but still.  

And, of course, when you dig deeper into Anton's life, there's a lot of buzzkillery about abuse of romantic partners, children and animals.  Yes, I'm aware that he was a complete asshole and yes, it did ruin it and completely killed any further interest, but did I visit the Black House when I visited San Francisco in the extra-early aughts?  Of course I did!  It's gone now, razed as late as possible after the family held out against condos for years.  It was still there when we visited though, partially hidden behind razor wire.  However crappy he was, it was history, and the house should have been preserved for the iconic and ironic American history that was in it.  It was a shocking piece of pop culture once, and perhaps even a bit of a antisocial revolution. 

Anyway, I'll take good old time mid 20th century witchcraft and stone amulets and smoky rituals long before I'll take wildflower tea and the belief that rarely bathing steels your body against disease.  I'd rather imagine the blood of a baby born on Walpurgisnacht is more powerful than yoga and green juice, but maybe that's just a matter of taste.  One's no more real than the other, but one is definitely cooler.  Anyway, If you love Alan Alda, which you should, watch Mephisto Waltz.  It's not perfect, but the imagery is on point, as is Alan's stupid villain character.

In conclusion, draw your own conclusions.  But generally, just stop it.