Woo

Published on November 11th, 2014 | by Rayne

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Woo and Lament: Woofest 2014: Episode 4: A story in tweets

Because I am a shameless self promoter sharing and caring person, as part of my trip down to the new age pseudoscience convention known as Woofest 2014 (actually the Mind, Body, Spirit festival), I decided that I would tweet the experience for those who weren’t able or who weren’t inclined to attend. You can view the tweets on my Twitter account or through my Imgur account but for those of you who like a good bedtime story filled with swearing and narcissism, read on.

We started off the journey by getting to the airport super fucking early on a Saturday morning. I’m a pretty sad person before 11am, I do not like early mornings at all. I did however get really nice oatmeal and cranberry biscuit on the place.

This picture is pretty self-explanatory. One thing about planes that I love – turbulence. I found that out a few years ago when I was flying interstate for a holiday. I enjoy turbulence. I also found out that people do not appreciate you expressing your love for turbulence while in the midst of it.

We went from the airport straight to the convention hall. I angst over everything – from what to wear, to how to act. Being a skeptic and a scientifically literate person in a crowded room full of people who believed not only could they photograph their aura but that auras actually existed – it made me a little antsy. I have trouble shutting my mouth. Also what does a person wear to a new age convention when the only things they have in their wardrobe are band t-shirts, science shirts and pop culture shirts? I settled on a brightly coloured “Zombie Response Team” shirt – nicely ironic.

It was my phone, thankfully. I once forgot about an adult toy in my bag and went through airport security. It did not end well.

I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking. Just a little sore.

I went through the doors of the convention hall to find rows and rows of stalls from shopkeepers wanting to sell their products. There was a food court set-up and a large section devoted to psychic readings. Also several stages where speakers could lecture to a seated crowd of about 50 people at a time.

There was a stall selling homeopathic “remedies”. I spoke to one of the attendants who gave me a spiel about how homoeopathy works – the more diluted something is, the stronger it is it will work faster. In homeopathland it is opposite day where “like cures like”, caffeine is apparently a good substance to cure insomnia. Don’t worry though folks, homoeopathy doesn’t work. When you highly dilute something past the point there are no molecules of that substance left in the solution – you’re just drinking expensive water.

The attendant didn’t really have an answer to my question. If the solution remembers the one ingredient in it, why doesn’t it remember everything else that has ever been in the water in the first place?

Check out Science Babe downing a whole bottle of homoeopathic sleeping pills. Remember: No Fucking Medicine.

I didn’t ask the speaker that question but I was really tempted. I didn’t want to get removed from the convention so early in the piece. I had pamphlets to get and food to eat!

I don’t think I have a response to that.

Speaking of food, there were fried chips (fries for my American readers), sandwiches and drinks. The lack of “healthy” food at the convention was something that was interesting to me. We sat near a speaker who was giving a lecture on how a raw food diet was the best diet to live on while eating food that would make the Food Babe’s hair curl. It’s the little things that make me happy.

One of the lessons I took away from the convention was: Everything cures everything, everything causes everything and no-one had any fucking clue about basic science and anatomy. There were a bunch of stalls for different reflexology businesses, iridology businesses and a chiropractor. If I had the time and money I could have seen all three reflexologists and gotten three different diagnosis for three different made up conditions. The same with the iridologists and the chiropractor. What do reflexologists, iridologists and chiropractor have in common? They all claim to be able to diagnosis and treat illness and disease through one specific body part. They’re pseudoscientific charlatans that prey on a persons lack of understand of basic human biology. Just because a chiropractor pushes on your back and makes your back pain go away, doesn’t mean they can create physiological changes in the human body via the spine and neck – see a fucking physio.

This explains everything wrong with psychics. Sometimes I get really torn about psychics – you’re basically paying someone to hear made up bullshit that you want to hear. People want to be reassured about dead loved ones because they are grieving, it might make them feel a little better however on the flip-side, a psychic is taking money from a grieving person and feeding them lies. Psychics are quite fun to fuck with though.

I soon found out that this wouldn’t be the first time I was going to hear this. It’s actually a thing.

I actually don’t give a shit if you want to label yourself “spiritual” however I have yet to find someone who can tell me what it means to be “spiritual”. Seriously I don’t get it.

Unless those almonds are roasted with honey or whatever the hell my wife roasts them with. Then they taste fantastic.

You have to admit, he has pretty damn sexy voice.

I missed going to this lecture. There are parts of the human body that can regenerate – fingernails and liver for example but I somehow suspect this is not what the lecture was going to be about.

I understand that if people expect their sex drive to increase because they believe in the “power” of crystals, it might. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy especially via the placebo effect and confirmation bias but if you have rocks in your vagina – you aren’t going to have very good sex. Also how do these women get them out??

Congratulations you have a guitar. You can play 20 seconds of Metallica’s “Sandman”, that does not make you a master guitarist.

“Cunt Rock”a new genre of rock.

Sometimes the jokes are just too easy. Far far too easy.

Organic seems to be the latest trend with food, alongside GMO hatred.  I often wonder if GMOs and organic food are like vegan food. I’ve found in the past if I serve tofu to people without actually telling them it’s tofu – they’re fine but as soon as they know it’s tofu, all hell breaks loose. I do like tofu even though I’m not vegan. I couldn’t give up meat though. I tried it once and found it lacking. Bacon is just too nice.

Penn and Teller did an experiment where they placed food on two plates. One side was organic and the other non-organic. The participants were told to eat a piece of food from both plates and tell the researcher which they believed was the organic food. The participants picked the non-organic food a large majority of the time.

You can watch it here:

For those who don’t know, Modern Alternative Mama is a deeply religious Quiverfull mum who doesn’t like science, vaccines or learning. She is well-known for quotes such as “Many doctors think they can intervene and do a better job than God” and “Instead, tell them you believe God created us perfectly and we don’t need these interventions in almost any case to continue to be perfect. God gave us all the medicine we need all around us, which Chinese medicine and other natural healing takes advantage of (a topic for another blog post later)“. She’s also written an awful book on children’s health despite having no medical training and a history of scaring people away from doctors. She also believes in taking a child to a chiropractor to cure a fever. 

This doesn’t mean anything, it was just an interesting observation. So much purple. So much papyrus font.

The jokes are just too easy. I think I said that already.

Homoeopathy is really expensive so I’ve found out. Homoeopathy doesn’t just have “remedies’ for things like insomnia and the common cold . It also has them for things like “Intolerance toward animals, people, events and situations“and “When you have a hard time saying NO and therefore easily get imposed on“. Welcome to the world of Bach’s Rescue Remedies. The ultimate in flower power.

Coffee Addict Tea really did taste like crap. It’s a tea that is meant to help you stop drinking coffee. It’s marketed as having a “freshly brewed aroma that will soothe your strongest coffee cravings. A stimulating, yet stabilising alternative to caffeine“. It tastes like Satan’s armpit.

The prices in the “psychic reading room” were a lot higher than $35 dollars. Some psychics were asking for $70 for 15 minutes. I could literally see a sex worker for longer and for a cheaper price in a legal safe brothel. At least I could get screwed and have a happy ending by seeing a sex worker.

Have you ever had an acupressure massage? I had one not too long ago. I didn’t realise that was what I was having until after I had it. The guy had me lay on a massage table and he poked at different parts of my back and butt for a while. He would use his thumb to put pressure on different parts of my back and buttocks which is so far removed from a massage, it’s not even funny, not in the slightest. I’m glad I got it for free because I came out of the massage room smelling like lavender with a nice collection of bruises on my butt from where he pressed too hard. Did I mention I fucking hate lavender? I had less bruises that time a friend opened fire on my arse at a paintball game. In his defence, I accidentally shot him in the dick twice.

Fortunately ear candles have been thoroughly debunked already.

“Look at all that wax from the atmosphere!”

I shit you not. One of the psychics who had a stall at the convention had a sign that stated she had won the “Psychic of the Year” award. This is an real thing.  I don’t know how to feel about this but I don’t think people who claim to speak to the dead should have awards.

The very epitome of ironic. The convention featured a Feng Shui “expert” who can come to your house and discuss with you the best way to move your furniture around to bring happiness and health to your home. It will also drain your wallet.
Crystals vibrations! Except they’re invisible vibrations you can’t see and you can’t feel them either.

This series of tweets come from here

“Did you know that 93% of people have a Heart-Wall?

This Heart Wall is contributing to blocking your abundance, finding love, feeling happy, joyful and peaceful inside yourself, and it contributes to depression and an inability to express or feel emotions and generally having poor and difficult relationships.

So, What is a Heart-Wall?

During times of emotional pain or distress, you have probably felt heaviness or an aching in the chest – this is where the words “heartache” and “heartbreak” come from. The heart is the core of our being, energetically speaking, so those feelings of heartache and heartbreak are an attack on the deepest part of who we are.

When this happens, your subconscious mind will often want to do something to keep your heart from being totally broken. Sometimes you need to put up a form of protection, or a “wall” around the heart – but you can’t build a wall of nothing, right? Trapped emotions end up being used as “building materials” and are the most common excess energies in the body.

The Heart-Wall doesn’t dissolve on its own, even if you don’t need it anymore. Having a Heart-Wall long-term is like living in a shelter – it’s necessary short-term protection, but if you continue to “live” in there you’ll feel sad, disconnected and frustrated. Having a Heart-Wall depresses the immune system and could lead to heart trouble, as well as other unwanted health problems down the track.

The Heart-Wall can be removed, one emotion at a time – freeing you to live from your heart, create abundance and find true love. The most important step is to acknowledge you have one.  So, Do you have a Heart-Wall limiting your health, happiness and abundance?”

I have no fucking clue what any of the above means except that it maybe a long-winded way of saying “Stop being so emotionally fucking stunted”.

.

If you can’t read the sign, that’s okay. The sign is from a company called “Orgone Australia”. A place that markets their products in the following way: “Orgonium Ionic Resonance products for protection against EMF RF and Geopathic Stress in buildings Personal Energy Protection Water and Food Ionizing and Rejuvenation Automotive and Aviation Cabin EMR, EMF and RF/wireless field Ionizing Systems Free Geopathic Stress/EMF readings using Google earth to determine what noxious energies exist in you home, and which organs are placed under stress from these energies“.

The Mobile Phone and Wi Fi  Radiation Harmonizer is a tiny round sticker that you stick to your mobile phone which is meant to stop you from getting sick. The had “explanations” on the walls for how these things operated but they weren’t very helpful. It’s one thing to continually say “it stops (insert scary thing here)” but not tell me how. I found this explanation on the website but it explains everything while explaining nothing at all. Kinda of like religion.

“The Mobile Phone Radiaiton Harmonizer is a frequency infused screen print onto a polycarbonate disk, which resonates a balancing negative charge field, which may neutralize the positive charge energy fields around the lap top or phone, and also the beam connection at the same time”.

Polycarbonate plastic disks are what compact disks (CD’s) are made from.  Essentially you are buying a tiny CD that has been “infused” with a frequency that may neutralize “energy“, what form of energy or type of frequency I don’t know. I asked the sales guy if infusing the frequency was the same concept as writing music onto a CD and he said he needed to go attend to a customer. I asked the saleslady what type of frequency was infused on the disk, she said she didn’t understand the question.

I’m glad that the ladies cancer is gone. Well I hope it’s gone. She could have gone into spontaneous remission or taken chemo. I’m not sure.
They really do not like that question.

I really needed to go to the loo at that point. The toilet smelled like incense and essential oils. It felt like I was being punched in the sinuses.

The results of this experiment were just sad. A lot of the answers revolved around “GMOs are bad” but with little explanation how. One person did mention that science shouldn’t be messing with nature. I asked them if they took medical pain killers for headaches, they replied yes. I walked away.
I had noticed a few people with scarves wrapped around their heads. The cancer patients were easy to spot – they were the sickly looking people with many shopping bags. It was horrifying to see sick people at a convention like this, I really didn’t expect it. It made me sad. I hope those people are okay.

There is a website you can look at here and a poorly created YouTube video. The “therapy” is explained thusly:

“Metatron is a revolutionary computer-non-linear scanner that provides extremely accurate diagnosis of any energetic disturbance within the person. Once the Metatron locates energetic disturbance, it continues to seek for root cause of the disrupted energy flow to cellular level and even to chromosomes and gene level also. After completing the analysis, Metatron stimulates body’s healing process by using Metatherapy. The Metatron records the condition of the treatments and allows the practitioner to compare the before and after changes“.

There are no words. None.

Also known as Kirlian photography. This has also been thoroughly debunked.

Unless the guy looked 50 when he was 17, I have doubts about its effectiveness.

This joke isn’t mine. A lovely reader of my Facebook page first said it. It will never stop being funny.

There was a person discussing how she has cured the cancer of several of her friends. I asked her if she could help amputees. She said no. I walked away before I smacked her.

Another thing that surprised me was the church groups that were attending the convention. They had paid stalls and everything. I got a ton of pamphlets and booklets from them. There was a really creepy guy at the first stall who kept trying to get me to sit in his darkened stall and pray with him. No. Just no. Out of the entire day, that made me the most uncomfortable. I mentioned their attendance to my wife later on. I learned that is pretty par for the course that church groups go to these sorts of conventions, they feel the need to save the attendees from the scary new age witchcraft and bring them into the fold of feeling like a wicked sinner who can telepathically communicate with a Jewish zombie.

For more in the Woo and Lament series, check out
Woofest 2014: The Beginning.
Woofest 2014: Episode 2: Quack diagnosis
Woofest 2014: Episode 3: Psychics playing the “Mystery Card”
Woofest 2014: Episode 4: A story in tweets

Tags: Woo

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Rayne

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