A specter haunts the New Age community of self-proclaimed healers, gurus, yogis, crystal peddlers, body workers, and indigo babies. That specter is QAnon, a movement that defies description, but turns people into Trump supporters. Yes, the dark secret is out… even the “conscious wellness community” members are susceptible. OMG! So what do the “wellness influencers” do to defend their ranks from such alarming contagion?
You’d think that taking advantage of “our conscious community” belongs to New Agers alone! The gall some people have! (It turns out some soiled chickens are coming home to roost.)
Ms. Corn said that the wellness community’s emphasis on truth-seeking and self-improvement makes it particularly vulnerable to a conspiracy theory like QAnon, which is all about sowing distrust in mainstream authorities under the guise of “doing your own research.”
There are positive aspects of this particular community, but truth-seeking is a can of worms Ms. Corn would be better off leaving in the shadows. And distrust in “mainstream authorities”? Since when has that become a sin? Ms. Corn’s community has been spreading it since the beginning. And often rightly so. Isn’t there something strange going on when the supporters of an alternative lifestyle suddenly come out marching on behalf of the “mainstream authorities?”
“They’re using the same music we might use in meditation classes,” Ms. Corn said. “It does things to the body, it makes you more available and open.”
Including one’s wallet, I take it?
“I’m afraid that well-meaning folks who don’t understand the complexity of this misinformation will be seduced” by QAnon, she said. “They’re rolling out the yoga mat right now, and it scares me.
Another scare piece on QAnon. Yawn. But no, this is actually news. The tinfoil hat brigade has noticed they have competition! The same people who have fattened for decades on the gullibility of suckers who flocked to channelers of the Pleiadians, fake cancer cures, the Secret (riiiight), and the latest “herbal” or “magical fruit” remedy that was never researched but sure got the full Madison Avenue treatment.
I am a part of the alternative medicine community, and know these folks well. They are the same ones who promote Essiac tea for the cure of cancer. It costs pennies to make, sells at 35 dollars a pint, and all it’s got to back it up are a few vague stories. These same people who never prevailed upon the (massively wealthy) supplement industry to run clinical trials for at least some of the expensive and heavily hyped products they offer. These same people who fed the guru syndrome. These same people who never found it in their own interest to teach those who flocked to them to tell bullshit from the real thing are now complaining their followers are falling for yet another scheme (with profits being routed elsewhere, cough). I can hear the world’s tiniest violin playing in the background.
Where was your outrage when Ida Rolf and her masses of charlatans were snowing people under? Where was your outrage when Hilda Clark abused desperate patients via her pretend cure-alls, including a horrible shack of a “clinic” south of the border? Where was it when self-proclaimed gurus like Rajneesh (later rebranded as Oshi) and the likes of Muktananda were abusing power, money entrusted them, and the children of their acolytes? And I won’t even go into the scandals at Naropa or the “integral” community. Tell you what, “wellness” bullshiteers. What goes around comes around. You reap what you’ve sown.
Take the beam out of your own eye before yammering on about a sliver in the eye of your neighbor. Then you can finally set out on the path of the light workers. But not before then.
For a more detailed “treatment” of the QAnon phenomenon from the “yogi perspective,” see
A large pinch of salt advised.
Leaving Babylon 
September 16, 2020 at 7:38 pm
While a lot of the New Age community well deserves your scorn, I was surprised to see Ida Rolf in the list. Maybe I don’t know something. I found her bodywork quite helpful. Perhaps you would include me in that crowd because I rely on homeopathy and practice a kind of bodywork that uses energy. Or maybe you wouldn’t because I’ve never gotten rich from it. Anyway, I have to raise this one small question.
September 17, 2020 at 2:53 pm
Hi again, glad you are still following. How is the farm?
I am not saying that some body worker using Rolf’s methodology may not have been helpful. In fact, I have found many chiropractors who have been utterly, er, unhelpful (to put it politely), but knew one who was a true healer. Her office was always chock full. So I think it partly depends on who does what with it.
I think homeopathy deserves shame for not running proper trials for their stuff, and the whole thing about being more potent if more and more diluted sounds insane. But I have used low-X stuff that has some molecules of the substance in the pills myself. I would favor experimentation with otherwise toxic herbs at very low concentrations (though perhaps not as low as, say, 30X), and see how it works.
My critique is more directed to those who encourage and profit by human gullibility and have an interest in maintaining it. There are other people in the wellness community (in the large tent sense of the word) that help people, and have integrity. But plenty of tinfoil hats too, and scammers.
If you are referring to Reiki, I have nothing against it. All the people I have known practiced it without remuneration, and I tried it once, being very skeptical, and it seemed to help and was quite enjoyable. 🙂