Reclaiming Woowoo by Brenda Henderson

Many years ago I was a newly qualified teacher in Brighton UK. It was the swinging sixties, mini-skirts and all that, so I was very appearance orientated. My guilty secret was that I loved chocolate and could never completely give it up. I castigated myself regularly for what I saw as moral weakness. One day, walking home from work, I realized I was not alone because there were no less than eighteen shops in that road selling chocolates and sweets! It brought about a profound shift in me. I was not alone.

So why do I recount this now? It’s because I am sure I am not alone in taking a sneaky peak at astrology columns (Leo BTW) because there are so many of them. Now there they are on YouTube and the like, alongside all the woowoo articles, designed for your own good, how you can be more spiritual, a great healer, kundalini by post etc. Juxtaposed with warlike articles, character assassinations and extreme weather warnings, articles on healing and health would seem to be a positive thing, but are they?

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of valuable information disseminated on the internet but it is also designed to be addictive and we won’t even go into the misuse of AI. So where is the harm in ‘spiritual’ items? Surely, they are designed to encourage us to be the best we can be? And that, in my view, is precisely where the harm lies. They encourage a gnawing sense of us not being good enough, a more upmarket version of ‘if you drink this alcoholic drink or spray yourself with this perfume you will become the most intelligent, admired and desired person ever’. The sad thing is that if we hear it often enough, our brains are wired to believe it must be true.

In the past certain spiritual initiations were strictly regulated. Powerful knowledge was kept secret as it was recognized that such power in the wrong hands could do enormous damage. Now, with the internet, it is available to all who search for it. Kundalini by post? Downright dangerous or an out and out scam. Yet our desire to have everything now makes us vulnerable to such claims.

Soothsayers, as they were once known, have a long history, but there was a reason why they were outlawed. Kings and princes had their diviners and soothsayers and it would seem that many world leaders still do. Churchill was certainly into such matters and the last case of imprisonment under the Sorcery laws was only a couple of years before I was born when he was in power. Having the ear of the rich and powerful made soothsayers dangerous. If they were to survive in more violent times, they also learnt to say what the powerful wanted to hear. Their power behind the throne stirred up enmity towards them.

So, coming back to the internet, why can we not sit back, have a little peak at our stars or at a ‘feel good if you do this exercise’ clip? We can, of course, but be aware of what is going on, some of which is harmful hypnotism. ‘You have found your way here to listen to this because this message was meant for you… And AI makes it worse by ‘accidentally’ repeating itself. You need to know that that person you thought was a friend is stabbing you behind your back… Oops! Bang goes a beautiful friendship. Such hypnosis should be banned outright. Then we come onto the ‘Spiritual’ websites - beautifully, tastefully and lavishly decorated in dreamy, soft colours, with ultra healthy-looking individuals and promising business success if you just sign up for their course. It’s expensive so it must be more successful than your quietly dressed local healer. Really? The BBC outed one of these organization websites that was being run by a former businessman. He had decided that starting an exploitive religion or cult was more profitable than robbing old people of their pensions.

So, is it all bad? No, of course not, but if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Don’t leave your common sense behind. Switch off immediately if you realize dubious techniques are being used, even if you’re not certain how.

We have the tradition of Cassandra, a true seer, who had the misfortune that no-one ever believed her when what she said was true. Is Astrology true? It makes sense to me that if the moon can raise the tides by 40 feet and affect women’s menstrual cycle then line-ups and configurations of the planets can also have a powerful effect. The interpretation of that by astrologers cutting and pasting their previous copy to keep up with an insatiable demand for certainty in an uncertain world? Hmm.

Newton’s famous riposte, ‘Sir, I have studied it, you have not’ echoes down the ages. We revere him for about 10% of his work, that on gravity. Yet we have little time for his work on gematria.

So, is healing woowoo i.e. unscientific, mythic? I can categorically say, from my own observation, it is not. Is it the placebo effect? Again, if so, why would cells in a Petrie dish be influenced? Why would animals be influenced in that way? The research is out there. I didn’t believe in ‘miracles’ but I have now witnessed them. The empirical, repeatable evidence is there. The historical evidence/proof is there. The scientific evidence is there.

Will I, personally, be ‘cured’ of my current maladies? Maybe, maybe not. Just because I am a healer doesn’t mean I never have an illness, just as doctors can become sick. What I do know is that science as it is currently interpreted, is not nearly as objective as we have been led to believe. (Check out the classic work of Kuhn and (separately) Popper if you don’t believe me.) Do your own research. Check out the Russian research. Even if you are one lone voice in the wilderness it doesn’t mean that everyone else is right and you are wrong. Insight, integrity, intention. Good luck!

Brenda Henderson is a retired tutor for the NFSH and was the first tutor to teach in France. She is a healer member of ‘The Healing Trust’ and regularly joins the Monday evening international distant healing group. She started studying spiritual matters and healing at the age of five and now lives in rural France.

© Brenda Henderson 12 June 2026