Personal experiences with "woowoo"?

[Darwin]

If youŽd like to share?
IŽll tell you about mine.I attended a feng shui course,during which you would hear how to deal with things like statues in your house (supposedly your astrological "nature" would affect whether you can put,say,a tiger statue in your house).How to keep the "chi" flowing and "let it flow from outside in" and things like how to "block" the "bad chi" of a tree branch pointing towards your window...
I certainly was not the only one to testify,but I could notice that extremely little skepticism was applied to such guidance (this advice would supposedly help you financially for an example)
I remember someone commenting on how a certain,feng shui based arrangement inside the house suddenly caused "money to arrive!" or something like that (post-hoc).
The only time that I can recall,during which skepticism was displayed was when ghosts were mentioned (this had to do with "protection" from ghosts).How surprising was the answer to this-(to the direction of-) "Chinese of the old were pretty superstitious").

[reprise]

I dabbled in a lot of things - astrology, tarot, numerology, seances - as a teenager without ever really believing in them.

As I got older, I explored Wicca, pendulums, von Daniken, astral projection, Scientology, neurolinguistic programming, creative visualisation, runes (and just about every commercially packaged "divination" method on the market), and goodness knows what else which I've now forgotten.

I really couldn't count the number of "alternative medicine" practises I read about avidly during my involvement with HIV/AIDS - there seemed to always be a new book to read or workshop to attend.

Feng shui is probably one of the few "woo-woo" practises in which I haven't invested time and energy at one stage or another of my life.

[Glory]

Where to start!

My mother is a well educated woman with a law degree. In almost all ways she is a reasonable person with solid critical thinking skills. She wouldn't help pay for my wedding unless I agreed to have an astrological chart drawn up. We had the thing done and all was well except that we had to wait untill after four pm on the date we had chosen for the ceremony. This was a deal breaker for her. I don't know what she would have done if the chart had revealed some sort of incompatibility between my husband and myself.

She also claims to have had a dream about her dog's death at the moment it happened. She says that she dreamt that the dog, which she had given away years before, was standing next to her bed and that his chest was torn open and bloody. The next morning the dog's new owners called her and told her that the dog had died in the night apparantly of heart faillure. I asked her if it was possible that she had the dream after having been informed of the dog's death and that she has gotten confused over the years about the sequence of events. She says absolutely not and that that is impossible. It is her insistence of that impossibility that irks me.

Glory

[SRW]

My sister-in-law is a Fun-Shu practitioner and when she was out visiting she had my wife re-arranging our house. It didn't bother me too much until one day when she bought a garden fountain. Well of course it had to go in the furthers corner of the yard, and I would have to dig a trench to supply it with power.

I must be pretty good a fung-shu cause I put it were I wanted and had good luck. She moved across the country.

[Glory]

I had a lot of success with feng shui. I used to work at Stroud's and about three times a week someone would come in looking to buy something for their house based on the advice of their feng shui guy/gal. I made a fair bit of money off them. Oddly, red pillows were often sought to bring in money and the two we had were the most expensive in the store.

Glory

[T'ai Chi]

Being a t'ai chi ch'uan practicioner, I've experienced all types- from those people who believe in the literal reality of ch'i as measurable energy, to those who confused ch'i with chi and still think they know what they are talking about, to the ultra skeptical of t'ai chi ch'uan as a martial art who get their butt handed to them easily by a t'ai chi ch'uan practicioner,
to those who use claim t'ai chi ch'uan can cure everything from aids and cancer to arthritis and fybromyalgia.

*sigh*

[Yahweh]

I used was weird(er). In highschool I had an interest in all things Pagan. In college, I hung out with the "Wicca Group".

I've known people who have been into feng shui, astrology, and all that other fun bullplop.

One of the big things nowadays that the kids are into is something called "Psionics". This is common among kids between the ages of 12 and 14, not so much when they get into highschool... but every now and then I have to deal with the one kid who slipped through the filter and really truely believes he can create balls of "Psi" energy. I get the joy of getting to know the average teenager what he or she has to say, its weird but most of the teenagers I work with confess that for a while they went through a phase where they believed they had some kind of psychic powers, they grow out of it eventually.

[Ratman_tf]

A co-worker of mine was into astrology. I never wanted to brow beat her with skepticism. It merely came up once in a while. I'd put in my two cents, and that would be that.

My sister is pretty superstitious, but I don't see her very often anymore.

My apartment complex manager is a complete woo-woo. The complex puts out a newsletter monthy, here's the title of one of the bits in it:

"A scientific theory on mirages"

It then goes on to speculate that mirages are windows on parallel dimensions. Real Star Trek gobbeldygook. Ah well.

[Pyrrho]

Dabblers in astrology and other silliness don't hold a candle to a genuine woo-woo. We once had a house guest who claimed to have multiple personalities -- even switched to a few -- and woke my wife up in the middle of the night to ask for a razor blade so she could cut herself. Now that is a woo-woo.

[reprise]

My attention span was too short for me to develop full-blown woo-wooism. If I didn't get instant gratification, I just moved on to checking out the next paranormal belief.

[Yahweh]

Quote:

Originally posted by reprise
My attention span was too short for me to develop full-blown woo-wooism. If I didn't get instant gratification, I just moved on to checking out the next paranormal belief.

I've noticed some people will criticize others for having a short attention span. In this case, its saved you from falling into the desperate world--NEAT! Shiney objects! Wow!

[kookbreaker]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
claim t'ai chi ch'uan can cure

Say this ten times fast.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glory
Oddly, red pillows were often sought to bring in money and the two we had were the most expensive in the store.

Well...it worked, didn't it?

[Glory]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen


Well...it worked, didn't it?

It worked well for me. Those red pillows were cash cows. And, I have it on very good authority that the store had terrible feng shui. The trash cans were in our money corner!

Glory

[plindboe]

I remember when I was 8-9 I read alot of books about UFOs, Bigfoot, Bermuda Triangle, Ghosts etc. I didn't firmly believe in it, the possibility of these stories being real was just quite exciting. After age 9 I quickly lost interest in it, and began studying the real world instead, I wonder why that happened.

Peter

[lofgoernost]

My mother was into the whole Shirley McLaine thing in the 80s. She went to seminars and tossed away a fair amount of filthy lucre on books and crystals. She grew out of it, but one thing she still has is a portrait on her bedroom wall - it's one of these things that looks like someone dashed it off in about thirty seconds. It depicts a beautiful woman with an ancient Egyptian(?) headdress - I forget if it's supposed to be a representation of my mother's aura, or one of her past lives. I wonder if she remembers.

[asthmatic camel]

My mother, not generally perceived as a woo woo, for some reason believes in dowsing. When her friend's garden became flooded to a depth of 1 foot (subsequently found to be due to a leaking water main), she immediately donned her wellingtons, grasped her bent coathangers and wallowed around in the mud, confident that she would be able to find flowing water. Needless to say, no result.

Oh how I laughed (behind my hand and quietly),

Regards,

AC.

[PinkRabbit]

Experiences with that which is woowoo?

Oh yeah.

My girlfriend, a really brilliant woman, and generally fairly level headed got mixed up with a psychic reader a few years ago now (she was going to this woman when we first met, though she didn't admit to it until we were quite deeply involved). The woman really played her over the several years they knew each other and finally convinced her they were friends, and they started writing a book together.

Being as I'm a graphic artist, I got roped into doing a CD cover and some logo designs and such. On credit, of course (yes, I am either A) that nice or B) that stupid---take your pick). Surprise, surprise, it was never paid for. And I fully admit, I probably deserve it since I didn't believe in her in the least, but I figured that well directed she could probably make a lot of money.

Of course, the woman eventually turned out to be a raving nutcase who ripped my girlfriend off for quite a sum of money, threatened her, and never paid me for the work done. I've felt guilty ever since because at some point, I could sort of see it coming (though I had no idea how bad it would get), but I was really afraid of the influence this woman had over my girlfriend, and given that she was already subtly and not so subtly trying to break us up, I was afraid she might just succeed. And I was really, deeply meaningfully afraid of what might happen if that occurred because it would have left my girlfriend very alone in dealing with this woman.

Ironically enough, the psychic was herself, totally screwed up mentally and emotionally, the child of alcoholic parents, probably abused, with a history of aubsive relationships with men, a retarded son, etc.

She was forever trying to "read" me, which clearly proved to be enormously difficult for her as I just wouldn't give her anything, but instead managed to twist it around and wind up with her crying on my shoulder and dumping all of her problems (hence my knowing some many details, though much of what she told me didn't check out quite the way she told it). Which is, I suspect, one fo the reasons she desperately wanted me out of the picture. She couldn't control me, but I was fairly successful at manipulating her, and I wasn't the least bit impressed by her supposed "charm."

The woman finally just pretty much disappeared. She's clearly someone who grifts for awhile, then moves on when things get too hot to handle. She also seemed to have a rather remarkable capacity for convincing herself it was because others had done her wrong, and was forever recounting all of the ways in which assorted people had abused her trust and kindness. I'm sure her current tale of woe includes the details of how my girlfriend betrayed and abused her.

Meanwhile, yes, my girlfriend still believes that this woman did have "powers" and she is angry that she missused them. I think it's just really hard for her to admit that she was tricked by a con artist (though I still can't decide how knowing this woman was, and how much she was self-deluded---truly, she was a wack job who lied like most people breathe once you started tracking things down). She's so used to being the smartest person in the room that it doesn't leave much room for admitting she might have been outwitted by someone else.

I, however, have learned not to hold back in expressing my opinion that that sort of thing is a complete con job. Mostly we avoid the topic, but I have gotten to a point where she doesn't try to argue with me about it anymore, and will allow that a lot of the so-called psychics probably are fakes. I guess she's at least gaining ground.

Barb

[Correa Neto]

It seems to me that I've always been surrounded by them...
I read a lot of woo-wooish stuff ages ago, sometimes still do, even if just for fun.
Let me see...

-the hollow Earth guys;
-the UFO people (abductee included);
-the people who belive in elementals;
-the eneagram guys;
-those who claim to have seen ghosts or somehow had a contact with the afterlife;
-people who belive in Von Daniken's BS;
-the ancient phoenicians or atlanteans in Rio de Janeiro.

Got tired just to list some... I guess I have some sort of magnet for these people.

[De_Bunk]

Yeh...I got one...

Me and Geller...when i handed him a 10ml "Snap-On" spanner to bend....

Oh yeh...how he just kept on ignoring me...until i placed it in his hands...and shouted..."Bend that"...

He just handed it to someone behind him...

So i kept on...getting louder...and louder..."Bend that"....

And then some woman handed him a fork...and i saw him use two hands...in a real subtle way...So i let everyone know what i just saw...

Ive been removed from more of his shows than i can care to remember...

But he couldnt remove me from a public playing field...in his home town...

His last words to me were...

"Why do you hate me so much"

He reads this board...i know...

Its time this insane gullibilty of people, preyed on by the likes of Geller, stopped...and i hope i contribute to that...

DB

[KelvinG]

When I visited my sister at Xmas a couple of years ago she was reading some book by James Van Pragh. She told me how she really believed in his abilities to talk to the dead.
I tried to talk some sense into her, but she told me she wasn't particularly interested in what I had to say.

So, I began leaving notes around the house the next couple of days signed by dead people.
It really didn't help the situation at all, but it was enjoyable for me. What can I say, I was bored!

[Chupacabras]

Being a member of a large family, I guess we had to expect to have that around.

One of my brothers is a very interesting woo-woo guy, as he incorporates the most varied beliefs as they best fit. I don't know if he is a Chop Suey believer, but I just noticed that there is not a single picture hanging form his walls (which I found strange for a Graphic Designer). In our latest bruise with logic and existential matters, he alleged that cancer was sort of psycosomatic (sp?), or that it depends on your mental predisposition to it wether you are cured or succumb. Of course, many governments around the world (and the tobacco companies themselves) must be into this consipration thing. But I know he is into too much Deepak Chopra.

I also had a neighbor in my student years who was into Gnosticism (there is a formal Gnostic Association around). She handed me a most entertaining book about a guy who says he has been among us for I-don't-know-how-many centuries. I don't know, last time I checked, Mark Hughes was death. One afternoon I got awaked by her yelling at her kids: "Look, a ship". I got to the roof and ther it was, beautiful-shining Venus. I really wished it was her ship.

And speaking of Hughes, another of my brothers is into Herbalife distributorship. The interesting part is that he often comes over to show me what he plans to advertise, and patiently listens to everything I have to say about any point. In the end, I tell him, this is a business, and what I say may not be good to your pocket. Being honest doesn't sell, I know. OTOH, Herbalife appears - by quite a lot - to be the least-bashed of all pyramid schemes, at least on the Internet.

De_Bunk, I would agree that Geller is alive and well and living in this forum, and I got a hunch that I found out who he is. It would be fun to blow his cover, if I could be completely sure.


Edited to kill an atuomated unwanted/invalid URL reference.

[max]

If Feng-Shui can attract riches, how come there are millions of starving Chinese peasants?

[Youngblood]

Oh I have one:

My dad claims he can sense ghosts, even his friends believe him.
My cousin has a third eye, she can see ghosts.
I have a brain, I don't believe in ghosts :P

[Brown]

The most difficult experiences for me have been the ones involving religion, and in particular, experiences involving Christians who have flushed their gift of reason down the toilet.

I have known Christians who think nothing happens by chance, so they see "God's hand" everywhere. They also hold to the belief that they can have anything they wish, merely by praying in Christ's name. They therefore believe in faith healing, prophesy, visions, miracles, Biblical inerrancy, and all sorts of other nonsense peddled by those charlatan televangelists.

It is my experience that most Christians are level-headed, rational folks. But there are some that most certainly fall into the woo-woo category.

[reprise]

Quote:

So, I began leaving notes around the house the next couple of days signed by dead people.

I soooo wish I had thought of doing that to people.

[T'ai Chi]

Quote:

Originally posted by max
If Feng-Shui can attract riches, how come there are millions of starving Chinese peasants?

Maybe because they are all out doing kung fu and doing laundry.

[SRW]

Quote:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi


Maybe because they are all out doing kung fu and doing laundry.

Or it could be that it is just so much BS. I hope it does work because I invested in my sister-in-law's Chinese restaurant and I want to make lots of money from it.

[Jeff Corey]

Quote:

Originally posted by De_Bunk
Yeh...I got one...

Me and Geller...when i handed him a 10ml "Snap-On" spanner to bend....

Oh yeh...how he just kept on ignoring me...until i placed it in his hands...and shouted..."Bend that"...

He just handed it to someone behind him...

So i kept on...getting louder...and louder..."Bend that"....

And then some woman handed him a fork...and i saw him use two hands...in a real subtle way...So i let everyone know what i just saw...

Ive been removed from more of his shows than i can care to remember...

But he couldnt remove me from a public playing field...in his home town...

His last words to me were...

"Why do you hate me so much"

He reads this board...i know...

Its time this insane gullibilty of people, preyed on by the likes of Geller, stopped...and i hope i contribute to that...

DB

De-Bunk,
John Edward is doing a book signing right near me on Sept 5.
You inspire me to wear my Wiccan regalia to it.
Maybe shout, "E's not a medium! Only Satan's minions talk to the dead for money!"
Like that..
I'll keep the cat home, Satan is a bit of a fraidey cat.
Jeff

[reprise]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

De-Bunk,
John Edward is doing a book signing right near me on Sept 5.
You inspire me to wear my Wiccan regalia to it.
Maybe shout, "E's not a medium! Only Satan's minions talk to the dead for money!"
Like that..
I'll keep the cat home, Satan is a bit of a fraidey cat.
Jeff

And you could hand out copies of George Anderson's article condemning TV mediums, too.

[smahon]

To quote the comic genius Paul Merton
"Feng Shui" comes from two chinese words.
"Feng" meaning 'sense' and "Shui" meaning 'more money than..'

[Deetee]

Reprise, just as an aside, what is your HIV involvement?
I am a healthcare worker in the field and have spent a not inconsiderable time on various HIV denialist websites trying (foolishly and predictably failing miserably) to enlighten them to the truth.

[max]

T'ai chi
No it's cos the peasants can't afford to buy plants.......ha ha ha ha ah

[Hazelip]

One of my grandmothers is convince she is psychic.
If I don't place a quarter in each windowsill of my house, my mother gets upset with me.
I have a friend at work who refuses to cook with aluminum in any way, and gets his health advice from our mutually-former supervisor, a former practitioner of homeopathy, and his nearest GNC store.
I live in north Florida, and I am surrounded by nearly every flavor of christian you can imagine. They all bug me.


I'm sure I could think of more, but this is kind of depressing.

[pupdog]

I have run into a HUGE number of folks who believe in dowsing with a religious zeal. One I liked was a lady who had a house built in the county, and needed to pick a site for the well. Her father showed her how to dowse, and she went at it, but it didn't seem to be working. Then she realized that the vial of holy water from some shrine that she carried for good luck was interfering!

More often I went to help people pick well sites after the dowser failed.

[reprise]

Quote:

Originally posted by Deetee
Reprise, just as an aside, what is your HIV involvement?
I am a healthcare worker in the field and have spent a not inconsiderable time on various HIV denialist websites trying (foolishly and predictably failing miserably) to enlighten them to the truth.

My partner contracted HIV in 1984 and died in 1994. For all of that time we were both extensively involved in HIV/AIDS education and political lobbying for both the resources - both social and infrastructure - to contain the spread of the virus, develop better health outcomes for those infected, and change the health laws which impeded progress in the prevention, diagnosis, and management of HIV/AIDS.

Although I still maintain an interest in the HIV/AIDS area (and am somewhat concerned about the increase in the number of new infections being reported), I haven't been actively involved in almost a decade.

[Deetee]

Thanks, Reprise.
DT

[BPSCG]

I just got this in my email, courtesy of the city of Alexandria eNews:

Quote:

Community Resilience Hosts Labyrinth Peace Walk

Alexandria Community Resilience will host a Labyrinth Peace Walk on Thursday, Sept. 11 at Ben Brenman Park, 500 Duke St., from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. The Peace Walk commemorates the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Rain location is the Nannie J. Lee Recreation Center, 1108 Jefferson St.

Labyrinths are patterns offering participants a chance to take 'time out' from busy schedules and stress. The labyrinth allows participants to reflect on change of direction, transition, uncertainty, discovery, and achievement. Among the responses some people report from walking labyrinths are insight and creative ideas, relaxation and stress release, happiness and balance.

Walking the labyrinth will take a minimum of 15 minutes. For more information, contact Tricia Bassing at 703.838.6400.

I love this. Next time bin Laden blows up a building, I'll take a walk in a labyrinth and get insight and creative ideas, relaxation and stress release, happiness and balance.

FWIW, on the woowoo scale, with Berkely CA and Ithaca, NY scoring 10.0, Alexandria is about an 8.2.

Lovely city, though

[Upchurch]

I have a neighbor who reads palms, but is honest about it. She fully acknowledges that it's a cold reading party trick. I love her stories.

There is one where she was invited to a party where she knew the hostest but no one else. The hostest knew she read palms and how and before hand had filled her in on each of the people who were going to be there. Except that when she got there, one extra person showed up that she didn't have time to find anything out about before hand.

My neighbor knew she might be in trouble, so she made sure that she sat across from the new guest at the table and watched her like a hawk all night. After dinner, the hostest asked my neighbor to give everyone a reading. When it came to the new guest, she did her best based on what she'd observed and some lucky guesses. By the end of the night, the new guest was the most visibly shaken, almost in tears, and claimed the highest level of accuracy.

My neighbor didn't have the heart to let them all in on the gag.

[tracer]

Quote:

Originally posted by Yahweh
One of the big things nowadays that the kids are into is something called "Psionics". This is common among kids between the ages of 12 and 14, not so much when they get into highschool... but every now and then I have to deal with the one kid who slipped through the filter and really truely believes he can create balls of "Psi" energy.

Now, wait just a cotton-pickin' minute here!

Back when I was growing up, "Psionics" referred to electronic machines that could either duplicate psychic powers without a brain, or could "boost" the psychic powers of a brain they were attached to. When did "psionics" come to mean the ability to create psychic energy balls?



Of course, "psionics" was also the term used for psychic powers in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but then Gygax was never really someone with his finger on the pulse of the nation.