Is woo on the rise or just where I live?

[HangingOver]

I permanently relocated to the South West a few years ago after being a long term weekend visitor for about 5 years....and I've noticed the rise in the amount of woo practitioners in the area has totally exploded!

They range from harmless stuff like dancing naked around the forest with no clothes on (but always mysteriously with a photographer on hand for Instagram!) to more questionable stuff like "yoni steaming" and putting their periods on their faces, to the downright alarming stuff like Kambo (if you don't know what that is it's where a lunatic with no medical training burns you then applies this stuff to the burn that comes out of a poisonous frog in the Amazon, and you really violently vomit and have the shots and sometimes your face and skin swells up). There's also a woman nearby who seems to be a sort of doula (sp?) who specialises in helping you to give birth avoiding medical intervention of any kind at all costs....which seems a bit questionable!

I thought I was quite a fuzzy live and let live type but it's starting to annoy me. My lovely housemate who had a traumatic past is into it and it makes me sad that she goes to the legnths of poisoning herself to try to vomit up "bad energy" She's not bad, she's lovely.

Is this just a local thing or are other seeing a rise in "magical" and "goddesses" near them?

Yes near me- small town- a couple have opened since lockdown.

That was supposed to say "magick" (I don't know why they spell it with a k)

Are you in Totnes or Bristol?

checks CV

“lunatic with no medical training” you say? What are the hours?

DD is 16 and apparently all teens believe in astrology these days (so maybe you are right).

it’s a lot more accessible with Instagram, tik tok, etc

Sounds like Totnes

A spiritual circle type thing has started in our village and it meets once a month, the woman who runs it seems to be worshipped, (even though she passively aggressively dramatically enhances the slightly little thing) from this has sprung a group of people dousing, reiki, tarot reading, chanting and from this she has managed to open a shop selling all the things these people use.

🤣

I have an online woo shop
Lots of old ravers are now woo enthusiasts
I wouldn't go near a kambo party though

Yes but Totnes has been woo forever, it’s hardly a “recent explosion”…

googles Kambo

Ds tells me a lot of the people he goes to college with are into witchcraft, woo and satanism.

Sounds like Penzance in the 90s.

Ah,my misspent youth.

😁You’d make a killing.

I hadn’t thought about it OP, but you might be right.

oh god, it is the end of days..

mind you TBF I did once do Ayahuasca but just because I thought it would be a lively trip (it was), not to drive out my internal devil (who is alive and kicking and I’m fond of her 👹

Astrology is harmless- whatever encourages you, work away.
Periods on faces and naked dancing? That sounds pretty annoying to be fair.

I absolutely hate woo. I got pulled into it whilst infertile and it damaged me :(

I know people think it's harmless but it isn't always.

All the nonsense about crystals seems to have become really mainstream of late because Holly Willoughby wrote a book about it, apparently.

Plus 'manifesting'. Makes me raaaage. 🙄

Apparently it's a thing that people get more spiritual- both woo-y and organised religion-y after times of social upheaval.

I read that on Twitter, so it's obviously 100% true.... but I thought it was interesting as I have noticed it too.

They sound like the set-up for an episode of Midsummer Murders.

I think it’s a replacement for religion. Humans enjoy ritual, beliefs etc. and a lot of these look good on the gram, has to be said. I think generally, happy and content people don’t go down this path.

Why is the south west the woo capital of Britain? Please don’t say it’s because of the magic emanating from Glastonbury Tor, or whatever. Is it a social thing?

I only know of a couple of woo people here. She runs various woo courses which she advertises on Facebook. She's always saying that there is just a few places left which I assume is marketing speak for nobody has booked yet.

Near the start of the pandemic someone else was asking about local springs. The water would be subject to a special ritual and would then protect you from Covid apparently.

There are a lot of what my aunt would call odd bods in Totnes, I think it's on a par with Glastonbury.

My guesses: Totnes, Glastonbury (or maybe, say, Street or Somerton, as Glastonbury overflows), Frome and environs, Wells, bits of Bristol.

Although I think YANBU generally. The town I live in (West Wales) has not one but two crystal shops, and they do seem to have appeared all of a sudden.

Ley lines.

<nods sagely>

Stroud maybe.

It be the west country ooo arr- twas ever thus. Now if somebody could do an MLM of woo then we'd be able to keep them all in one place mithering each other and leaving us skeptics alone.