Healing and Believing
Awkward encounters with the woo-woo
When my father was a college student, he attended a lecture by a visiting kundalini master. My dad was and is an atheist Marxist. He lacks patience for relaxation, deep breathing, or anything approximating the supernatural. But he was hanging out that day with a good friend who was a believer, so off they went. When they arrived at the lecture hall, it was packed to the gills with enlightenment seekers. By the end of the night, the yogini onstage was describing how rare it was to encounter someone whose primal kundalini energy had uncoiled fully from the root chakra, out through the top of the skull. “In fact,” she said, “there’s only one person in the room today whose kundalini is awakened.” She pointed a firm and unwavering finger directly at my dad, squeezed in at the back of the room. “YOU.” A thousand heads turned in tandem to look at my father.
I myself have never been accused of enlightenment. I have a relationship with the mystical in the same sort of way that people in the Victorian era had a relationship with sex: moderately freaky behind closed doors, but tightly corseted and socially constrained in the public sphere. Sure, I’m a seeker. I’ll try most things once. Yes, I run in circles whose belief systems brush up mildly against the metaphysical. My friends might swap astrological memes on the group chat, or draw tarot cards after dinner. I can absolutely talk “Big-3,” smudge the house, and light a prayer candle with the best of them. But in truth my relationship with the spiritual (like my religion) is kept very close to the chest. There's something that I find particularly nerve wracking about group woo-woo’ing. It sends my social anxiety into overdrive.
Take the time I was at a work happy hour some years ago, casually discussing cult documentaries. My favorite coworker – the last person you might imagine to say something like this – offered up a personal confession: “oh yeah, I was a big follower of Osho meditation back in the day. I actually keep meaning to go to this meetup group around the corner.” Agog, my first question was: OKAY, so are we going?! [Or rather, that was my second question – the first question was obviously: had there been weird sex stuff involved??]
We found ourselves amidst a dozen friendly strangers in a repurposed adult-education classroom of some kind, ready for a guided journey to mind-body bliss. The group leader instructed us to rainbow our hands overhead in seven protective arcs, tying strands of energy like invisible shoelaces above our heads. I dutifully pantomimed, within the confines of the desk+chair combo seats we each occupied. After the session, the group leader singled me out to describe precisely what I felt in my body. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, feeling clammy. Everyone in the room was looking at me so expectantly, earnestly. I emitted a small, nervous beer burp and suddenly experienced an overwhelming urge not to disappoint these nice people.
“Well, I guess a sort of…tingling? In my hand?” The facilitator lit up with genuine enthusiasm: “Ooooh, which hand?” I pointed. “Wow,” he said reverently, “the right side of the body...You have many things you are ready to let go of.”
Had I said the right thing? Would it not have been insulting to say I felt nothing? I felt a twinge of shame, which I promptly atoned for by providing them with my full contact details and home address before dashing out into the city night.
Or there was the time a friend exhorted me to seek counsel from her spiritual guide, a kindly and blowsy woman with whom I would need to videoconference from across the country. When the psychic called the archangels by name into the room with me (via Skype!), and asked whether I could sense their presence, I said, “Sure!” When she asked if I saw my guardian angel, I said "mm." I agreed enthusiastically with all her questions, even when my wavering wifi connectivity left me unsure precisely what we were talking about.
She went on to tell me about the three metaphorical knives buried in my back, symbolizing three great betrayals I had suffered. “Does that resonate?” she asked. At first I said "no…?" but as soon as I sensed her face begin to fall, I walked it back: “--But maybe! I’ll have to think on it!” She nodded, pleased. I felt a surge of tenderness at having set her at ease. I wanted to placate her, more than I wanted to experience the seraphic guidance of the world beyond.
I’d been “nice,” but it didn’t feel very good. I had mirrored back what I thought she’d want to hear, without offering anything truthful about myself. I hadn’t been very gracious to my friend’s desire to help, nor made good use of anyone’s time, including the archangels that had been unceremoniously Skyped into South Brooklyn.
Recently, another friend invited us to join her on a self-described "woo woo" birthday gathering. A small group, mostly new to me, convened at an energy healer’s cozy studio. The gathering began with a “light breathing exercise.” After some minutes the energy healer announced to the room,"The room feels different. The air has a color. Do YOU see it?" Her eyes widened expectantly in my direction. I felt myself teetering on familiar, nervous ground. "Yep!" I lied, vigorously nodding.
Oh, noooo. In a rush, I remembered how shitty I’d felt about my disingenuous Skype call, and with those friendly kundalini cult people. How my “nice” acquiescence had turned out so graceless and condescending. I flushed with shame. I looked across the room at my friend, who had included us in this experience with such care. She caught my eye and smiled with such warmth that I suddenly relaxed. My self-involved discomfiture was wholly unneeded here.
For the remainder of the gathering, I just…chilled. When we went on a meditative journey to locate our “grandmother tree,” I quelled the part of me that wondered (A) what that could possibly mean, and (B) whether I’d say the right thing, afterwards. When it came time to share, I didn’t worry about what I might say. I instead listened and delighted in the wholehearted observations from the others. I was honest about my own insights. I didn’t receive any divine messages, and (thankfully) didn’t pretend I had. I just let myself enjoy being together with new people, and – I think – genuinely felt a mutual spark of friendship.
If there was any revelation I had that day, it was that the mystical aspect of these experiences has always been a red herring. Group spirituality isn’t the scary part — it’s the vulnerability. If you take away the grandmother trees, the spiritual knives, and the kundalini shoelaces, the best way to truly connect with people is to offer up your honest self, and let it be received as it will. Which sometimes means finding a way to say: “I’m not sure what’s going on,” or “I didn’t really feel it,” but I am glad to be here, with you.
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