What irrational woo-woo things are you into?

[ertyu]

Me: tarot cards, reiki, freaking out over the occasional "bad omen" I encounter as I move through life

[Toska2]

Myself and others ability to read each other.

[Frita]

Do acupuncture and yoga count?

[ertyu]

Do acupuncture and yoga count?

acupuncture yes, yoga no imo. yoga is stretchy exercise + focus, which are actually proven to work via actual studies

[bostonimproper]

Floating in sensory deprivation tanks. I don't think it's irrational, though it's very woo. Ditto yoga, it helps me a lot with flexibility, but a part of me kind of hates myself for the the cultural appropriation of it all and I always want to stab myself in the heart during the ohm meditative bit at the end.

There are some things I half-believe that feel irrational. Things like God and divine love and that we're all just buzzing energy in the universe, etc. I think there are hyper-perceptive people who seem almost psychic and probably aliens somewhere, but unlike my mother I don't think I'm psychic or have been beamed up to a flying saucer in the night. Sometimes I feel like there are parallel universes that we can almost perceive and on off days worry that the fact that I keep seeing the same people walking on the sidewalks means there's a glitch in the matrix.

[Frita]

@bigato
When I read the question, I interpreted it as what some other people who refer to as irrational and woo-woo. Agreed, if I perceived it as irrational, I wouldn’t do it myself. I once had a complementary sound therapy session as part of a museum entrance. It was interesting, relaxing, but not something I’d pay for as it doesn’t make sense to me. I guess massage also fits my definition.

@bostonimproper
There are so many styles of yoga and instructors. Some studios have what I perceive to be a focus of competition, status, and materialism. It seems they are the places charging $18/session with really skinny people (like child-sized) wearing expensive gear.

Some day I would like to try the sensory deprivation tank. A friend from high school does them and is a fan.

[black_son_of_gray]

I would say that for some things in life, there can be layers to rationality/irrationality, like layers of an onion. Let's say your overarching goal is not to live a "rational" life, but a life full of happiness and meaning. Would you not then, for example, continue to participate in some ritual that you know doesn't necessarily have a rational basis, but provides you with a spiritual satisfaction and enjoyable community? Wouldn't that be rational... to participate in something irrational?

For a more concrete example, some people get beneficial effects out of taking a placebo and they know they are taking a placebo. Should they stop if they are getting what they want? Sometimes irrationality is pragmatic and therefore rational on some level.

[Scott 2]

Sensory deprivation tanks offer a fascinating experience. I highly recommend it. The price and time commitment are too high for me to make a regular practice of it, unfortunately.

Yoga, beyond the simple stretching. A spiritual experience is available. In my experience it emerged from a regular physical practice, despite having zero expectation or desire for something more. I really couldn't have been a more skeptical student. It changed me anyway.

The idea of energetic balance was something I had a very hard time tuning into. But now I can observe disruption in myself, even read the energy of a group. It's cool to watch the shift that happens between the start and end of a yoga class. You can feel it in the opening and closing chant (om) - the disparate states of individual students align by then end.

Once you see the patterns, you can observe them in all sorts of non-yoga domains. The yoga itself is just another mental model for intrinsic human phenomena.

[black_son_of_gray]

hmm...so the OP question is less simple than it seems. [And are we to interpret "woo" as being simply "non-mainstream" or specifically "New Age"?]

You could imagine a four quadrant model with expectations on one side and action (i.e. belief, practice, ritual, etc.) on the other, giving:
1. Irrational expectation of rational action. (e.g. @bigato's drug example?)
2. Irrational expectation of irrational action.
3. Rational expectation of irrational action. (e.g. my placebo that works example)
4. Rational expectation of rational action.

[This setup feels vaguely reminiscent of Cipolla's definition of 'stupidity'... that to be truly "irrational" it has to both have an unreasonably expectation AND and unreasonable action.]

I'm sure I've got a laundry list of things I'm into for all of these categories, even though I'm not sure I could articulate most of them. One problem is: "rational" simply means that there is an underlying reason or a logic to something; that doesn't mean that the reasoning or logic is ultimately sound or true! On the flip side, just about everything I read about quantum physics sounds pretty irrational to me, even though I'm often aware there is sound reasoning or logic behind it.

[7Wannabe5]

Whenever I am afraid to do something like take a left turn into traffic, I tell myself there is at least one possible universe in which I will survive.

Also, telling fortune by opening random book to random page random sentence.

[chenda]

I pinch myself to stop bad things happening. This might be OCD though, because I know its nonsense but can't risk it regardless.

[jacob]

I appreciate how quickly this thread quickly split into a question about rational irrationality vs irrational rationality.

[Jean]

Climate change mitigation

[Mister Imperceptible]

There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness.

[ertyu]

The way I use rational/woo has a lot to do with whether a logical scientific reason behind something can be demonstrated. Thus: yoga is not woo as you can actually show that this type of exercise behefits health. Acupuncture is woo as so far double-blind studies have failed to prove it effective. Note this doesn't mean woo things can't be useful. You might get placebo effect, you might get a positive psychological effect from the ritual of devoting some time each week to having someone attend to your wellbeing (or from the feeling of being cared for). You can also bond with others around TCM as a hobby.

Massage: not woo. During a massage, blood flow to muscles changes which has actual physiological effects. "There's at least one possible universe where I will survive" - woo/irrational. Other universes not proven. But in spite of woo-ness, useful. Makes taking necessary action possible. Meditation: not woo. Change in brain patterns has been measured. Mindfulness-based psychotherapies have been developed. Chanting: imo also not woo. Sound waves are mechanical. So chanting is kinda like internal organ massage + mindfulness in one.

Tarot cards and other fortune telling - irrational/woo. Studies trying to prove ESP have been done. Yet we consistently fail to find proof that people can predict the future. But: useful in spite of irrational. E.g. the other day I kept seeing the number 57 and for some reason decided I am getting a message from the universe that things will turn out in a way that i will work until age 57. Obv. irrational. But my reaction to this was useful: you can observe your own emotional state and thus improve clarity of self-knowledge. YOu can ask yourself, "hn I wonder how this can happen" and thus be more careful about planning. Imo, as far as one doesn't believe the TV speaks to them, one's fine.

[enigmaT120]

Ecstatic dance... only once so far but I liked it and will do it again. I'm not aware that it has any purpose though so maybe it doesn't count as woo.

[reepicheep]

Ecstatic dance is dance church. (also, heart)

Acupuncture.
Thor.
Reincarnation.

[ertyu]

Yoga, beyond the simple stretching. A spiritual experience is available. In my experience it emerged from a regular physical practice, despite having zero expectation or desire for something more. I really couldn't have been a more skeptical student. It changed me anyway.

When you have time, would you mind writing at length about this? I'm finding myself in similar shoes - skeptical yet drawn for some reason.

[HalfCent]

x

[Scott 2]

When you have time, would you mind writing at length about this? I'm finding myself in similar shoes - skeptical yet drawn for some reason.

I started yoga because I was bored working from home. It seemed like an easy social option, that I could talk to people about later.

I was _terrible_ at it, but found myself going back multiple times a week. After straining until my entire body was shaking, I'd end up on all fours halfway through class, fighting not to throw up. Every time. At one point, I tried so hard that my jaw locked up. I couldn't eat hard food for a couple days. That mentality was pervasive through my life. I'd scheduled myself down to 15 minute increments, even brushing my teeth.

The yoga (baptiste - vinyasa in an 85 degree room) met me where I was at. I could try hard. It was fun to learn new stuff. I liked the positive attention. (A man in most yoga classes is given special treatment. He's a trophy for the yoga teacher and studio). My Mom was going to the same place, so there was even a family social aspect to it as well.

So, the part I didn't expect. After the class met my achievement focused energy, it would drain it, by literally exhausting me. From there, my only option was to rejoin the class from a different state. I was forced to practice stillness, just be present. I couldn't win, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, trying harder only meant I'd fail sooner. The only path to victory - participating more fully, was to remember that stillness and use it in my practice.

About 6 months in, I realized it was bleeding into my personal life. I found myself going to that still place at times I'd normally be frustrated, like waiting for my wife. Or getting stuck in a long checkout line. It got easier and easier to visit, eventually to the point where the Baptiste yoga was too aggressive. I didn't have that energy anymore.

Once I was operating from that place of stillness, I started to release a lot of my achievement orientation. I began to recognize there was an energetic trip I'd take with the entire yoga class. Aligning with the group was new to me. I was connecting with people beyond a superficial or goal orientated level. I started to see the possibility to do that same thing off the mat. The yoga studio was just a lab to learn in.

By purposefully constraining degrees of freedom, spiritual ideals become emergent. If I am fixated on anger or anxiety, it stops me from reaching the place of stillness. If I'm hung over, sleep deprived, or malnourished - that all makes it hard to find stillness. Because it feels so good to be there, I'd release those behaviors. In the process, there were fewer walls and was easier to connect with others. That act of connection is the spiritual experience. A group of people can undergo the same path, together. It's powerful.

I later learned this is the Hatha yoga perspective. You start someone with the gross physical practices. When ready, they'll find their way to the more subtle mental and energetic ones. The purpose of documenting those (yoga sutras) is not to set forth a path of study, but to provide reference for what the practitioner will experience. It's far from the only perspective on yoga, but it resonated with my path.

I now have big yoga words for most of this, but I don't think they are needed to have the experience. I'd also note that while in my personal case, coming down from an aggressive energy was the need, that's unique to the individual. Some people may need to find aggression. Part of the teacher's role is reading an individual and offering the space that meets them.