Let’s Stop Calling It “Woo-Woo”

I don’t like the term “woo-woo”. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that it downplays paganism. If you use the word woo-woo to describe polytheism, anti-God philosophy, occultic practices, shamanic medicine (like jungle healers and witch-doctors), and Satanic world religions, then maybe it will seem like the wrong word to use for you as well. 

I find it’s the word we use when it comes to the weird and bizarre in the holistic wellness world. I think we should stop using it. It makes idolatry sound like no big deal, just some “out there” belief that someone has, which is a little outlandish. That’s just a personal appeal; this article, you could say, is calling out the Woo-in wellness, and I like that play on words, but it makes it sound pretty harmless. I am, however, desperate for women to see it as anything but harmless. 

A Plea to My Brothers in Christ

Ladies, feel free to share this information with your pastor, your husband, or your brothers in Christ so that they can be aware.

This is a plea to my brothers in Christ, the pastors, the laymen, the husbands. Your sisters in Christ are being swallowed quite literally whole by false teaching in the wellness realm right now, and maybe you have a firm understanding of other ways your sisters in Christ have been under attack, like the prosperity gospel, Gnosticism, social justice issues, and the gender war. However, I plead with you to look into the wellness world. This might seem to you like a new, trendy, harmless soapbox. It might seem silly, and women just being women concerned about the health and well-being of their bodies and their families, but brothers, the false teaching side of this could already be in your church, slowly spreading and corrupting the purity of doctrine among the women. The wellness world has a way of making wellness disciples of your sisters as they, out of love and good motives, seek to be the best stewards of their family’s health. I plead with you to take this seriously as the one’s charged with leadership, overseeing, and protection of your flock and homes. It may seem harmless, but your sisters are being swallowed whole by Eastern mysticism, couched as healing modalities. Please don’t think it is “no big deal.” We need you to look here and lead. It is the natural order that the women feed, clothe, and care for the health of their families. What better way for the enemy to cut the men(the leaders) out of the equation than to isolate the women without their oversight? We need you, brothers.

What to Watch For: Problematic Modalities

Ok, now that I have those two aspects out of the way and off my chest, let’s get into the modalities I am speaking about. Christ’s followers are usually aware enough to stay away from psychics, mediums, fortune tellers, crystals, tarot cards, and the more obvious new age practices. However, there are new age beliefs in many safe-sounding alternative medicine practices circulating even in what some would consider the more discerning circles on social media.

• Yoga, (and Holy Yoga) Yoga is a Hindu worship ritual; it cannot be classified in a Romans 14 way, it is not simply the meat offered to pagan gods, it is like the temple, it is a violation of the 1st and 2nd commandment and cannot be redeemed.
• Muscle testing, nutritional testing, or Splankna involves using your body as a pendulum/divination tool. In this practice, the practitioner places a vial of a supplement in the patient’s hand and asks yes or no questions to the “body” (not questioning the actual patient) to determine if “the body” needs that particular supplement. Interestingly, the practitioner often sells the supplement that the body responds “yes” to. Regardless of what the practitioner claims, this method lacks scientific validity. They will even muscle test children through the mother by placing their hands on the mother’s body and, through her body, reading what the child’s body supposedly needs. Much like a Oui·ja board, “the body” is giving the practitioner real answers. This sounds crazy and outlandish, but it works. They will claim this is scientific and simply nerve responses(again, lacking scientific study). However, this is divination.
• Acupuncture comes from the belief that we have a life force (Qi) among our “meridian points.” This comes from Taoism, a pagan belief about their god. Dr. Josh Axe is teaching this on very large platforms. Please look into Dr. Josh Axe and what he believes; he is a syncretist who suggests disease can come from an imbalance of our “yin and yang” energies, even though he claims to be a Christian.
• Homeopathy is an energy medicine based on the occult belief that water has memory (check out Marcia Montenegro’s website Christians Answers for the New Age for detailed information).
• Energy healing, and machines that claim to heal or work with your subtle energy force (also taught by the popular Josh Axe) 
• Craniosacral therapy (CST) is big in the natural birth world and claims to work with the “life force” that they call the “breath of life” in the skull by manipulation with a soft touch. However, it has been Westernized as working with the body’s fascia. This is unproven by any valid scientific journals and is pseudoscience.
• Prana mats or Acupressure mats come from Hindu belief that you must manipulate the life force energy, in this case (Prana), to get rid of energy blockages to promote healing. This is a Genesis 1 attack.
• The Emotion Code book. This is new age and esoteric.
• Law of attraction and Quantum healing (also taught by word of faith pseudoscientist Caroline Leaf who makes the claim that thoughts cause cancer.)
• Bodywork and releasing emotional trauma through stretching. This is the unbiblical belief that trauma is being stored in your physical body like your hips for example.
• Grounding or Earthing. This is the pantheistic and pseudoscientific belief that we connect to the earth and need to recharge for optimal health.

The Common Thread: A False Life Force

All of these modes have the same belief because they come from the same author, the devil: that our body has a god like life force energy. Traditional Chinese medicine, aka Taoism, calls it Qi, Buddhists and Hindus call it Prana, and some chiropractors call it Innate intelligence. Most, if not all, chiropractic schools teach this belief in innate intelligence, and it is on their final exams for them to be certified. The original philosophy behind chiropractic came from the founder, David Daniel Palmer. Candy Gunther Brown has an extensive body of research on this belief in Chiropractic. If you look into these practices, the common denominator in belief is that you have a god-like energy inside of you that connects to a universal god, like Yoda in Star Wars; we could call all of this “the force” if you will. This is simply polytheism and idolatry being sold as new scientific breakthroughs to unsuspecting Christians.

The problem with the Westernized version of these so-called healing modalities is that practitioners, podcasters, and popular holistic “doctors” are leaving the spiritual beliefs out when they disciple women into these beliefs. They will use scientific word salads, lacking any real science, with lots of anecdotal evidence and even Bible verses slapped on to make it sound too good to be true. They will often teach that these modes are “God’s way” because anything anti-big pharma must be, right?

A Warning to the Church: The Danger of Syncretism

New age has crept into the church, warping the way Christian women view healing, it is lacking true hope, and roping women and their children into practices that the Lord calls an abomination. This is not about herbs, diet, and better ways of living; this is paganism, and it has spread like wildfire. It is changing the women’s perception of healing, their bodies, disease, and their worldviews. This is syncretism, and it is dangerous. These practices haven’t spread because of woo-woo; they’ve spread because they work, and that is seemingly all it takes these days to get unsuspecting Christians to buy in. 

Final Words: Be a Berean

I know I will be accused of all kinds of things for saying this, that I am secretly being paid by big-pharma, that I am misinformed or fearmongering, or that I must be a democrat. Friends, this is just not true. I am your concerned sister in Christ who has struggled for years with chronic pain, and I have had to look into the truth claims of these practices because I, too, have been seeking help. God’s grace has been sufficient for me, so I am willing to take those accusations because I love the Lord and you, my dear sisters in Christ, too much to stay silent. I plead with you to avoid these practices and be a Berean by lining everything up with the Word of God. 

Deuteronomy 18:9-12, “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”