The Woo Woo Book

One of my first memories of childhood is of visiting a neighbor’s house with my parents. There was a lamp with a cord that went under a rug in the living room, and I remember slowly and carefully pulling up the rug (with everyone watching and laughing) to see where the cord went. I followed the length of the cord to the outlet on the wall and was satisfied that I had found the starting point. Cords and wires – and making sense of the world - fascinated me from an early age. Other early elementary school age memories are of my dad and I spending hours together building various circuits with a battery, a light bulb, and switches. In college, I got my degree in computer science, and went on to write software for several companies. I then started and ran a computer tech support business for many years. I am (or was) all tech. I’m a product of two parents with PhDs: both taught in universities, and both were authors. My sister is a doctor, my brother is a research chemist, and my other sister is a veterinarian. Intellectual pursuits pervade our family. We were also a religious family. My dad was a pastor for his entire career, and both parents participated fully in the church and the well-known university associated with our Christian denomination. For these reasons, I have a unique perspective on why someone might object to the world of woo-woo. Some Quick Context What’s “woo-woo” again? Well, woo-woo is the term often used to describe the using of your intuition, learning to listen to the messages of the Spiritual side; it’s ESP, it’s healing bodies by laying on of hands, it’s speaking to Spirits, it’s reading Tarot cards to get an answer to a burning question. The world of woo-woo is at odds with my intellectual upbringing and at odds with my Christian upbringing. And yet, I am all in on woo-woo. I see three main objections to woo-woo—those rooted in the intellectual, in the religious, and in modern culture. We’ll talk about each, one chapter at a time. Intellectuals scoff at woo-woo because it isn’t scientific. (Actually, it is, but we’ll get to that.) Established religion shuns woo-woo because it is forbidden. (Also not true, but we’ll get there, too.) And modern life keeps us distracted and annoyed, such that we have no knowledge that there might be a better way, and seemingly no time to explore it. For me, woo-woo is why we are here on this planet. Woo-woo is what brought me to immeasurable peace in my life, it even changed my personality. With woo-woo, I can be calm and patient in the face of stress and difficult situations. And it has brought such joy and happiness to my life, I can hardly contain it! The Beginning We’ll begin with scientific objections, but I want to take a quick pause and provide a little context on my religious upbringing, as much of these conversations are intertwined. I was brought up in a Protestant religious household. Discussions of faith and religion were part of the fabric of my family. My Christian heritage gave me a strong moral compass but also the permission to ask hard questions and challenge teachings and assumptions. The beginning of my Spiritual journey started with a search for happiness. At that time, many questions began going through my mind; one question was the question of faith, religion, and God. It’s the big “What if” question—what if this whole religion thing was a construct of our own minds? What if it’s not true? I think part of “growing up” as a human being is making decisions about your beliefs—that is, “What do I believe, and why do I believe it?” When I began to search for Truth, I began to question everything. I questioned what I had been taught growing up, both Christianity and religion in general. Was any of it really true or had I just accepted everything I had been handed? What if there isn’t a God? What if the idea of a soul is just an imaginary thing? What if we're just a brain in a body? What if when we die, that’s the end? I took that last question seriously. I started thinking about all the assumptions that a religious upbringing provided and, for the first time in my life, I became open to considering the possibility that churches and religious groups might be a huge waste of time and energy. Maybe religious organizations were all talking about something imaginary. Sure, the social programs of churches were good, and the teachings of being a better person were helpful, but the premise of a soul or Spirit suddenly seemed like complete fiction. In the beginning of my journey, these questions were some of the most challenging to grapple with. I vividly remember sitting in church during the most difficult part of my life and hearing the pastor speak about what God wants us to do. I was thinking, do you really know God? And do you really know what he wants us to do? How absurd. We don’t even know our next-door neighbors, let alone know “God.” As I watched religious disagreements in the news and read of modern wars and attacks over whose version of God was correct, it all seemed even more ridiculous. If God doesn’t exist, and if the soul doesn’t exist, then we’re expending a whole lot of energy on nothing. I remember the realization washing over me that a huge portion of my upbringing and of my present life were potentially meaningless. Imagine all the resources and energy put into building churches, ordaining ministers, debating scripture, writing commentaries, studying minute differences in language in this scripture versus that scripture. Then think of all the other world religions with their buildings of worship, clergy, scriptures, debates, and discussions! A huge amount of energy and resources for imaginary things! As I grappled with this conclusion, it wasn’t all bad. In one way, this realization made life easier. I didn’t have to worry about an afterlife, or what I should be doing or commandments or any set of rules. I just had to create a reasonably comfortable life for myself, not hurt anyone else, get through to old age without a major screw-up or painful disease, and I'd be OK. Easy, right? In another way, though, I was sad to see this part of my life dry up. I had been brought up in a Christian home, with Christian parents, an outstanding education in a Christian school, and having most of my relatives in missions or the ministry. Science played a part in this struggle, too. I had read enough science books and articles to know that modern scientists had figured out a lot of how the brain works and found no evidence of a soul or Spirit. Many of the so-called religious experiences could be simulated with chemicals; dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins were all measurable and linked to happiness. God and soul were constructs of our own minds, tools used by religions to keep us in line, and focused on getting through life. If the soul and God weren’t real, what was the source of happiness? Well, wasn’t I too stressed and worried about day-to-day life to find out?! It suddenly seemed as though the major foundations of my life – religion, scientific inquiry, and many aspects of the modern world around me – were leaving me stranded. I knew I wasn't really happy with my life, and suddenly realized that I only had this one life to enjoy. I’d better make the most of it, and I needed to figure out how to do so. What do you do when you need to figure something out? Well, I began reading books on happiness. What does it take to become happy? The solutions presented in books were all over the map—happiness was elusive, it could be achieved by regimen, it was only found in human relationships, or it could be achieved by service to others. There are many, many books on creating or discovering happiness. The idea of a “brain in a body” concept stuck with me until I read one particular book and my journey to self-discovery took off.