Defense of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop offers case study on how to sell snake oil | Ars Technica

This week, Gwyneth Paltrow’s high-profile lifestyle and e-commerce site, Goop, gave birth to a beautiful gift to the Internet—and it wasn’t a moon-powered vagina egg that invigorates our mystical “life force.” No, it was a perfectly crafted reference guide for how to sell snake oil.

It’s really quite impressive.

In case you’re unfamiliar—or just need an empowering refresher—Goop is a site directed mostly toward affluent women that peddles pricy products and overuses the word “empower” while dabbling in many forms of pseudoscience and quackery...

Read on: Defense of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop offers case study on how to sell snake oil | Ars Technica

Crystal healing “empowers us to lead a more meaningful life”

Originally, I had meant this blog to discuss all types of alternative therapies – well, perhaps not all (there are simply too many of them), but at least the most popular ones. And so far, I have omitted one that seems certainly quite wide-spread: CRYSTAL HEALING.

What the Dickens is crystal healing, you ask? It is the attempt to bring about healing with the power of crystals, of course. And how is it supposed to work? This is where things get quite nebulous; this website, for instance tells us that...

Read on: Crystal healing “empowers us to lead a more meaningful life”