In case there was any doubt as to the status of Prince Harry’s defection from the royal family, consider the revelation in his no-holds-barred memoir, Spare, that he had sought guidance from a woman who claimed to have ‘powers’ and could relay a message from his late mother. Nothing says hard-exit from the stiff upper lip brigade like an admission of embracing the woo-woo.
But Harry is far from the only one finding solace in the strange. Pseudoscience and spiritual healing practices that were once niche have gone mainstream. Whatever gets you through the night, and all that. In Fitzrovia’s Mandrake Hotel guests can order room service from the Spiritual Concierge menu (think shamanic healing and sound frequency alignment instead of a burger in bed). Crystals are available to buy from Net-A-Porter; #tarot has 61.6 billion views on TikTok. Bumble has a resident astrologer; at the party to celebrate Mayfair boutique Koibird’s fifth birthday, attendees were treated to tarot readings and aura photography. Goop is valued at $250 million. ‘Mercury retrograde’ has taken up permanent residence in popular parlance as a catch-all to explain both major catastrophes and minor inconveniences.
I say all this from a place of zero judgement. I have consulted psychics and shamans and manifesting coaches. I am a typical Pisces. I have given, and received, crystals, taken gong baths and wafted sage around my flat to rid it of bad energy. Reader, in a moment of particular crisis, I once bought a cauldron (spoiler: just a pot). ‘People are more open to alternatives. Now it’s more out there, it’s not pooh-poohed in the same way. It’s not all airy fairy, witchy. I think the perception’s changed,’ says Jayne Wallace, the comfortingly straight-talking clairvoyant whose Psychic Sisters has an outpost in Selfridges and who has worked with Kim Kardashian and Kate Hudson.
Reader, in a moment of particular crisis, I once bought a cauldron
Yasmin Sewell worked in fashion for years but always had an interest in the esoteric. Trained in different forms of energetic healing, in 2019 she left her job as vice-president of style and creative at Farfetch and in 2021 founded Vyrao, a line of fragrances ‘that were about emotion first’ (each bottle contains a supercharged, ethically sourced Herkimer diamond crystal). ‘After I left Farfetch I started to feel like the world was really changing. We had gone into quite an astrological shift. I was just sensing that people were much more open to the subject and that perhaps what I was into wasn’t what would be considered weird’.
While the image makeover no doubt helps, arguably the increase in demand is also down to global chaos. Covid starkly floodlit how little control any of us have. The pandemic saw ‘a lot of people who opened up, who needed something. There was a global need to open and soften,’ says Tori Boughey, a holistic health coach and the founder of TBalance, a line of crystal jewellery stocked in Liberty and Selfridges, among others (Bella Hadid wears the rose quartz bracelet). ‘We can’t control everything; in the last few years more people were forced to understand that.’ Interestingly, post-pandemic healers report an increase in men seeing them (see Prince Harry). Wallace says the client base at the Psychic Sisters is now a 50/50 split between men and women. Someone else tells me they are seeing ‘a lot more alpha men’.
But here’s the sticky bit: are we replacing psychiatry with psychics? And can science and spirituality happily coexist in 2023? Personally, I see a brilliant therapist once a week, whose work has transformed my life; but I have also found enormous comfort in the spiritual. To both I think I have taken one big question — ‘Is it going to be okay?’ — and we have tackled it from different perspectives.
‘Psychotherapists, psychologists and psychics often get confused or put in the same category in which some individuals believe all these professions can “mind read” in some way,’ says Jade Thomas, psychotherapist and founder of Luxe Psychology Practice. ‘However, it’s important that these professions are not to be confused and that individuals have an understanding that psychological therapy does not involve mind reading or fortune telling.’ Using the two in conjunction, she says, is ‘dependent on a case-by-case basis’. She cautions that ‘if someone is experiencing difficulties or changes to their mental health it is important that they receive the correct support from a qualified mental health professional such as a psychotherapist or psychologist.’
We can’t control everything; in the last few years more people were forced to understand that
Professor Chris French is head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at Goldsmiths University of London and the author of The Science of Weird Shit, out next year. Despite referring to himself as a ‘card-carrying sceptic’ he has a generous outlook on people who do believe. ‘There’s a big difference between: “Are these claims actually true?” and “Do they do any good or any harm?” They’re different questions.’ When I tell him that, after the death of her husband at 32, my sister, crippled with sadness found great comfort in seeing a medium, as well as a grief counsellor, he says, ‘and why would I want to take that comfort away from her? It’s heartless and cruel.’ Similarly, Dr Lucy Viney, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Fitzrovia Psychology Clinic, says that ‘although they’re not evidence-based’ spiritual healing practices ‘can offer a sense of hope and comfort to people at times of distress. The role of hope is huge in recovery.’
French says there is a lack of decent out-come studies looking at whether or not woo-woo can do more harm than good. ‘We talk in psychology about a personality construct called the locus of control, the general disposition people have either to believe that the things that happen in their lives happen because of their own actions and own decisions or they happen to them, they are victims of circumstance. By and large it’s considered to be psychologically healthier to have an internal locus of control, to take control of your own life. But the truth is, of course, that sometimes shit happens just out of the blue that you have no control over, and other times you do have control.’
The traditional therapists are there for a reason, but there is such an enormous space for us to lean into the ‘woo-woo’
Just as the psychologists and therapists I speak to, both on and off the record, are generous in their accommodation of psychics, mediums and the like, believing that they can do good even if they don’t think they can do exactly what they say, so are the believers surprisingly sensible and grounded. Sewell, for instance, has worked with the same psychic for the past 12 years. ‘She always says to me, “I’m not God.” And I don’t always presume her to be right.’ Atheists don’t need to scoff at a person’s belief in God, and similarly science and spirituality don’t need to be adversaries. As Boughey says: ‘The traditional therapists are 100 per cent there for a reason, but there is such an enormous space for us to lean into the ‘woo-woo’. I think just us opening our eyes to a combination of healing through the spiritual side of things and then healing through the more traditional styles is so key. A bit like taking medication and going to therapy. It’s a whole 360 approach to wellness’.
‘I’m not one size fits all,’ says Emma Lucy Knowles, a healer, clairvoyant and ‘crystal whisperer’. ‘I think what people love about it is my work isn’t about saying to people, “This is your good fortune, off you go.” My approach is very much, “Okay, this is where your head is. Do you like that? If you like that let’s build on it, if you don’t let’s change it.” I find a lot of my clients take the work they’ve done here to their therapy sessions. Healing is not linear, it’s not just one thing. You can find healing when you’re on a run, you can find healing watching a film, you can find healing drinking a bottle dry. It’s about tailoring it to what works for you.’
‘I think everything has a place, I’m open to everything,’ says Sewell. ‘I trust the science, I also trust the psychic. Sometimes I’ll see a homeopath, sometimes I’ll see my NHS doctor. I think for me it’s about embracing all, and what feels right.’ And isn’t the searching in itself positive? The fact that we are talking about our interior lives, however you come at it, can only be a good thing.
I think of the 17th-century metaphysical poet George Herbert’s poem Prayer (I). In it he explores a series of definitions for the act of praying — ‘The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage’, ‘Exalted manna’, ‘The Milky Way, the bird of Paradise’ — before simply concluding: ‘something understood’. That surely is what we’re all looking for: to understand. However we get there, is entirely down to us.
