Davos, an economic summit where the world’s richest people get together and discuss what strategy they’re going to use to screw poor people but also not get marched to the guillotine for another year, has always felt like a cult to me. The fact that someone performed an exorcism on Dancing with the Stars champion Julianne Hough there did not do anything to make it seem like less of a cult.
Honestly, though, despite the caption on the video the particular nonsense this guy is selling looks more like reiki than an exorcism. That’s all about energy and aligning chakras and stuff like that, exorcisms have more throwing holy water.
As for her reaction, well… I had a friend in my younger days who was raised as a Pentecostal and she told me she had actually spoken in tongues the way they claim to, that it was sort of an automatic response that she had no control over. There’s two explanations. One is that my friend was a pathological liar, which is true. The other one is that sometimes you do or say things because of the placebo effect. This is how Ouija boards and hypnotists who get you to cluck like a chicken work.
Hough’s brother Derek Hough left a comment, saying “This stuff looks wacky and crazy but diving into it with the understanding of pure energy is a pretty wild experience. Maybe ahead of its time but worth an open mind.”
Again, it’s bullshit. It appears to work because you’re suggestible and you want it to work. The placebo effect can be powerful, so there could be health benefits to this, but no more than you’d get from taking a sugar pill.
What’s more interesting is that the world’s richest people are so easily susceptible to these kinds of grifts because of course they are. Being rich doesn’t mean you’re smart, Albert Einstein was a patent clerk and Elon Musk is a billionaire.