Exorcism Session: Gwyneth Paltrow Releases New Wellness Show on Netflix

Scientists don't know whether to laugh or cry.

On January 24, Netflix released a documentary series about Gwyneth Paltrow's company Goop – yes, the same one that sells vaginal-scented candles and New Age products allegedly good for health. However, the show's slogan "Reach New Depths" soon began to sound like "Hit a New Bottom": within a day its IMDb rating dropped to nearly one, and scientists who tried to fact-check the episodes concluded there were zero facts. Here's what's wrong with the show disaster The Goop Lab.

Goop and Quantum Physics

The title alone made it clear that The Goop Lab is a thinly disguised advertisement for the Goop brand, which, in addition to clothing, cosmetics and home goods, sells devices for alternative medicine – for example, coffee enemas and skin patches that supposedly "recalibrate the body's energy balance".

The documentary format lends the brand authority: Goop deliberately invited experts to comment on the topics of each episode (healing by laying on of hands, ice baths, psychedelics, female sexuality, etc.) from a scientific standpoint – only it turned out that both the experts and the science should be prefixed with "pseudo-".

The most scathing review of the series was published by Ars Technica. Its medical editor Beth Mole writes that the show's main sin (after its anti-scientific nature) is its appalling dullness. "You might think watching people who have eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms would be fun. But here it is tedious. You are simply shown them lying on the floor, laughing and crying. There is almost no dialogue between the Goop representatives and the 'psychedelic gurus'."

But physicist and columnist Chris Lee was more upset by the chiropractor's references to scientific experiments, given that he heals with laying on of hands. "John Amaral claims he can influence energy flows in the body, my human frequency and blah-blah-blah, 'quantum physics'. He is joined by Apostolos Lekkos, a doctor who 'manages people's energy fields'." The guru waves his hands over Gwyneth Paltrow, who is lying on a table, and she shudders. Goop's content director Elise Loehnen, after a similar procedure, declares: "I have just been exorcised."

After this, Amaral claims that the famous double-slit experiment in physics proves that consciousness can change the surrounding material reality. This experiment, in which a beam of light is passed through two parallel slits, has become a classic example of the mysteries of quantum mechanics because it shows how limited the observer's ability is to predict the outcome of the experiment.

A physicist's comment: "It is true that the double-slit experiment does give an impressive result. But it is also true that if you simultaneously shine a flashlight into the vagina and the anus, it will give an impressive result. Only to explain the second, we don't need quantum mechanics, whereas the first does not depend on your conscious decision to conduct the experiment."

Goop and Anti-Vaxxers

Paltrow's longtime nemesis Timothy Caulfield also took on the new series. Back in 2015, Caulfield, who leads research at the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta, wrote the book "Is Gwyneth Paltrow Always Wrong? How Celebrity Culture Collides with Science". Caulfield sincerely admires Instagram stars but takes a combative stance when they start advising followers on diets, medications and pseudoscientific practices.

"I watched Paltrow's new show and survived," he jokes in a podcast with Jeff McArthur. "What struck me about it is how all the episodes are constructed. They take a tiny bit of science – just so the idea of the series sounds more realistic – add to it fables and fiction without any confirmation, and then season it all with celebrities. As a result, the show gives the impression that the practices discussed really work! Which, of course, is not the case."

Caulfield believes Goop is just part of a global trend in which celebrities sell their (questionable) lifestyles. Among the newly minted gurus he also names Jessica Alba, who founded the wellness company The Honest Beauty, and American football player Tom Brady, who promotes meditation and abstaining from gluten, fruit, mushrooms, dairy, rice, coffee, potatoes and much more.

Their advice can cause physical harm to followers, the expert believes. "All of this affects healthcare. For example, we see the movement of people opposing vaccines growing. This is part of the same trend. But the main negative effect is the destruction of critical thinking," he explains.

Goop and Spiritualists

The health portal Elemental rated the new show higher than its peers. After fact-checking each episode, its author gave the episode about "magic mushrooms" five stars, the one about ice baths five minus, and only the notorious energy healing got a failing grade. But she was puzzled by the last episode of The Goop Lab (which, it seems, not all reviewers reached). In it, medium Laura Lynn Jackson allegedly communicates with deceased relatives of Goop employees – a kind of episode of "Psychic Battle", but still claiming to protect health. "The episode has frightening and funny moments, but there is no hint of a scientific explanation of how contact with the dead might occur, and not even an attempt to rationalize this phenomenon," the author sums up.

And no wonder: The Goop Lab positions itself as a show where people with and without scientific backgrounds have an equal right to speak. And, unlike our Denis Bigus with his notorious show about anti-vaxxers, Paltrow has no intention of apologizing. "In this show, Ivy League PhDs share their research on a par with a man who claims to have invented a breathing technique that helps the body fight E. coli," Bloomberg writes ironically.

"The claim that psychedelics can help a person get over trauma is voiced with the same authority as the medium's claim that after minimal preparation you can communicate with the dead," indignantly writes biologist Jonathan Jarry on the website of McGill University. He points out that in the episode on spiritualism Paltrow refuses to provide scientist Julie Beischel with full transcripts of the medium's sessions, in which the medium guessed information about the deceased relatives of "goopers" – supposedly they need to protect clients' privacy. "Of course, she does not admit that the published transcripts would show how many times the medium was wrong in her guesses," the biologist ironically notes.

Goop and Eternal Youth

Pharmacist and blogger Olivier Bernard questions the scientific basis of the episode devoted to therapeutic fasting. In it, Goop employees change their eating habits, which supposedly benefits their health – for example, Paltrow herself starts eating only 500 calories a day, after which her biological age decreases by 1.7 years.

"Their concept of biological age seems contrived to me: supposedly a blood test can show how the state of your health differs from your chronological age. I know there is a company that performs such a test for $500, but to my knowledge, this has not been confirmed by any medical institution," he explains.

Timothy Caulfield, for his part, adds that the science of aging is still in its infancy. "It mainly relies on studying telomeres – the end segments of chromosomes. Telomeres are a biological marker of aging, but it is much more complicated – you cannot simply measure them and say how old a person is," he says, ironically referring to Paltrow's "rejuvenation".

Yet all calls for critical thinking remain a voice crying in the wilderness: Goop is already valued at $250 million, and the fines issued by regulators for promoting anti-scientific practices are unable to chip off any significant piece of Gwyneth Paltrow's business empire. After all, the wellness business targets those who trust, not those who verify.

Marina Moynihan, TK Media