Moe Tkacik takes a close look at the ways in which wealthy, new-agey Rebekah Paltrow Neumann — Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin, Adam Neumann’s wife — helped fuel WeWork’s rise and spectacular fall.
new age
Posted inEditor's Pick
Group Therapy for the End of the World
A chronicle of a week spent in the Swedish countryside, at a workshop designed to help participants come to terms with impending environmental doom.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Why Do Millennials Love Horoscopes? (Hint: It’s Not Only Because They’re Free)
A new audience finds comfort and meme-ready material in an old pseudoscience.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The New Age of Astrology
What’s behind the recent surge of interest in astrology — especially among millennials?
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Nonfiction, Quotes
Introducing the ‘Davos for Happiness,’ Powered by Coconut Water
Who needs fear and loathing in Las Vegas when you can have joy and harmony in Miami?
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Weekend at a Conference for the Super-Happy
In Miami, a motley crew of scientists, new-age gurus, and TED-flavored influencers join forces to help us all “choose happiness.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Wellness and Self-Care Became a Sinister Ideology
The gospel of yoga, mindfulness, and organic-everything didn’t come out of nowhere. In a world in which once-cherished social safety nets rapidly disappear, taking care of oneself has become an increasingly privatized—and increasingly expensive—endeavor. At The Baffler, Laurie Penny unpacks the ascendant ideology of self-care, and explains why it’s so hard to find an alternative […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Cashing In On Tech’s Spiritual Awakening
Maybe it’s no surprise, then, that many tech workers in San Francisco turn to psychics for a glimpse of the future. Or that psychics, in turn, are rebranding themselves as spiritual therapists, executive coaches, and corporate counselors. The trend is common enough to be spoofed on HBO’s Silicon Valley, where the show’s fictional tech CEO confers […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Aldous Huxley’s Influence on the Esalen Institute
Although Murphy and Price [Michael Murphy and Dick Price, Esalen’s founders] actually met Aldous Huxley only once, in January of 1962 when the author visited them briefly in Big Sur shortly before his death on November 22, 1963 (the same day, it turns out, that JFK was assassinated), his intellectual and personal influence on the […]