From psychic mediums to energy healing and hallucinogenic mushrooms, there are quite a few weird things in Netflix’s The Goop Lab. The new series had its first season release in January 2019, with six episodes that dive into supposed treatments and cures that are actually deeply rooted in pseudoscience.
Netflix had partnered with Gwyneth Paltrow to deliver a series that brings her lifestyle brand Goop - particularly, the weird products and treatments her website shills to wealthy and curious customers - to the general public. After all, this is the company that preaches the benefits of coffee enemas, vaginal steaming, and walking around without shoes so you can absorb the earth’s energy through the soles of your feet.
The announcement that Goop had teamed up with Netflix for The Goop Lab had us wondering how much weirder things could get. Oddly enough, the show is pretty mellow by Goop’s usual standards, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less bonkers! We’re looking into the weirdest things you’ll see in The Goop Lab.
Using Hallucinogenic Mushrooms To Confront Trauma
To kick things off, the first episode introduces Goop staff and their audience to the practice of therapy via the ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The team fly out to Jamaica, where such drugs aren’t illegal, and drink some tea that quickly has them all lying on the floor, laughing hysterically before falling into fits of sobbing as they revisit traumatic periods in their lives. There is some science behind the use of hallucinogens for controlled mental and physical health benefits, so this isn’t the most bonkers thing for The Goop Lab to dive into. Still, the image of all these people embodying the purest cliché of getting stoned has its entertainment value.
Cold Exposure Therapy
The controversial guru Wim Hof is front and center in episode 2, preaching his ethos that his breathing techniques and cold exposure therapy can help with all manner of illnesses and mental issues. While the show overlooks the number of deaths connected to this method and the more outlandish claims Hof makes about his work on his website (including that his techniques can be used to treat multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease), it gives full airtime to his theatrics.
Hof acts like an overexcited folk-rock musician most of the time, and the zenith of his zany antics comes when he leads the Goop team in a session of outdoor yoga with at least a foot of snow on the ground, all while the women are in their scantiest bikinis. It’s certainly a striking image, although it’s hard to shake your skepticism about this process when the women all look freezing and miserable while insisting they feel invigorated by this endurance feat.
Vulvas & Orgasms
Perhaps the greatest, most unironically helpful thing The Goop Lab does across its six-episode run is show a whole lot of vulvas. Episode 3 dives into the topic of sexual wellness and destigmatizing female pleasure. It’s actually the most interesting and genuinely radical episode of the show as Goop’s usual snake oil tactics take a backseat to listening to sex expert Betty Dodson give advice on matters such as orgasms. On top of showing a woman have a full-on orgasm, The Goop Lab gives viewers a direct look at the different shapes, forms, and colors of the human vulva. It’s extremely rare to see such things in entertainment outside of porn, let alone on Netflix, and it goes a long way to helping tackle the way that women’s bodies and desires are scorned and made shameful by society.
The Vampire Facial
In episode 4, Paltrow and her team undertake diet changes and new beauty treatments to see if they can slow down their internal aging process. Alongside a period of intermittent fasting as part of a supposed cleansing diet that consists of as little as 500-800 calories of food per day, Paltrow undergoes a treatment morbidly nicknamed the Vampire Facial. This infamous beauty therapy has been tried by various major celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, who reacted very negatively to it and has admitted she regrets ever trying it. The facial involves the removal of the patient’s own blood, which is then separated from the plasma and re-injected into their face. Medical opinions aren’t exactly united on whether this treatment truly provides the anti-aging benefits it espouses. A New Mexico clinic offering the vampire facial also recently faced a HIV infection crisis through the treatment. The Goop Lab seems to show the treatment more for the novelty value of its name than any possible benefits, since Paltrow doesn’t look any different after receiving it.
Exorcism-Style Energy Healing
The Goop Lab episode 5 is dedicated to the deeply eyebrow-raising practice of energy healing. Energy healer John Amaral is shown mostly waving his hands over people’s bodies without touching them, claiming that this process can help to remove both physical and emotional pain from people. Dancer Julianne Hough turns up randomly as a guest star and devotee of energy healing, and the audience watches as she groans and contorts like Linda Blair from The Exorcist during this intensely loopy process.
The Goop Lab continues to insist that it is merely asking questions and offering viewers an insight into something new, but it’s clear from episodes like this that they blindly believe deeply questionable ideas and never push back against the outlandish claims made. Not one mention is made of the placebo effect, which is widely considered to be one of the most active forces in such “healings”. There is some benefit to placebos as a way to help people relax and overcome anxiety, but it is not a cure and shouldn’t be positioned as such.
The Psychic Medium Offering Treatment
By the season’s final episode, The Goop Lab has entirely given up pretenses of vague skepticism and dives headfirst into the truly loopy by offering up psychic mediums as the new cure-all treatment. Laura Lynne Jackson, a self-described psychic medium, offers readings to the Goop staff. Any attempts the show had made to be informative go out the window with this obvious manipulation, and the show’s implication that psychic readings, which are essentially cold readings that any critical thinker can do, are equivalent in scientific and medical validity to deep breathing techniques is deeply dangerous.
It’s also manipulative when said “psychic” pretends they have connections to people’s dead relatives. The effectiveness of such supposedly psychic activity is rooted in the Barnum Effect, wherein people are susceptible to believing that the most general descriptions (“Hmm, I sense a letter… A?”) apply specifically to them. The entertainment with this episode comes from the one Goop staff skeptic who goes along with the reading and doesn’t buy into any of it. They are the true hero of this series.
