Alyssa Bereznak

Absolutely.

I think that oftentimes we aren't exposing ourselves to community, to messiness, to this larger group that's focused more on the benefit of the collective than the self.

Yeah, I recently attended the Conscious Life Expo, which is this long running convention that is, I would just call it the wooest of the woo.

And there's like these more mainstream, I would say, workshops that focus on breath work or sound baths or feng shui or what have you.

And then there's something called the rabbit hole, which is like where all the conspiracy theorists go.

That contingent has really grown.

I was there a few weekends ago and taking part in something called like a past life regression session.

I won't get into that.

I was going to say, I don't know what that is.

Not worth getting into.

Okay.

But through the wall, I could hear someone who was like an intense anti-vaxxer.

And hearing the very like light sort of meditative voices of the practitioners from Sedona who were trying to get us to like meditate about a past life regression.

And then the contrast of like someone who's very angrily sort of ranting about vaccines.

To me, that embodied the culture of wellness really well.

I've also experienced that the wellness industry has collaborated with churches to hold their sessions in these places that feel spiritual.

I think it goes both ways.

I've been to yoga classes in giant churches or sound baths in the Grace Cathedral Church here in L.A., and the two lend themselves to one another constantly.

Engineering support came from Zoe Vanganoven.

in speaking about this stuff, I often reference a 2023 Pew poll. They found that 22% identified as not religious, but spiritual.