WTF cycling product.?!^%

I absolutely hate all esoteric bullshit and while I applaud tynan in a way for wasting these people's time, I couldn't be motivated to do it in this way at all. What makes me sad is not only the total bastardisation of the infrequent grains of truth that esoteric beliefs can contain, but that it is a major draw for people with certain mental health problems (who often desperately cling to grains of truth they find only there but take on all the remaining bullshit)--and people who peddle this stuff are criminal (but see various qualifications below), in my view.

I personally know a few people who bought into esoterics as a form of explanation big time. A very good friend of mine is currently 'missing'--apparently bumming around the town where we grew up, but in a bad state. There have been several sightings of him but no real news. This is apparently following a working over by the sort of people who make it their specialism to be highly manipulative and dangerous to vulnerable individuals--modern sophists, really, a deeply unsettling section of today's society. I don't know anything for certain, but he articulated a lot of bizarre beliefs to me on a number of occasions as he slid further into trouble. I was very alarmed by this and told him in no uncertain terms, which led to him pretty much cutting ties. I just hope he's well and gets through this reasonably unharmed, if he ever gets through it. Needless to say, there are drugs involved.

The problem is that these bizarre beliefs don't just come out of nowhere. They are generally born from some desperate need for explanation. Vulnerable people can easily be taken in if such 'explanations' make them feel better, and in some cases these may even be life-saving in the short term. They're never a solution, of course, being born from a hacking together of historical sources (whether ridiculous riffs on philosophical writings, or mediaeval alchemy or 'shamanic' tradition or bizarrely distorted elements of Buddhism and other spiritual traditions) with some fertile imagination thrown in to perpetuate the tradition of myth-making.

The aforementioned desperate need for explanation would usually involve hard work that many people with a lack of education and/or with mental health difficulties simply can't carry out. They instead mistake consolation (of sorts), or even, in some cases, mysticism or mystery (and doubtlessly some other possible nuances), for explanation.

Esoterics is easy to read about for such people, seemingly easy on the mind. It'll simply do your head in if you're not of such a mindset. People just believe it for a while and it 'all falls into place'. Unfortunately, it seals your mind (it's not called 'esoteric' for no reason, although that word referred originally to knowledge not available outside a certain circle) and can perpetuate conditions that in some cases a decent crisis might enable people to snap out of--much as, mind, it is a lot safer for some people to believe this stuff as their version of a crisis might be genuinely life-threatening.

In some cases, that safety might even require buying nonsensical props like the ones in this thread, to use as a pseudo-placebo--not even good enough to be a genuine placebo (as that would leave things pretty much the same except in some cases for the person's belief in healing bringing about improvement), but I genuinely believe that esoterics as a more or less full apparent belief-system is always harmful, even if it brings short-term benefits. I'm not talking about mildly superstitious people who might have a good-luck charm in their pocket like Fabian Cancellara, but about genuinely troubling cases, some of whom I've met.