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Lead book review

The tyranny of 1970s self-help gurus

Clients pursuing ’true self’ were expected to wear identical clothes, shave their heads, self-flagellate and be ‘given hell’, while paying through the nose for it

16 March 2024

9:00 AM

16 March 2024

9:00 AM

Well Beings: How the Seventies Lost its Mind and Taught Us to Find Ourselves James Riley

Icon, pp.384, 20

As any book about the rise of that most nebulous idea ‘wellness’, should, James Riley’s Well Beings begins with Gwyneth Paltrow, purveyor of ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’ candles, ‘Metabolism-Boosting Super-powder’ and nostrums about mindfulness and ‘self-care’ – for which read self-indulgence. In 2019 Paltrow’s company Goop chartered a luxury liner for a ‘Goop at Sea’ extravaganza, at which attendees were invited to spend $4,200 for the ‘basic’ cruise and a suite at the ship’s onboard spa, and a further $750 for the event itself, the highlight of which would be an appearance by the high priestess of wellness herself.

Goop...

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