Your Friday Dose of Woo: An iPod of woo

Alright, now they've gone too far.

I can take a lot from woo-meisters. I can watch them claim that water has some sort of "memory" and that diluting a compound to nonexistence somehow seemingly by magic makes it more powerful and chuckle at their silliness. I can listen to them claim that by "alkalinizing your body" you can cure all manner of disease. I can even sit back and be somewhat amused when woo-meisters claim that making wine in a pyramid aligned to true north infuses it with pyramid power and makes it better or when they claim that drinking your own--shall we say?--reproductive bodily fluids can produce a "feedback loop" that cures cancer. I can handle all these things and more--and have over the last year or so. There are some things, however, that I cannot abide.

As a word of background, I happen to be a Mac person. I love my Macs. I have a Mac Pro at home and at work, and I use a MacBook as my laptop. I encountered the original Mac in 1984 when my college roommate was one of the first people on campus to buy one of them through the university. Since 1991 or so, my computers have been nothing other than Macs. I only use Windows machines when I'm forced to. I also love my iPod. It's chock full of all my music, thousands upon thousands of songs that I can carry with me almost wherever I go. Messing with Apple or the iPod is one sure way to annoy me.

And that's just what one woo-meister company has done. It's produced an iPod of woo.

It's hard for a devoted Mac-head not to point out that this is nothing other than an ordinary iPod mini (the black-and-white screen definitively gives it away), which was supplanted by the iPod nano a couple of years ago. This of course, brings up the question of whether this is just an old picture being used by the website or whether this company is selling two-year old iPods filled with woo. Be that as it may, let's see what this particular iPod, called the e-Lybra iPod System, can do for you:

Create your own Personalised Energetic Balancing programme with the e-Lybra iPod System.

The primary recommended use of the e-Lybra iPod System is to create personalised energy balancing sessions using the "ON THE GO" function.

Somehow, I'm guessing that Steve Jobs didn't have this in mind as a use for the "on-the-go" playlist function of the iPod. Leave it to the woo-meisters to come up with new and better ways to bring their woo to the masses. But what type of woo are we talking about? Let's look. This iPod is said to contain programs for the following:

• Candida and Thrush
• Sinusitis EarInfection
• Colds and Flu
• Hayfever and Allergy
• Kidneys
• Lungs
• Liver
• Musuloskeletal System
• Body System Cleansing
• Body Elimination
• Emotional Balancing

And here's how you use it:

In the e-lybra iPod system, it is possible to copy each of your chosen programs formulas from the "Playlist", in an order of your choosing to the "ON THE GO" category. Your chosen list may then be played as a personalised program of up to 24 hours duration. This "ON THE GO" playlist will then operate throughout the day during work, rest and sleep. This makes the most of the e-Lybra iPod System's design features, providing the ultimate in 24 hours per day energetic balancing whilst "ON THE GO".

All this for only £694.52. Considering that a brand new 8 GB iPod nano only costs $249, which at today's exchange rate works out to £126.40. That's a heck of a markup for just loading some "programs" on the iPod, wouldn't you say. In any case, what are all these "personalized" programs? What can they do for you? To find that out, it's necessary to explore the Bio-Resonance website:

Everything in life, including our bodies, is a mass of vibrating frequencies, patterns, light and sounds, we are energetic beings and as we are regularly exposed long enough (and sometimes short enough) to disharmonious information which we cannot hear, see or maybe sense in other ways, then it can negatively affect us by creating energy blocks which accumulate in the body and field of each of us, animals and plants included, resulting in poor health, serious illnesses and pain. Therefore, regular bioresonance treatments and/or using any of the energy medicine products 'every day' helps to maintain balanced health by strengthening the immune system and releasing the energy blocks .

Ah, yes, now there's the woo! I bet you thought I was just going to spend this whole post talking about iPods, dind't you? I mean, get a load of this device:

Based on resonance and bio-energetic feedback through electrodes connected to the patient it scans and balances for over 275,000 imbalances (physical and psychological), poisonous substances and deficiencies in a 100% objective and automatic fashion. It reveals weaknesses in the immune system, including those that are genetically innate and strengthens the immune system before any disease has the opportunity to develop.

The system scans for example the meridians and over 400 acupuncture points and automatically stimulates/balances the ones not balanced. It can produce automatically all the necessary REMEDIES in a complex homoeopathic form at the correct potency in one bottle, at the same time as giving an energy balancing session for the patient. The complete body scanning, balancing, and the remedy production takes about 50 minutes.

What? 50 whole minutes? It's nice to see a bit of humility in a woo-meister. Sure, this thing can store over 275,000 resonance patterns, a record of 2,700 homeopathic remedies, and a library of 6,500 bacteria, 3,500 Viruses, 3,600 Enzymes, 400 Hormones, 3,400 Peptides and 75 Fungi. Sure, it has a homeopathic remedy simulator that can run through all 275,000 of these. On the other hand, it is a Windows-only program, and that could be an explanation for why it runs so slow. It's probably buggy too, although to me the entire program looks like it's nothing more than one big bug.

Of course, if some homeopathic balancing isn't enough for you, Bio-Resonance provides considerably more than just the iPod and the e-Lybra Homeopathic Simulator. Perhaps my favorite two devices here are the Water Enhancer and the Food and Drink Energiser. I definitely want me one (or both) of these. Look at what the Water Enhancer can do:

The Water Enhancer⢠is in a rugged rich blue polypropylene case 125mm in diameter and contains highly programmed media capable of holding and transmitting the energy resonance patterns of minerals, vitamins and enzymes into the water in a fully interactive manner. It is placed under a jug or container of filtered water, for between 15 and 30 seconds per litre (or longer if required, no maximum time length). The energy resonance patterns have been specially selected to improve people's wellness. This has the effect of increasing the life-force energy of the water and of making the water more bio-available to the person.

Make the water more "bioavailable" to the person? Hilarious! Water is one of the most easily absorbed and utilized substances the body uses! Are they claiming that the body somehow has difficulty absorbing and using "unenhanced water"? Inquiring minds want to know! But maybe you'd rather have your food energized:

Supplied in a convenient carrying case the chrome ended tubular device is approx. 200mm in length 25mm in diameter and contains highly programmed media capable of holding and transmitting the energy of minerals, vitamins and enzymes to food and drink in a fully interactive manner within a 1.5 meter radius.

This has the effect of increasing the life-force energy of the food and drink, and of making the food more bio-available to the person. Many foods lack some basic minerals in the quantity that we need, the Food and Drink Energiser ⢠puts into the food the energetic component of these minerals and amplifies the existing ones. Tests have shown double the amount of energy in the food after a period of 24 hours when exposed to the Food and Drink Energiserâ¢.

Wow! I really want to know how they measured "energy" in the food and showed that it doubled after being treated with the Food and Drink Energiser! Somehow, I doubt that they used what I would characterize as the usual "scientific" measure of food energy content, you know, the actual caloric content of the food. Think of the consequences if this device really could double the caloric content of food. Although it might further endanger the populace of the U.S. with even more obesity, it would be a boon to the developing world. Think of all the starvation this device could prevent! Really, these woo-meisters have far too limited a vision. When they could be wiping out world hunger by in essence doubling food stocks around the world, not to mention decreasing the pressure on nations to cut down forests for more farmland to feed their burgeoning populations, instead they're selling this device on the Internet for £99.95.

The humanity...

Much like Life Technology, Bio-Resonance has a goodly amount of other woo that is so woo-ey that it probably deserves its own separate treatment one Friday in the future. In the meantime, I'm left with one question.

What parts of the woo that the company offers does Bio-Resonance put on that iPod, and how does it pack so much woo into just a few GB fo memory?