#1260: Ronald J. Williams

Oh, goody. Of all the insane gems and artefacts peddled as genuinenly magical on the Internet’s woo-mongers bazaars of bullshit targeted at the deluded or rationality-challenged, the Healing Broom is among the … more striking. Like the brooms of legend, the Healing Broom is apparently fully magical – at least there is no other feature that would explain the properties claimed for it (not that its magic properties is of much help in that explanation either). According to Ronald J. Williams of the Salem Bodywork Cooperative, the broom will clean out those toxins and realign your qi to only the best possible vibrational energy: “It causes the cells to vibrate into an excited state, thus giving more energy to the internal body,” says Williams, and will “greatly increase the amount of Qi in the area being stimulated.” How do you use it? You slap your body with it. It’s healing through self-flagellation. With a magic broom. Duh. The instructional video at least made it to a metacafe list of “funniest home videos”. That’s at least something. Not quite evidence for efficacy, but something.

Diagnosis: He seems to be saying what he is saying with a straight face. That takes some impressive levels of skill. Or some abysmally serious delusion. Those may not be mutually exclusive.