On the fifth episode of The Goop Lab, energy healer John Amaral has a four-way energy healing session with three Goop employees and Julianne Hough.Goop Chief Content Officer Elise Loehnen, who deals with severe anxiety, has what she calls an exorcism during Amaral's treatment.Amaral says his methods are based in quantum physics, but they aren't scientifically sound.Visit Insider's homepage for more.Inside the sun-drenched Goop headquarters in Santa Monica, California, chiropractor and energy healer John Amaral is leading a four-way energy healing session.The session is featured on the fifth episode of Netflix's new show "The Goop Lab," a documentary series that follows employees of the alternative lifestyle brand as they try controversial techniques including mind training and psychedelic mushrooms.In this episode, called "The Energy Experience," actress and dancer Julianne Hough, who'sknown Amaral for a while and thinks his work is "transformative," tells viewers about an experience she had with the healer a year prior. She said that while Amaral was working on the energy of her feet, she remembered a trauma that happened to her when she was 10, during the time of her parents divorce.Now, Goop employeesincluding Brian, a skeptical Goop employee and software architect; social media coordinator Janay, who has chest pain and sleep paralysis; and Goop's chief content officer Elise, who deals with severe anxiety get to see how Amaral's work affects them.The session involves Amaral touching or almost touching participants' pelvises, as well as a lot of moaning from the participants themselves.Janay cries and reports spending an hour throwing up the night after the four-way, which Amaral calls "emotional purging," indicating the session worked. Brian seems to remain skeptical, and doesn't participate in a post-session interview. Elise, however, has what she calls an "exorcism" when she begins dry-heaving after Amaral snaps his fingers."Could you, like, get any Goopier'" Paltrow said.John Amaral's techniques are not backed by scienceAccording to Amaral, an energy healer to celebrities, the body doesn't end at the skin. There's an energy field that can be measured 4 to 6 feet off the body.So when he waves his hands around your body like a puppet master, he's just playing with your energy field, or as he calls it, "interacting with those layers." He believes doing so can let out pent-up feelings and relieve people of emotional baggage, as well as physical ailments.Amaral's processes are reminiscent of reiki, a technique that focuses on energy channeling through touch. While reiki isn't harmful, it also hasn't been proven to be medically effective. According to the US Department of Health, there's also "no scientific evidence supporting the existence of the energy field thought to play a role in Reiki."Amaral supports his healing techniques, however, by citing the "double slit quantum physics experiment." The experiment was used to observe behavior of subatomic particles and discovered that scientists' observations altered the way those particles behaved. This experiment implies that our consciousness can change physical reality.But a physicist told Elemental the double slit experiment "has nothing to do with healing. That word has never been used with it."As of now, the best cure we have for anxiety is a combination of therapy and medication, specifically antidepressants. The best cure we have for sleep paralysis is improving sleep habits and a visit to a sleep medicine specialist.Amaral's credentials are his star clientsAmaral has an active chiropractor's license from the state of California, and told Paltrow he was mentored by Donny Epstein for 25 years in something called network spinal analysis, which appears to be another touch-based form of energy healing.He doesn't tweet very often, but when he does, it's usually to promote an article he wrote on how he overcame anxiety with network spinal analysis or it is to post photos of him tagging self help guru Tony Robbins, who's been accused by numerous women of being a sexual predator. Robbins is a client of his. On the Get Yourself Optimized podcast, Amaral said he traveled "pretty regularly" with Robbins and his team.According to Amaral's website, his energy healing sessions are highly in demand. Amaral did not respond to an Insider request for a pricing estimate.Read more:How Gwyneth Paltrow took Goop from a homebrewed newsletter to a controversial $250 million wellness powerhouseGwyneth Paltrow's Goop settles $145,000 lawsuit over baseless vaginal eggs health claimsGwyneth Paltrow's Netflix show will feature exorcisms, psychic mediums, and psychedelics. Experts are already worried.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: How to find water when you're stuck in the desert
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