You might imagine Mexico to feel balmy in February, but some 8,000 feet above sea level in the mountains, the air is biting. Not, however, in the sweat lodge built into the side of the hill where I’m taking part in an ancient Mayan tradition called a temazcal. Translated as ‘house of heat’ from the Náhuatl language, it’s a guided meditation session in temperatures rising above 100°F (37°C). Inside, our shaman talks about the transformative power of acceptance, while we smear clay and honey on ourselves in the pitch black. It is a heady, intoxicating experience, and not just because things get so hot we’re encouraged to sit on the straw-covered ground should we feel faint.
When I look back on this memory from earlier this year, it’s one of those record scratch, “I bet you’re wondering how I ended up in this situation”, sitcom kind of moments. After all, I’ve historically been sceptical of all things spiritual. I like to think that I’m led by reason – that, and a deep desire to turn everything into a joke. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve ever got through a yoga class without descending into giggles over my own lack of flexibility. I don’t let tarot or horoscopes dictate my life (typical Capricorn). It’s just not my thing.
Yet recently, I’ve noticed that more and more of my friends are giving alternative activities a try. Gen Z are having a major moment with ‘woo woo’, from TikTok tarot readers drawing cards and predicting weekly horoscopes for millions of followers to health-conscious twentysomethings swapping hedonistic raves for transcendent sober dance sessions.
Emma Hewitt is a London-based spiritual practitioner, Reiki master and tarot reader who also holds workshops including drum birthing and Sekhmet healing. She says she’s noticed “a real shift in society as to openness about the mysterious and spiritual. I think people are looking for something that helps them understand who they are – that includes our bodies and all our intelligences, including emotional intelligence and intuition – and seeing how we can be in the world in a more relational way. Spiritual practices open that up.”
If I’m honest, I’ve worn my ingrained cynicism as a badge of honour, a protective layer protecting me from grifters. That is, until I started questioning whether this scepticism might be holding me back from new experiences or worldviews.
“People are looking for something that helps them understand who they are and seeing how we can be in the world in a more relational way... Spiritual practices open that up”
Emma Hewitt, a London-based spiritual practitioner
My epiphany happened earlier this year. It started where many pseudo-spiritual journeys do: with a solo backpacking trip in Central America. To get the most out of the experience, I’d pre-emptively pledged to immerse myself in the local culture and say yes to (basically) everything. That’s how I ended up taking part in the temazcal with a group of strangers, an experience that was as invigorating as it was challenging. Because temazcal is about so much more than just the body – it tests the mind, too.
I could handle the sweltering heat, despite it being the hottest environment I’d ever experienced. Yet as I listened to our guide speak softly about the power of letting go, I really struggled to do so.
My mind was wandering as my body locked in, and as soon as we left the sweat lodge, I felt my cynical side spring into action. After learning that the man who had led our session wasn’t actually a Mayan descendent channelling the power of his ancestors but a backpacker from Colorado styling himself as a mystic, I felt more able to joke about how wild I’d found the experience, how out of my comfort zone I’d felt. In my head, I was joking about myself, not the temazcal practice itself, regardless of its level of authenticity.
But talking to the other group members from across the world, I realised that they didn’t have the same outlook, the same instinctive draw to snark. I always said that I wasn’t judging others for trying these less science-based practices, but was that even true if I still resorted to joking about it? I’d never seen my oh-so-British sarcasm as a negative, but here I did for the first time.
Back home, I decided I didn’t want to be so cynical and dismissive anymore, and set myself a challenge to throw myself into trying lots of the woo-woo activities I would previously have rolled my eyes at.
My local sauna felt like a good place to start. I started going on my own to work on the meditation I’d struggled to connect with in Mexico, while I also picked up inspiration from snippets of overheard conversation and the notice board out front. That’s where I spotted a flyer advertising an upcoming ‘women’s anger transformation workshop’. I couldn’t imagine anything less ‘me’. It was exactly what I was looking for.
“I always said that I wasn’t judging others for trying these less science-based practices, but was that even true if I still resorted to joking about it?”
The workshop was a baptism of fire, one that precisely laid out what I was afraid of when it came to the spiritual stuff: allowing myself to be vulnerable, examining things that felt out of my control, physical contact with people I wasn’t 100% comfortable with. There was a lot of screaming and sweating and crying, the exact kind of behaviour I might have side-eyed in the past. But I knew it wouldn’t work unless I properly got involved. Actually, hearing the other attendees talking about going to ecstatic dance sessions and gong baths, I rapidly realised that I was in the minority here. Who was there to even be a smart alec to?
As I opened up about these and other experiences to my friends, more came my way, and I continued to challenge my kneejerk reaction to say no. As wholeheartedly as I could, I spent the year throwing myself into activities, from movement workshops to gong baths, keeping an open mind and challenging my own preconceptions. (Although I couldn’t ignore one unexpected downside: the struggle to get the pervasive smell of incense out of my clothes.)
Some of those experiences turned out to be truly transcendental. On 20 June, I joined my housemate and her friends on an overnight trip to Stonehenge – a huge, 3,500-year-old monument and pilgrimage site in Wiltshire, UK – where we watched the sun rise on the summer solstice. Standing among those majestic stones, surrounded by a swirling crowd of druids, dancers and drummers, I couldn’t help but feel connected to something bigger than myself.
Not everything I tried has been something I’ll stick with; for one thing, doing so would be very expensive. (Of course, you can’t put a price on a peaceful mind, and what helps one person might not work for another. But I do think it’s worth remaining a little discerning when choosing which practitioners to trust, and getting qualified mental health support if you’re feeling vulnerable.) But heading into 2026, I’m now devoted to my solo sauna seshes (along with mental clarity, they give me an energy boost like nothing else). And I’ve found that I can enjoy meditation as long as it’s part of a movement-based practice, such as mindful walking or vinyasa yoga – sitting still simply doesn’t work for me.
“Standing among those majestic stones, surrounded by a swirling crowd of druids, dancers and drummers, I couldn’t help but feel connected to something bigger than myself”
“What’s so wonderful about the number of spiritual practices available today is that each individual can find their own path through it,” says Hewitt. It’s important, she says, to “mix and match the things that work for you and ultimately go on your own individual journey that brings you back to the truth of who you are”. There’s so much more to experience in 2026 and for a reformed cynic like me, that feels exciting and new.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think we have to be fully sceptical of scepticism. But what I don’t do any more is enter experiences with the assumption that it’s all a ‘scam’ or that I won’t gain anything from it. Over the year, this firmly held binary – where everything is either ‘my thing’ or ‘not for me’ – has eroded.
The experiment has opened me up in a way that goes far beyond the spiritual. I’ve put myself out there romantically, joined a football team, and ridden a bike for the first time in 15 years. All were things I’d previously been interested in but pushed off, fearing the vulnerability that would follow. I don’t have that same worry now.
So, when my friend offers to read our tarot cards before a night out, and I automatically go to direct her towards someone else, I stop, pause and let her read mine instead. Because who knows where the night will take us?
