T&C HOUSE RULES
The rich and famous often drink their own
organic, locally sourced Kool-Aid. At some
point along the way they begin to believe
they can achieve a special connection with
the metaphysical by luxuriously depriving
themselves of earthly desires, preferably some-
where quiet and above the fray, like on David
Geffen’s yacht, docked in the Sea of Cortez.
Aristocratic mysticism is nothing new (see:
Rasputin and the Romanovs), but now ascetic
pursuits have been paired with the ability
to self-broadcast more than ever before, and
self-actualization has become both a brand-
ing tool and bragging right.In a more innocent time, Christy
Turlington appeared on the cover of Time
as a yogi earth goddess, Madonna converted
to Kabbalah, and Tina Turner chanted Nam-
myoho-renge-kyo. The spiritual superiors of
today go further, embracing that next organic
mind-body practice you haven’t heard of and
then evangelizing about it online—because
the best way to show how unplugged and
Zen you are is to be on your phone.
“Ten years ago we didn’t document every
green juice we drank,” says Melisse Gelula,
co-founder of the lifestyle site Well+Good.
“It’s infiltrated our lives. We all have to askTHE WELLNESS ARISTOCRACY The gods and
146 SEPTEMBER 2019 | TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM
GETTY^IMAGES(DORSEY,^PALTROW,^WILLIAMSON)L
ast November, Jack Dorsey, the
brains behind Twitter, declared
that he had gone on a 10-day
silent retreat in Myanmar to
practice Vipassana, considered
the oldest form of Buddhist
meditation. Sounding more
like the Monk of Silicon Valley than the Dis-
ruptor of Wall Street, Dorsey explained that
giving up “devices, reading, writing, physical
exercise, music, intoxicants, meat, talking, or
even eye contact with others” was a “detox of
all the noise in the world.” Never mind that
he conveniently forgot about Myanmar’s vio-
lence toward the Rohingya minority, not to
mention that much of that noise is amplified
through the platform he invented. More tell-
ing was the inadvertent revelation of the latest
status symbol reserved for the one percent:
enlightenment. While you were busy down-
loading Headspace and livestreaming Pelo-
ton, the extremely rich have been locked in
a holier than thou arms race to purge them-
selves of screens and discover inner peace.
Meet the spiritual snobs.HASHTAG MINDFULNESS
They may swear off their phones and social
media feeds, but open yours and you’ll find
them aglow and gloating in an ashram more
remote than Wakanda, tagging their posts
#breathe. There they are at the Wanderlust
Kundalini & Radiant Body immersion at
Snowshoe Mountain, reminding you how gor-
geous they look without makeup—through
a Mayfair filter. Or at the Advanced Intuitive
Healing training course at the Den in L.A.
(three months, $1,500), learning how to fix the
holes in their auras. You might even see them
at Kanye West’s exclusive Sunday Service, at
an undisclosed location, singing hymns along-
side Buddhist power couple Orlando Bloom
and Katy Perry.THE DECADENCE
How the meditation
retreat became the new
private villa, and spiritual
snobs our ruling class.
BY MIKE ALBO
THE MARTYR
OF PALO ALTO
Jack Dorsey
The Twitter founder went off
the grid to disconnect from
the civilization-devouring
monster he created—then
tweeted about his escape.THE PRESIDENTIAL
SOOTHSAYER
Marianne Williamson
After 13 self-help
books, the wizard of
inner work now
wants to be America’s
healer in chief.THE
ENLIGHTENEDPRENEUR
Gwyneth Paltrow
A master of remedies and esoteric
solutions, she created a new
reality in which we are all just one
turmeric-activated-charcoal-aloe
smoothie away from inner balance.