For all the potential in every alternative practice to mislead and misguide, woo woo is, for the most part, harmless. Clutching a rose-quartz crystal wont solve any of the worlds problems, but its nice to hold something pretty in your hand and permit yourself to believe, if just for a few seconds, that it might help you in some small way.

It was a tumbled rose-quartz crystal I clutched throughout the unbearable months of my second pregnancy. My little pink pebble gave me something to cling to, literally, as I lay in bed every afternoon, staring at my concealed, agonisingly unknowable daughter.

Her brain had bled a little bleed, in a tricky spot it will either be of zero consequence, or cause catastrophic disabilities the radiographer told me, with more kindness than the starkness of his words would suggest.

My little pink pebble gave me something to cling to as I lay in bed ... staring at my concealed, agonisingly unknowable daughter.

There was talk of presenting our case to an ethics committee, to determine if we should be allowed to terminate a very advanced pregnancy should the worst scenario come to fruition. I rolled that tumbled rose-quartz stone in my hand furiously for months, trying to get it under my skin, into my blood, all the while recoiling at this version of myself: helpless, terrified, seeking solace in a stone purchased for three dollars from a shop called The Angels Trumpet. You will be okay, I said to my baby over and over, rose quartz in hand.

The brain bleed turned out to be of no consequence: at six years old my daughter runs rings around me, physically and mentally. She wasnt, of course, saved by a stone. The stone was of no consequence at all. But it did give me a small measure of comfort at a time when I gratefully hoovered up the tiniest crumbs of it.

Ive also often sought guidance and this is a little harder to fess up to than a bit of crystal fondling from clairvoyants.

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While dutifully submitting to the teary labour of telling My Story to a succession of psychologists and counsellors, Ive never found a therapist whos been able to help me tackle my problemsin any meaningful way. Fifty minutes in the company of a stern woman brandishing a tarot deck, however, never fails to imbue me with a fresh sense of purpose and self-awareness.

Would I seek the services of a clairvoyant if one of my daughters were to be diagnosed with a mental illness? Never. But for tending to the psychological cuts and abrasions accumulated throughout the course of a bumpy but generally okay life, its the crystals, the healers and the psychics with whom Ive found the most comfort.

So Im doing away with making fun of woo woo. From now on, I choose to direct my insults at the people and things who are trying to harm the world, not make it better. But still, best you hide your Magic Happens cushions when I come round for (chai) tea. A leopard can change its spots, but it cant make them disappear.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale November 10.

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In these trying times, I'm finally happy to admit I'm a hippie - The Age