I had a conversation with a very dear friend the other night who was afraid that she was the victim of bad "energy" being sent her way.

I'm pretty good at handling these sort of things so I tried to break it down rationally for her to at least set her mind at ease. Because this person is not at all hateful or self-righteous as was genuinely concerned, I didn't feel any need to be aggressive but, rather, endeavoured to calm her down with a bit of rationality. It sorta worked, but I'd appreciate some advice on this.

Keep in mind that the individual with whom I'm dealing is not a theist trying to prove some crazy god theory and is just a plain-old good person with some misguided ideas.

Here was the situation--it's rather classic I think:

1. Her grandson was acting weird. He's just over a year old but she said he didn't seem like himself, basically.
2. She got a feeling of dread/impending doom in her daughter's room.
3. Her daughter's ex is a son-of-a-bitch who practices "black magic". *cough*
4. She was convinced that he was sending "bad energy" her way.

So, I tried to take her through the logical steps and gave her the following reasons for doing so:

1. Children often act weird, especially at that age. If he was, indeed, acting so strange, it merits further examiniation as it may be medical and something to be concerned about.
2. I asked if she actually thought "bad energy" could do anything harmful. She said no so I asked why she was worried about it.
3. She has a very stressful job and has suffered from anxiety problems. I asked if she thought it could be that she was having a anxiety episode and if, perhaps, an excess of adrenaline in her blood was causing the tension which, in turn, was causing her brain to look for a reason for that tension.
4. I asked her to break down what had happened that day, if anything had seemed unusual with El Kiddo and if it really seemed unusual for a child to be acting "not like themself" when they haven't really formed an identity yet.

Her daughter, the mother, said that she had walked in on a day-care worker speaking very harshly and inappropriately to her child when she'd gone to pick him up. I asked if she thought that, perhaps, her child was a bit scared by such abusive attitudes on the part of someone who is basically a stranger. She said yes, that could well be true and agreed she needed to talk to the management.

So, this is my question: How do you address someone's anxiety over something such as this, "bad energy", when the percieved causality of these feelings of dread is so damn vague? The hardest part is that these women are, by far, two of the kindest, most intelligent people I know. I don't want to come off as being dismissive because they're not fools, they just hold to some beliefs that are, apparently, doing them no good and causing much distress. Going on a tirade about how real energy is measurable and calling magical thinking by scientific terms lends it no validity would result in instant defensivness. I tried to point out that both of them acknowledged that they believed no harm could come of this "bad energy" so, you know, who cares then? But the anxiety remained. The hard part is I'm not even entirely certain what they're anxious about, nor are they.

How would those of you who also follow a rational life deal with this? Sometimes the righteous need a good slapping down, I agree, but in this case it seems more that an invitation to calm and reenforcement that fear of such things has no merit is the remedy. Any ideas?