5 Fun Facts About Esther and Jerry Hicks

For simplicity, I went through and picked my favorite fun facts about Esther and Jerry. I hope that you will go beyond these short points and research them for yourselves.

1. Jerry Hicks was a top distributor at Amway in the 70s. See more...

2. Pre-Abraham, Esther and Jerry traveled the country in a motor home and went on cruises, giving presentations on Think and Grow Rich. See more...

3. The woman who led Esther to interact with “Abraham,” Sheila Gillette, also claims she can bend spoons, levitate, and automatically write in languages she doesn’t know. See more...

4. Abraham’s first words have been altered since their first book. Esther and Jerry’s account of their initial interactions have also been revised. See more...

5. Jerry and Esther failed in their attempt to trademark “Law of Attraction” in 2006, because it isn’t theirs, and was used in the same context in 1906 by William Walker Atkinson in his book Thought Vibration or Law of Attraction in the Thought World. See more...

Even More Energy Work from Caroline Myss, "PhD"

Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential by Caroline Myss

I saw this book on the shelf and knew we were soulmates. Chronicling Caroline Myss’ evolution as a medical intuitive, SACRED CONTRACTS proves that there is still more energy work to be done than just the chakra work that her other books discuss. In fact, there’s a whole new “science” we have to come to understand. It’s called archetypes. Myss claims that she started realizing after her book WHY PEOPLE DON’T HEAL that there had to be something else causing illness (surely not because no one was healing because of her materials). A $17.00 (softcover) journey into understanding our sacred contracts—agreements that we must have made pre-this-life—reveals to us archetypes such as the prostitute, the child, the saboteur, and one other that supposedly is important. These all play an integral role in our bodies, relationships, and abundance and seem to have some all-important lesson to teach us. Myss’ divine wisdom is gathered from old woo that has been around since before Carol Jung used this sort of work in his teachings. A quick foreword from her hopefully deluded mentor Norm C Shealy, MD, gives this book some senseless credibility, despite the lack of empirical evidence to support any of the claims made within it.

This book, over all her others, gave me the impression that Caroline Myss was deluded more than anything else, which I sincerely hope is true. At some point in her introduction, she mentioned a man whom she had done a lot for in his “energy field”. I hope that she is not discussing the same “energy field” that Emily Rosa found no evidence for in her test on Therapeutic Touch practitioners in the 90s. Regardless, this book sold really well and started Myss’ archetype kick, which she has since strayed from—in favor of her Teresa of Avila work in ENTERING THE CASTLE.

SACRED is a cesspool of gibberish, and one of the hardest Myss books to read. It harps on and on about a topic that could have been covered in a small booklet. Alas, we have to once again endure Myss’ anecdotes and alleged miraculous healings. Steer clear of the archetypes. They are way too much work and there are other philosophies, including her own, that provide much simpler paths to enlightenment.

DISCLAIMER: As always, Myss' work does not claim to be able to heal every person, as she recognizes there are many mystical forces that could block a miraculous healing. Now, it can even be a contract you made before you came to this earth!


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The Lack of Medical in “Medical Intuitive”

“Dr.” Caroline Myss alleges that she is a medical intuitive—someone who can diagnose illness using her own seeming “second sight.” Myss has no verifiable evidence of being able to diagnose illness, and she does not open herself up to medically verifiable tests, even though a medical intuitive’s abilities can easily be tested in double blind experiments. Rather, in place of evidence, she offers a continuous stream of anecdotes and testimonials.

On a more scientific note, An Experimental Test of Psychic Diagnosis of Disease (as featured in he Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine) showed no benefit in using any sort of psychic diagnosis as a form of diagnosing disease. In Emily Rosa’s experiments with TT (Therapeutic Touch) practitioners, she found that these “gifted” individuals could not even detect where a person was, let alone feel the energy of their bodies. Basically, there has been no scientific study that has been able to prove the validity of any medical intuitive’s abilities.

For something that has no medical evidence supporting it, I find it interesting that Myss would go around touting the term medical intuitive. The word “medical” seems to be a weasel word, instantly giving credibility to the “profession” by making it appear to have a science behind it. You might as well have scientific, anthropological, and geological intuitives. Doesn’t that make what they do sound like something worthy of respect? As for the term “intuitive”, this seems to be just a new, more respected term for psychic. I read a wonderful article from the Committee of Scientific Inquiry, entitled Psychics Aren’t Psychics Anymore, by Karen Stollznow, which discusses how this new buzz-word is all the rage in the New Age community. I give credit to those of Myss’ generation for bringing this word to the forefront of modern woo.

Either way, for someone like Myss, who acts like she has nothing to prove, the term medical intuitive and her bogus “PhD”, makes me think she does. So why doesn’t she open herself up to scientific testing? Simply put: she’s got a good gig going and knows she would fail any double blind experiment she was offered. I give props to her for being smart, but not for using a term like medical intuitive to deceive innocent people with a lack of understanding of how non-medical what she does is.

References

David E. Young, Steven K. H. Aung. An Experimental Test of Psychic Diagnosis of Disease. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 1997, 3(1): 39–53. doi:10.1089/acm.1997.3.39.

Rosa, Linda; Rosa, Emily; Sarner, Larry; and Barrett, Stephen (April 1, 1998). “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch". Journal of the American Medical Association 279 (13):1005–1010. doi:10.1001/jama.279.13.1005. PMID 9533499.

xoxo

Kyra

Hay House: Pseudoscience for Louise Hay's Pocket

Louise Hay’s initial success came from convincing AIDs and HIV patients that they could heal their illnesses using the mental processes that she herself had allegedly used to cure her vaginal cancer. Out of the many AIDs patients who have followed her over a span of nearly 30 years, it is remarkable that we have yet to hear of a documented case of someone who cured themselves of AIDs/HIV because of Hay’s materials.

Despite the lack of proof behind her work’s validity, Hay has managed to create a media empire, including a successful publishing house and online radio channel. Though the immense success of her business is unquestionable, the many authors she promotes are. She is the publisher of the notorious charlatan Sylvia Browne, former Amway star Jerry Hicks, plagiarist Neale Donald Walsch, and the bogus credentialed Caroline Myss and Doreen Virtue. Regardless of the dubious nature of their careers, she seems to be more concerned about their net worth than she is the authenticity of their teachings. In fact, when asked what she thought of the validity of Sylvia Browne by The New York Times, she even said, “Now don’t ask me that. She’s one of our most popular authors.” It is evident she isn’t willing to hop on Browne’s rocking boat, except to get a little commission out of the cash-cow Browne has created.

On top of her complete disregard for authenticity, she doesn’t even care that many of her author’s teachings do not agree with each other. Take Caroline Myss, for example, who regularly on her radio program dismisses the notion of doing things because they “feel good”. Yet this is a major principle in Jerry and Esther Hicks’ teachings. Myss and the Hickses are all top Hay House authors. Perhaps Hay is far too busy repeating affirmations for wealth and abundance to notice the discrepancy. On the other, more likely hand, she doesn’t care because she is just after a percentage of their sales. I would accuse Hay of being as irresponsible as Oprah Winfrey in her promotion of such garbage, but I actually give Oprah more credit than Hay, believe that she is foolishly buying into the validity of the authors she supports. Hay, on the other, in my opinion, is just after the money and is willing to let whoever manages to weasel their way to the top of the New Age circuit into her home.

With books leaping onto The New York Times Best Sellers list, people purchasing overpriced tickets to her I Can Do it! Conferences, and even more people tuning in to her online radio channel, Hay can easily retire from the responsibility of anyone’s problems that derive from following the pseudoscience of any of her authors’ materials. Now, she can sit back and let the wheels that she has set into motion continue to hypnotize people into believing the alleged validity of New Age philosophy, as borrowed from Dark Age woo. The more I look at Hay’s career, the more I become convinced that she is nothing more than a fragmented avatar of the equally inauthentic founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy.

xoxo
Kyra