Tuesday, March 5, 2013

More on Abraham's Bogus Predictions

At the beginning of Esther Hicks' channeling career, she predicted (via Abraham) a great realignment or "shift" that would cause abrupt changes in various parts of the world.
"…volcanic ash will be experienced in all parts of your world as the volcanoes around your earth are simultaneously activated. Face masks and goggles will be of great value."
        - Esther Hicks (A New Beginning I, 2002 edition)
Abraham provided specifics about where earthquakes and water-damage were to occur. In a 1993 workshop (05/16/1993), they (through Esther) said they'd believed these changes would occur in 1988. When they hadn't, they'd modified the timing to 1990. Again, no realignment. They excused this, stating that the energy had dispersed and subsided, but warned that realignment was still coming.

The Hickses no longer sell A New Beginning I or the Joyous Survival tape, two publications that discuss the realignment. Esther, as Abraham, no longer suggests that they were wrong about the timing of this event. It seems to me to be a not-so-clever attempt at hiding one of Esther's greatest channeling blunders.

Recently, I decided to dig up an older edition of A New Beginning I. I had this hunch that the Hickses might have tailored the text to downplay this great-realignment-that-never-happened. My hunch paid off. Various discussions (pages worth) about the great realignment have been removed from the most recent edition, 2002. Others have been altered. In one telling omission, the following discussion transpires between Abraham and a workshop attendee:

(From a 1988 workshop, as indicated in the 1994 edition of A New Beginning I)

COMMENT: The last time I was here, we were asking about the time narrowed down with the earth shift, and you were telling us early summer, which is June.

ABRAHAM: And now we tell you to receive it yourself.

To say the least, I find the Hickses revisions of A New Beginning I incredibly suspicious.

*I just realized via Twitter that today is Esther Hicks' birthday. Happy birthday, Esther!

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Kyra, Aren't You Preaching to the Choir?

Since I first started posting skeptical information about various gurus, I have been repeatedly confronted with comments like the following:
I AGREE with you that many of these self-styled, self-help gurus are primarily interested in helping themselves and find your cynicism well placed in that regard but ask "Aren't you preaching to the choir here? I mean, it is despicable for charlatans to raise false hope while divesting their followers but on the other hand if the undelying grain of truth that thees folks dress in all manner of hogwash is enough to pull a few tortured souls on to peace isn't it just as well to let them. The ones who believe wont stop on your word and the ones who already don't well they don't really need your help to see their point of view any clearer...do they? - James Cook (02/26/2013)
I have answered this question, in its myriad of forms, since the first day I began posting in October of 2010, so I would like to state my answer clearly, and emphatically, in this post so that I can link to it for anyone who might be confused in the future.

When I began blogging, I had no desire to pull anyone out of their belief in any guru. It's not that I didn't want to help them. It's that I didn't believe it was possible, because I knew how stubborn I was when I was using the teachings of my various new age gurus. So...why did I decide to post this information, if not to sway people away from these gurus? There were really two groups I was reaching out to:
  • People who were questioning. When I first started questioning the teachings of various gurus, I spent a lot of time looking for well-researched, critical information, but I found very little. As I started to find the information, I wanted it to be easily available for those who were in a place like I was, questioning and trying to find out more.
  • People who had just encountered the teachings. There are so many people who are handed the discussed gurus' books through the recommendations of friends, family members, counselors, etc. Many of these people go home and do Google searches to research them, but they only find sites and blogs created by dedicated followers. I wanted them to have another perspective available to them, one that would hopefully help them in deciding whether or not they thought one of these gurus were right for them.
Based on the emails that I get, I can tell that I successfully have reached out to both these groups. That was my goal, and I consider it a success.