Has anybody here seen my old friend Abrascam?

As some of you may be aware by now, Jerry Hicks, former Amway superstar and the person who first “inspired” his wife Esther to get in touch with that imaginary collective, Abrascam, has “transitioned to the nonphysical.” A form of leukemia, perhaps related to advanced age (he was in his eighties) took him. He shuffled off this mortal coil on November 18, which as it happens was the same day James Arthur "Death" Ray began his prison ministry tour. Esther apparently waited a few days to announce Jerry's death.

Many folks, both Abe believers and nonbelievers, have had questions about several aspects of this event. A person named Bonnie, writing in a discussion on an older post on the Salty Droid blog (comment date-stamped November 25th, 2011 at 6:04 pm), summed up the issues quite well:

What I really find amazing is that after they outright lied about his [cancer] diagnosis for the longest time, and when he got his diagnosis, he started immediately with aggressive chemotherapy treatments, something they have always claimed that modern medicine of any kind is something that you don’t need (I wonder just how many people they “killed” by people dying rather than seeking out treatment), and then he dies anyway and it takes Esther 5 whole days to notify their suckers, I mean, supporters, because she needs that much time to make up a story to convince their cult that everything is just the way it was supposed to be and Jerry is now where he was supposed to be, and everyone believes it all and is still all wrapped up in the bullsh!t! I mean, doesn’t anyone see the discrepancy between what they teach and the real facts now? Talk about brain washing! I kind of thought that when I saw clips of Esther performing with a bad cold and could barely talk, her voice was so hoarse, on one of their recent video releases, and how she “excused it away” — when what they teach is that if you are in “alignment”, or “in the vortex”, you will not get sick or attract any illness of any kind. I guess Jerry attracted his cancer the same way [James Ray] attracted his downfall. “You attract what you are”.

But no doubt Esther will go on, probably channeling Jerry now as well as Abe. I know, I know, she doesn't call it "channeling." She calls it "receiving." You say receiving, I say channeling, let's call the whole thing off? Not a chance of that; calling it off is apparently the furthest thing from Esther's mind, seeing as how she is already getting messages from Jerry in the Vortex.

And I've been getting bold anonymous messages on one of my old Abrascam blog posts, even though at the time I received them I’d only mentioned Jerry's death briefly on someone else’s post on Facebook. Here's a small sampling, unedited:

...And, they never said NOT to go to doctors and use medicine. Just whatever feels right (positive) to the person. Though of course, in hindsight, taking chemo didn't work for Jerry, overall. But then, he was 84 or so, and had a long, interesting, sucessful life, and maybe had done all he wanted to do in this lifetime?
...Just seems like the ctirics of the Hickses and Abraham are just plain jealous. And they will create a life for themselves, based on this...
Thursday, November 24, 2011 9:39:00 AM

Hmmm... if Jerry had done all he wanted to do in this lifetime, why fight the cancer at all? It seems obvious that Jerry wanted to live a little longer, and who can blame him? The comments following that one were even more loving (pardon the F-words and such):

Anonymous said...

ugly bitch. Be happy for someone when their dreams come true. Fucking follower. Go ahead live like your ancestors. Stupid old tired beliefs....why dont you go digging in the dirt for 2000yr old answers to now questions. I hate you. And i did it on purpose. I am not closer to wealth because of hating you. Bitch

Thursday, November 24, 2011 12:57:00 PM

Anonymous said...

maybe someday I will laugh at your choices in life, create a web-post about it, and use a flattering photo of you-maybe with a dick on you forehead.

Thursday, November 24, 2011 1:01:00 PM

Full of love and light to the end, those Abers! Or perhaps it should be that Aber. Frankly, most of those comments read as if they all came from the same deluded soul. By the way, that reference to a dick on my forehead is apparently an angry reaction to my crude photo-composite of Jerry with a big spider on his head. (Originally the Hicks thought Jerry might have been suffering from a spider bite, which, they speculated, he might have received while they were camping out next to a yacht marina.) I could save my critic the trouble and do a Photoshop of myself with a dick on my forehead, but I've written about so many of them on this blog over the years that it would be difficult for me to choose just one, and my forehead will only hold so much.

On that note, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, who has long considered himself a friend of Esther and Jerry, weighed in about Jerry's death a couple of days ago. Besides paying tribute to his friend, he attempted to address the controversies surrounding Jerry's illness and death:

Abraham taught you’d always have challenges. As soon as you resolved one issue, you’d attract another. Welcome to the human experience. This doesn’t mean the Law of Attraction doesn’t work. It means it does work. You always get what you unconsciously believe and expect. (Re-read that.) Jerry once told Esther he’d probably depart before her, which proves he had a belief in dying, and maybe a belief in a particular way of passing on.

What Joe doesn't mention is that Jerry told Esther he would probably depart before her because he was so much older than she, and the law of averages would dictate that his time would be up before hers. So Joe's remark that this comment proved Jerry had "a belief in dying" is... well, typical asinine Law of Attraction crapola, to put it most charitably. Joe continued:

I wasn’t with Jerry when he grew ill, so I can’t say what he was thinking. I don’t know why he attracted cancer, or why he chose the modern medicine path to remove it. But if he accepted conventional medicine as a treatment, than he must have felt he attracted it as a possible solution. He was probably reaching for the thought that felt best to him at the time.

But immediately afterward, Joe seemed to contradict himself:

The fact that he got ill and passed on doesn’t mean anything more than he got ill and passed on. Everything else is simply our projecting our beliefs onto his situation.

Perhaps Joe actually meant that the fact that Jerry got ill and passed on doesn't, or shouldn't, mean anything more to Abe-Hicks believers than that he got ill and passed on. After all, the two paragraphs Joe wrote before that sentence would seem to imply that there were indeed deeper reasons for and/or meanings behind Jerry's illness and death. In any case, many of the Abers -- and ex-Abers --do seem to be having problems with apparent contradictions in the Abe-Hicks teachings. As illustrated above, some who seem to be clinging desperately to their beliefs have rationalized that Abe-Hicks never actually taught that one should eschew Western medicine completely. Others contend that yes, Abe-Hicks did teach this, and therefore Jerry Hicks was being hypocritical by choosing chemo.

The larger issue, and one that Joe conveniently overlooked, is that either by accident or design (then again, there are no accidents, right?), Esther and Jerry created a "cult of personality" over the years with their Abe shtick, making themselves the stars as much as their imaginary friends, despite their faux-modest disclaimers that Abe was the real source of the wisdom they shared.

So the fact that some of their followers are upset about what they see as contradictions or hypocrisies in the Hicks' own decisions cannot be dismissed merely as the followers' own flaws or projections, although that is Mr. Fire's favorite means of dismissal. People who create and market a public persona -- and represent themselves as an example of how to live -- are setting themselves up for criticism. (Yes, I know I am setting myself up too, and I get plenty of criticism. But I'm not presenting myself as an example of how to live, and I am certainly not making millions of dollars off this snarky shtick.)
I will grant that whatever her motives might have been, it was Esther's right to choose when and how to announce her husband's death. Brilliant cons aside, Jerry was her spouse of many years, and I have no doubt that she loved him, and is grieving for him on a deeply personal level.

At any rate, as I've noted before, I'm not an expert on the Abe-Hicks material, so I'll leave it up to those with a broader and deeper knowledge of the material to argue the particulars about what Esther and Jerry and "Abe" did or didn't teach about health and illness and death. And other folks can argue all they want about whether and how the Law of Attraction "works." That doesn't interest me much. To me, the real issue here is and always has been my opinion that Jerry and Esther made the whole Abraham thing up, originally inspired by the enduring success of Jane Roberts' Seth material. (Some of the back story -- plus some insight into the Hicks' character and business practices -- can be found in this 2007 article from the (UK) Independent.) And while Jerry may have lived a long, interesting, and successful life, as one of my Anon detractors pointed out to me, for much of his life he made his living as a hustler and con artist. Before Abrascam, there was Amway...

But he did leave a legacy, and I have no doubt that even as Jerry joyfully whirls in the sweet by-and-by, the sweet buy-and-buy will go on in this dimension. Esther will be up there on stage channeling Abe, and then...oh, my... Jerry will make an "appearance," bringing tears and laughter to the crowd of gullibles. More books, more DVDs, more workshops, more cruises. And Jerry will be on every one of them. Indeed, it takes more than cancer to kill a cash cow.

* * * * *

More on Abe-Hicks: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2007/07/you-really-gotta-want-it-but-you-better.html

Kyra's excellent critical Abe-Hicks blog (I may not know much about the Abe-Hicks teachings, but Kyra certainly does.)

I don't want to forget Dave Stone's Abe-Hicks Squidoo lens. Here he shows an outrageous example, from a recent Abe-Hicks workshop, of the type of amoral teachings of Esther Hicks' imaginary pals (but very real cash cow). Apparently selfishness is a divine, Christ-like attribute, and it's perfectly all right for a child to abuse a pet.


Musings about why it matters more -- or should matter more -- when New-Wage gurus screw up in their lives than when the rest of us do: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2009/11/lies-that-blind.html

* * * * *

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Some secrets behind The Secret?

Sometimes you have to do some reading between the lines to figure out what’s really going on, particularly in the New-Wage world, with its flowery love-and-light talk and its penchant for euphemisms. You particularly have to be a between-the-lines reader if you’re like me and don’t have access to Ascended Masters and their ilk to clue you in about those Unseen Truths that surround all of us.

Consider the case of Jerry and Esther Hicks and their disembodied pal(s), Abraham, who are big celebrities in the Law of Attraction community, and were key players in the mega-hit infomercial The Secret. Or at least they were in the original version of the ’mercial. Alas, much to the dismay of multitudes of Secret fans, the new Secret will be Hicks-free. Esther, the member of the Hicks duo who actually channels Abraham, will not be in the "new, improved" version of The Secret (which has just been released, and is not to be confused with the sequel, The Secret Part 2, or Beyond The Secret, or something of that nature, scheduled to go into production early in 2007).

It seems that The Secret franchise has taken off in such a big way that the Hicks’ original contract, drafted in part by the intellectual properties attorney they were smart enough to hire in the beginning, is no longer adequate. If I’m reading the message below correctly, The Secret’s producers wanted the Hicks to forever relinquish the intellectual property rights covered by their initial contract. The Hicks claim that they were never in The Secret for the money, but they made "staggering amounts" of the stuff anyway from their participation. There’s lots more money to be made off the project, but to do so, they’d basically have to sell their souls down the river, or at least Down Under*. And so, reluctantly and lovingly – and, of course, with the advice of Abraham – they pulled out.

Not to worry, though. The new version of The Secret is three minutes longer than the original, and the space vacated by Esther Hicks and Abraham has been filled in with some of the other contemporary hustlers "teachers" who starred in the ’mercial.

The message below, widely being posted on the LOA forums (I first found it here), was supposedly copied from the Abraham-Hicks website. Now, however, it is nowhere on the site. Read it yourself, if you haven’t already, and see what you think. And while you’re reading, notice that the Aussie TV station that had planned to air The Secret (presumably as part of the original agreement) apparently changed their minds somewhere down the line, so the Secret producers had to find a new way to recoup their investment.

Which kinda adds some new perspective to the story, as told recently to ABCNews.com, about the origins of (or at least the motives behind) The Secret’s viral marketing campaign. Joe Vitale, one of the stars of The Secret, told ABCNews.com that the producers held the movie back for months to "let the world buzz. Let the world keep talking. Let the world keep passing this around, which is what everybody did. They said, 'Have you seen this movie? Have you seen this trailer?' And they would pass it to their friends. Their friends would pass it to other friends. This thing went viral in the most amazing way."

As I said, you have to read between the lines. And maybe I'm reading too much, but somehow I don't think so. Here's the Hicks' message:

THE SECRET
The Television Movie
From Jerry & Esther

Dear Friends,
Nearly two years ago, while on-board our Mexican Riviera Cruise, Prime Time Productions did an interview with Jerry and me, and with Abraham, in response to an agreement that we had all carefully crafted together for a television show that was to be aired in Australia called "The Secret." We were told that "The Secret" would be based on our work and that they would seek out other teachers who were in alignment with our work. We reviewed, on DVD, two other projects that had been created by this production company and found them to be beautifully done, and good-feeling pieces.

Since Jerry and I had never before stepped into the public forum in that way with our Abraham work, we followed the advice of our publisher, who introduced us to an intellectual property rights attorney who assisted us in drafting the agreement which would guide our involvement with this project. He explained to us that although he had included in the intellectual property rights license agreement that we were to receive a small percentage of the net profit from this project, and 10% of direct video sales, that it was very unlikely that (from his experience) we would receive any substantial compensation from our participation, and we were not unhappy with that arrangement. Our decision to do it was not motivated from the idea of making money from it, (unless there was profit to share) but because we were stimulated by the excitement of this beautiful producer, and when we met her and her beautiful crew, we easily loved them all.

As time went by, it became apparent that the television network that we had been told would air "The Secret" was not going to do it, at least not right now, and so the production company began seeking other ways of marketing their beautiful project to recoup their very large investment. While Jerry and I were uncomfortable with what felt to us like a rather aggressive marketing campaign (just not our style, nothing wrong with it) we stayed focused on our busy schedule and really had very little to do with what was happening with "The Secret."

Eventually we received an email from the producer of "The Secret" lovingly explaining (we never have received correspondence from her that was anything other than extremely loving) that the contract that we had all agreed upon and signed was no longer sufficient for their further distribution of the project in the areas they were now seeking to distribute the project, and that it would be necessary for us (Jerry and Esther) to relinquish our intellectual property rights in these areas forever and redo our contract or they would have to reluctantly edit us out. It was clear, from the lovingly written email that they did not want to edit us out, but after conferring with our publisher, and then our intellectual property rights attorney, and finally with Abraham, allowing them to edit us out was the path of least resistance. Abraham's words were very clear and easy to understand: "Whenever you are given an ultimatum that says, 'if you don't do this, then we will have to do such and such,' it is best that you just let it go and move on. Otherwise there is always another, and this, and this, and this?"

Now, it seems there is quite a firestorm surrounding our dis-involvment with "The Secret". We are receiving so many emails and letters and face-to-face questions from disappointed people regarding this, so we want you to understand how we feel about it.

We think that "The Secret" clearly and beautifully presents Abraham's Law of Attraction in a way that is easy to understand. It is filled with stunning beauty and beautiful people, many of whom are our personal friends. We love the way "The Secret" moves us, and we feel joy rise within our hearts every time we watch it. We feel the power of it, and the clarity of it, and we love "The Secret".

It is our desire that, rather than being upset that our part of "The Secret" will be omitted in future offerings of it, that instead you enjoy the original Abraham version, as it is, at this time, and that you look forward to what other incredible things these talented people may bring to you. These are people who clearly care about the planet, who want to be of value, and who, in our opinion, are of tremendous value.

Financially speaking, we have been very well paid for our participation with this project? which has amounted to a staggering amount of money. And if money were the most important factor, we assure you, we would have found some way of staying involved.

So, we're out here doing our thing, enjoying the incredible expansion of the message of Abraham, and are so looking forward to the wonderful things that are in our future. Abraham says to us and to you:

It is our desire that you be easy about all of this. There is nothing that has gone wrong here. Everything is in alignment. The Universe will offer a steady stream of uplifting avenues to all of you.

There is great love here for you, Abraham.

Our love,
Jerry & Esther

Gee, could it be that The Secret really is more about making money for its producers than about anything else? Ya think? Not that there's anything wrong with making money, as I've said before. And The Secret is certainly a marketing success story. But I submit that it does not hold the secret key to guaranteed wealth for anyone except its producers and its stars. For just about everyone else, it's just one long sales pitch by New-Wage hustledorks, with some feel-good platitudes and pretty visuals thrown in.

Now, whatever you think about channeling – whether you think it’s legit or it's just bad ventriloquism (as magician Penn Jillette once said) – lots of folks like the Hicks. A good friend of mine has met them and says they are genuinely nice people. And you don't have to read very deeply between the lines to see that Jerry and Esther found the aggressive marketing of The Secret rather distasteful. At any rate, it seems clear that the Hicks are taking the high road in all this. (I, however, am under no such constraints.)


It seems, however, that not all LOA fans are buying into the channeling shtick. A guy named Matt, who ordered a CD directly from Jerry and Esther Hicks’ website, had this to say on the Santa Monica, CA Secret/Abraham-Hicks meetup forum:

As I'm becoming a strong believer and advocate of LOA, I must admit that this CD has pushed me back a couple of steps in my faith of the "universal law." First, Jerry Hicks makes me pause as he mentions the Ouija Board as an inspiration for his teachings. Second, Esther Hicks who's seemingly the sane one totally loses me when her guiding spirit, Abraham, addresses the listener through her with a fantasy-land accent speaking in almost cryptic like English. It's comical and upsetting at the same time. I feel duped for buying this CD. The message is consistent with the Secret, but the vehicle that's delivering the message is ridiculous.

Has anyone heard this CD? Can anyone share with me some sage words to put this hocus pocus charlatan like gobbly gook into perspective?

Other forum members responded, and it was obvious not all of them were convinced by Esther’s performance either. The overall sentiment, though, seemed to be, "Don’t throw out the message because of the messenger."

In any event, it’s possible that The Secret sales will not suffer too grievously without the Hicks. Actually, I had a fleeting thought that perhaps the channeling was a bit over the top for mainstream consumption, and maybe Esther and Abraham were becoming an embarrassment to The Secret producers. But then I thought, "No, that’s ridiculous." After all, the wildly successful What The Bleep Do We Know has JZ Knight, who was on Part 1 of the Larry King "Positive Thinking" infomercial. JZ made her fortune by convincing people that she channels a 35,000-year-old entity named Ramtha. You’d think Larry would have ripped her a new one for this, but that didn’t happen. Obviously, channeling is not a deal-breaker with spiritual suckers seekers.


I predict that The Secret will continue to be successful in its new, Hicks-free incarnation. Now that rumbles of disillusionment are being heard, however, I predict that LOA’ers are going to split off into various factions, and eventually more of them will become increasingly disillusioned. There will be Secret imitators and rumors of Secret imitators. But sooner or later, the next "amazing breakthrough" – something completely different from The Secret, and, of course, fiercely copyrighted – will be released to a waiting world. Oh, yeah, and I predict that the creator of The Secret will continue to show up on Maui and everywhere else wearing short black skirts and sporting bright shiny gewgaws on her forehead (makes her look more spiritual, don’t you know). And I predict that the spiritual Lothario Tilak, that tall, dark and mysterious blower of lights, will be seen on Maui again, and perhaps in future versions of The Secret…


I am hardly what you would call an unimpeachable source, but, y’know, I think I do all right for someone who doesn’t have an Ascended Master at my shoulder, whispering to me of the future.


* The creator and producer of The Secret, which the Hicks don’t name in their message, is Aussie hustledorkess go-getter Rhonda Byrne. 

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
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Beautiful daze in the Aber-hood

Jerry is gone, but the show must go on.

Actually, Jerry Hicks, the George half of the George and Gracie of the imaginary-friends industry, isn't really gone, despite his having croaked* on November 18, 2011. As I predicted (but really, it was a totally no-brainer prognostication, and I was far from the only one predicting this), Jerry is still very much with Esther and her pretend pals Abraham. After joining Abe in The Vortex, Jerry is now apparently playing pranks on Esther and her audiences at the Abe-Hicks events she has bravely chosen to continue, despite her grieving.
 
The ever-vigilant Kyra provided a capsule summary of Esther's recent (December 10) LIVE workshop. Dave Stone, another Abe-Hicks critic, also weighed in with lots of good information and commentary, as well as additional links.

But there's trouble in Paradise, and there has been for some time now. What's going on is not a war of good versus evil per se; it's more like a war of The Vortex versus The Torrent. (Google Abraham-Hicks torrents and you'll see what I mean.) It seems that some Abers are using AbeEsther's own words against her/them, employing Abe-Hicks' pronouncements about sharing information to support their own sharing of Abe-Hicks content.
To some degree this is a money issue. It seems that despite repeated attempts to use Abe-Hicks' teachings about the Law of Attraction to attract wealth into their lives, large numbers of Abe fans apparently can't afford to attend the workshops in person or even on the Web, to say nothing of being able to afford those lavish sea cruises. To the rescue: a few Abers who are working to help people acquire as much Abe-Hicks content as possible gratis.
Not surprisingly, the folks at Abe-Hicks don't like it.

Again we turn to Kyra's blog, as she discusses the Abe-Hicks' organization's attempts to crack down on copyright violations. She notes that the efforts to fight copyright violators seem to have been stepped up after Jerry stepped into The Vortex last month.

On one level, of course, the torrents present just another example of people wanting something for nothing, and that's a very human trait, which the Internet has in many ways nurtured. But it's something more as well, as at least some of the torrent troops seem to fervently believe they are working for that New-Wage/McSpirituality conceit known as the Greater Good, which in this case means spreading Abe's loving message to a world that is starving for it. For them as well as for other Abe-Hicks watchers, it's also morally complicated because some of the things the Hicks have said over the years could have been interpreted as carte blanche for the content sharers.
There's this recent bit from Esther/Abe, for instance, uploaded in September of 2011, before Jerry got sucked into The Vortex. And as a reminder for those who aren't familiar with the Abe-Hicks shtick, that's Esther's voice, but you'll hear "Jerry and Esther" referred to in the third person because, you see, that's Abe talking through Esther.

I listened very carefully to this rambling, but it was kind of hard to tell exactly what Esther/Abe is/are saying about copyrights. New-Wagers are so indirect. If they're not couching things in enlightened-sounding euphemisms, they're just plain babbling. However, in this recording Esther-as-Abe seems to be saying that protecting copyrights is kind of a negative thing and isn't really necessary if you're going with the flow. She/they also seems to be saying that "this thing you call the Internet" is wonderful, because it provides an earthly demonstration of how LOA really works.

Then again, that was apparently recorded before Jerry croaked. Now the heirs to the throne are redoubling efforts to protect the territory. For the most part the Abe-Hicks organization seems to be couching the copyright fights in the most altruistic terms, claiming that their desire to protect their material is just so people who need their message can easily find them, and that it has nothing to do with money. Uh-huh.

But the torrenters fight on. One dedicated activist attempts to address both the legal and the moral issues surrounding the sharing of Abe-Hicks material (I won't name him, nor will I provide a link to his sites, but I imagine you can find them by Googling). He writes that in 2006 he came across the Abe-Hicks teachings, which changed his life for the better. He downloaded some MPFree files offered by Abe-Hicks and he got hooked. The more he studied their teaching, the more he wanted it. Alas, he was unemployed and could not spend the money they were asking for their recordings. (In my many years of observing, I've noticed that New-Wage gurus seem to attract more than the average bear's share of freeloaders.) 

But our activist asked and searched, and, as he 'splains it, the Law of Attraction led him to Abraham-Hicks torrents. I would have put my money on Google rather than the LOA that led him torrentward, but whatevs, as the hipsters used to say until that phrase got worn out (yeah, I know I've used it here too, and I'm not even a hipster). In any event the torrents were his lifesaver, he noted, and he felt so blessed that he decided he wanted to share the goodies with everyone. It felt really good to spread the word and help others find what he'd found. At this point in his narrative he quoted Abe-Hicks:

You are uplifters to the core of your being. Part of your selfish nature is to share the good stuff. Part of your selfish nature is to revel in what feels good, and spread it so others may find it too. - Abraham-Hicks

He wrote that he was concerned about the legality of torrents but was reassured by no lesser beings than Abraham themselves. Here are the quotations that apparently assuaged his moral anguish:

Everything is valid and everything is truthful, because Law of Attraction lets everything be. The question is not whether it's right or wrong, whether their approach is right or wrong, or whether my approach is right or wrong. The question is: Does their approach feel good to me? And if it doesn't, then I choose a different approach. --- Abraham (Excerpted from the workshop in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, August 2nd, 1998)

The Universe is not discriminating about the rightness or the wrongness of your request. It is here to accommodate all requests. All you have to do is be a Vibrational Match to your request, and the Universe will yield it to you. --- Abraham Excerpted from the workshop in Sacramento, CA on Saturday, May 13th, 2000

When you manage to stay connected to your Energy stream, you always win. And you know what, somebody else doesn't have to lose for you to win. There is always enough. --- Abraham

Alignment trumps everything including the supreme court. Stay true to your own desire. You don't have to convince anyone. --- Abraham

In other words, if taking and sharing other people's stuff makes you feel good, it's all right. Sorry, dude, but that probably ain't gonna hold up in court, if it comes to that. And all that stuff that Abe supposedly said about copyright being not all that important? I don't think that's going to fly either. I'm no lawyer so I really couldn't say how these things work, but I have watched a lot of law shows on TV, and I don't think there's any sort of precedent for calling imaginary buddies to the stand. I guess there's always a first time, though.
Hypocritical as the Hicks team seem to be on so many levels -- not the least of which is the ongoing masquerade that they're not in it for the money -- intellectual property rights law trumps what someone's imaginary friends supposedly said about sharing, feeling good, or what have you. 

My biases here are twofold, and at first glance they seem to be somewhat in conflict with each other. First off, I look at the Hicks enterprise, and always have, from the perspective of one who firmly believes that Esther and Jerry made the whole Abe thing up, originally inspired in large part by the success of the late Jane Roberts and her made-up mate Seth. (I know I've linked to this 2007 Independent (UK) article about the Hicks before, but I'm linking again because it really does paint a revealing portrait of Esther and Jerry.) They have been pulling this brilliant scheme off for more than twenty-five years, and I suppose you kind of have to hand it to them for that. At some point one or both Hickses may have started to believe some of their own b.s. ("Be careful what you pretend to be," warned Vonnegut in what I think was his finest novel, Mother Night), but that doesn't make it any less b.s.-y. At any rate, the result is that Hicks and their bogus buds have provided much snark chum for this Whirled and a few others -- most notably, Kyra and Dave.

But I'm also looking at the torrent issue from the viewpoint of an author. Part of my role as a book editor and ghostwriter for going on twenty years has been that of author advocate, and I know something about the creative process and the work that goes into producing and marketing content -- even if you have someone else create all or part of it for you. The law is on the Hicks' side, of course, but, legal issues aside, I don't think anyone has a moral right to consistently take and share huge chunks of commercial content unless it is freely offered by the creators of that content. (Yes, even if those creators are hammy scammers who have made millions from selling their imaginary-pals shtick to spiritually, emotionally, and financially needy people, and even if they have kind of made it sound as if it's okay to freely share their creations.) Quoting segments -- even extended segments -- for the purpose of criticism or commentary or just plain poking fun is one thing. Consistently taking entire copyrighted works and distributing them without permission is quite another.


Some might think my whole spiel about protecting content is contradictory to my passionate defense of Internet freedom, as expressed in my anti-SOPA post just the other day. Not so. In my opinion, SOPA reaches much too far in "protecting" the rights of content creators, and unfairly punishing those who share content even in the most indirect and innocent way. On the other hand, I've never been particularly sympathetic to torrenters. I will be happy to hear from those who disagree with me on any of these issues, of course.
From my perspective, however, the larger and more disturbing issues here are not the hypocrisy (or Hicks-ocrisy, as the case may be), nor the greed that fuels the Abe-Hicks empire and apparently has for years, long before The Vortex welcomed Jerry into its infinite delights. Hypocrisy and greed are certainly prominent characteristics not only of Abe-Hicks, but also of New-Wage rockstars in general.

But what concerns me even more is the fact that so many presumably educated adults are fighting passionately for free and unlimited access to what is basically a package of derivative crap. Branded derivative crap, yes, but derivative crap nonetheless. Aside from the ludicrous premise of receiving "wisdom" from a group of disembodied entities, even a casual glance at the messages that those all-knowing, all-wise entities are supposedly sharing should give pause. 

Consider, for example, this snippet about one of Esther's recent solo workshops, as reported and commented on by Dave Stone (I've mentioned it on my Facebook page and at the end of my November 28 Abrascam post, but it's worth sharing again):

Asked by a mother in the hot seat about dealing with her young child who refused to share toys, the brilliant, all-knowing Abraham responded the the child was in alignment, enjoying his toy "like Jesus not freaking out about the toylessness of his friends."

Which coldhearted Jesus was that, Abe?

Farther along in the conversation, Esther told her she should not be concerned or interfere with her son's kicking their cat. It was between the animal abuser and the cat, Esther said, and the cat would teach him. That's right, Abe, bring us one more Ted Bundy.

Kind of creepy, no? (Or perhaps the kid was just demonstrating Jerry and Esther's folksy observation that life is "a kick in the pants.") And consider "Abraham's" teachings about evolution, as noted by Kyra a few months ago. In her December 11 blog post I linked to above, Kyra also noted that at the December 10, 2011 LIVE event, Esther-as-Abe informed her audience that the human species was on Earth at the same time as the dinosaurs. Move over, Creationists!

Some Abers will probably say that I'm cherry-picking, that it's unfair to judge an entire body of work by a couple of arbitrarily chosen examples. But just go to Kyra or Dave's sites and poke around through the archives, and you'll see tons of other examples to support the basic premise that the Abe-Hicks material is a steaming pile of sh.. perhaps not the wisest choice of a guidebook for living.

Meanwhile, it seems clear to me even from my vantage point as an outsider that in the wake of Jerry's death, many people are struggling desperately to cling to their beliefs in Abe and Esther, finding ways to justify (or simply ignore) the increasingly glaring hypocrisies and inconsistencies. At this point there is a whole herd of elephants in the room -- or dinosaurs, if you prefer -- and many of the Abe defenders are still finding ways not to talk about them, at least not honestly. They choose to remain in their beautiful daze, which I'm sure is just fine with Esther and her minions. 

The only bright spot in all of this is that more of the natives really are getting restless, and perhaps for the first time are questioning not only the motives of the Abe-Hicks principals, but the validity of the stuff that spews out of Esther's mouth. And while the guardians of the Abe-Hicks empire may not find that very comforting, I think it's a very, very good thing.

PS ~ In other copyrights-and-wrongs news, the Hicks apparently also tried to trademark the phrase, "Law of Attraction" but had no luck. They have, however, cornered the market on Vortex of Attraction ^TM. Take that, all of you Secret stars and thousands of other other two-bit New-Wage hucksters and wannabes who are trying to capitalize on LOA. LOA ain't got nothin' on VOA.

PPS added on 28 December ~ Someone on Kyra's blog pointed out this blog post from an apparently recently disillusioned ex-Aber, who gives a very good account of her own experience in the Aber-hood. She describes the euphoria that comes from thinking one has finally found the true path, as well as the uncomfortable process of disillusionment. And I think she also nails the Hicks' true motives. Read the post here while you can: http://luvyourplanet.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/hello-world/

PPPS ~ In this recent article, Dave Stone documents that Esther-as-Abe has declared for many years that yes, it IS all about the money. Even religion is all about money, according to Abe, who apparently has also said that Esther herself is on a par with Jesus and Buddha. Good to know.

PPPPS added 3 January 2012 ~ Good Goddess, the post-script section on this thing is going to be longer than the actual post if this keeps up. But I just recently became aware of another new blog by a former Aber: Mariah's fine Post-Abe blog, which documents the lies one learns in the Aber-hood (and, in Mariah's case, eventually un-learns). Of particular interest: This post, dated December 29 (which also happened to be the birthday of long-time "friend" of the Hicks, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale). The Abe-on-parenting theme fits in with that kick-the-kitty thang. Good job, Mariah. And beyond that, read the comments to this post. In particular, a commenter named Tina brings up what appears to be another sad tale of collateral damage -- easily worthy of separate subsequent posts. Stay tuned...

* By using the word "croaked" I am not being disrespectful; that's apparently a term freely used by the Abe-Hicks gang and their followers.

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Jerry Hicks on chemo: Abrascam gets a little help from Western medicine

Those of you who have been hanging around this blog for a while -- or who have been following New-Wage scams via other forums -- are probably pretty familiar with Jerry and Esther Hicks, whom I've called the George and Gracie of the New-Wage world. (The main difference between the Hicks and Burns & Allen is that the latter were intentionally funny.)

Esther and Jerry -- whom Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale has credited with inspiring him in his own "spiritual marketing" shtick (he says he even wrote the intro to the original edition of their first Sara book) -- have had a smashingly successful imaginary-friends scam going since the late 1980s. As many of you may also recall, they were big stars of the original version of The Secret. Then when The Secret got too big for its bitches...I mean, britches...Rhonda Byrne got greedy and had her lawyers try to manipulate the Hicks into signing away more rights than they were comfortable with signing away. They refused, so she cut them out of the moviemercial entirely and released a new version sans Abe-Hicks. I blogged about this back in December 2006. And on his old blog, Mr. Fire himself wrote that despite the elimination of his dear friends, the new version of The Secret was even better than the original.

At any rate, being ousted from The Secret was no skin off the Hicks' backs. Their initial public proclamations about the incident were the typically "loving" -- that is, euphemistic but secretly seething -- New-Agey pap you might expect, but as time went by they got a bit snippy about it. They even released a revenge DVD. (I may have doctored that cover a little, but not much.) I don't blame them for being p.o.'d at Rhonda, but in the larger scheme of things I also don't think it's as outrageous for scammers to get scammed as it is for regular people to get scammed.

In any case the Hicks continued to rake it in with Gracie's... I mean Esther's... hammy Abe performances. They churned out books and frauducts, they presented workshops, they hosted lavish cruises for their faithful following of seagullibles. And the money just kept streaming in, often surprising even them, according to some of their own comments over the years. Of course I would always read between the lines: "Jeez, we can't BELIEVE we're getting away with this crap." "Jeez, we can't believe we're STILL getting away with this crap." And so on.

But all good scams must come to an end...or must they? Some people are predicting the end of the Abraham-Hicks empire in light of the fact that Jerry Hicks, who first pushed Esther into channeling -- um, I mean "receiving" -- has been undergoing chemotherapy to correct an "exaggerated" white blood cell count. I was first alerted to this by my friend Kyra, who runs a couple of Abe-skeptic sites. She pointed me to her blog post about the matter: http://kyrasdiary.blogspot.com/2011/05/jerry-hicks-undergoing-chemotherapy.html

The problem -- and the point that threatens to shake the Abe-Hicks community to its core (or not) -- is that "Abraham" has consistently advised against resorting to doctors and conventional medical treatment. While some of the "teachings" of Abe seem to take a neutral stance towards medicine, the overall message is that the body knows how to heal itself, and that the Abe teachings can help you prevent or cure any ailment by getting your vibes in tune with health, abundance and joy -- all without medical intervention, thank you very much. To many Abe followers, this apparently translates into a mandate to stay away from doctors and medicine altogether.
Kyra shares a revealing quotation at the beginning of her blog post:

"In reality, we have never encouraged Jerry or Esther to take any sort of medication or medical treatment because we know it is easier to teach them with what they know how to find their vibrational harmony with energy." - Abraham Hicks 03/02/1997 San Francisco, CA

It isn't Schadenfreude that motivates Kyra to write about this matter, and while you may find it hard to believe, that's not my chief motivator in this case either. Let me make it clear: I don't wish illness on anyone, not even a professional scammer like Jerry Hicks.
 
I do think it's a bit premature to talk about the end of a good scam like Abe-Hicks. On a recent Squidoo conversation Kyra wrote, "I think Jerry and Esther will run out of steam before their gimmick does." And I think she's right. For now, Jerry and Esther seem to be doing what they can to keep the scam alive by framing the entire chemo incident in a casual, lah-de-dah tale of a possible spider bite that may have occurred while the Hicks were camping next to a yacht marina in Florida. (Yep, those foreign yacht spiders will get ya every time. Yet another argument in favor of arachnophobia.)

In a recent update Jerry Hicks wrote -- or, more likely, had someone write for him:

On March 12, 2011 we flew from Del Mar to Boca Raton, Fl where we slept next to the dock with many yachts from many different parts of the world in the slip right outside our window. When I awakened the next morning I had a large welt on the inside of my wrist that looked like a giant fire ant bite. The most unusual thing about it was instead of the usual circular puss-like head that comes up from many insect bites it was a strangely cube-like head. It looked more like a spider bite. I put a Band-Aid on it and we continued the Panamanian cruise. It seemed to resolve into itself as time went along forming a pea-shaped nodule on my wrist. On April 18, I showed it to a dermatologist in Del Mar and she immediately decided to scrape it off and sent it in for a biopsy. We continued our seminar tour and returned to San Antonio getting ready for our spring East Coast run when we heard back from the biopsy results that there was something amiss relative to my white blood cell count and she put us in touch with a dermatologist in San Antonio who was an old school friend of hers. The subsequent blood test in San Antonio showed that my white blood cell count was extremely exaggerated and the physician insisted that I undergo immediate treatment with no delay. He pointed out a number of options, one of them was to use the “big guns” (heavy chemotherapy) and so we decided to go along with that and checked into the hospital on May 6th.

We were swept up in such an obvious current of amazing “path of least resistance” events unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before. The strong feeling that we were proceeding in exactly the right direction continued as my response to these “big guns” was a week of no discomfort and none of the highly forewarned side effects. Everyone around us at the hospital kept speaking their surprise at my unusually comfortable experience. We are now in day 18 of a 28 day regimen of bringing my blood counts back into perfect balance...

...P.S. One of the most wonderful things that I’ve experienced was the following revelation that I had while in the hospital with all of those wonderful people taking care of us: Every person with whom we seemingly have a chance encounter while here upon this planet has the potential of exerting a purely angelic influence upon us if we will but allow it.

There's a good discussion about this matter on this Squidoo forum hosted by another Abe-Hicks critic, Dave Stone: http://www.squidoo.com/death-of-abraham-hicks-esther-and-jerry-hicks-creation

I am not nearly as familiar with the teachings of Abe as Kyra and Dave Stone are. But there does seem to be a disconnect between "Abe's" teachings on conventional medical treatment and Jerry's decision to pursue same -- and many might see this as hypocritical. Even so, true believers will always find a way to rationalize. F'rinstance, there's this comment, from Dave Stone's Squidoo page linked to above:

Crumb Bukowski May 27, 2011 @ 6:22 pm

Jerry said in his blog that the chemo trip was a path of least resistance for him. This only implies if he didn't treat the condition with medicine he would've perhaps worried that he couldn't recover his well-being by just aligning his energy. The dude is 80 or older and must've figured he would take the chemo AND do his best to stay in the vortex in order to recover his well-being ASAP. Just because Abraham would not recommend medical treatment doesn't mean either Jerry or Esther or anyone else need follow their recommendation. I admit I was taken aback when Jerry didn't say "Screw the chemo, I'm just gonna chill out from the workshop schedule and do some fishing and trust that the white cell count will return to normal in proportion to how easygoing I make things inside my head." But he sort of emphasizes that the decision was a path of least resistance and that is quite respectable. Who is anyone to criticize or sneer at someone basing a decision on the path of least resistance? Esther and Jerry only ever claim to do their best to benefit from the teachings; they have never claimed to be the ultimate ultra-shining examples of said teachings. Cheers.

Dave replied:

Uh, yes, they did. They have access to Abraham, if such an entity exists 24 X 7, and they quote them every step of their lives. Esther has been quoted, posing as Abraham, as saying that the prognosis could be changed in a single afternoon session with Abraham. I can give you the quote, if you insist, but maybe you should wonder why they just didn't do that.

More importantly, you might ask yourself why Jerry doesn't just come clean, instead of dancing evasively all around the point. He has a teaching opportunity here, a chance to genuinely help others. Instead, he's staying on the money track. And, oh, by the way, if you are not one of the A-H emissaries they occasionally float my way in disguise, you are a sucker, ready to concoct rationales to excuse them of questionable conduct.

But people who want to believe will continue to believe. As Kyra wrote on Dave's forum:

...I don't think that in the end this will matter to Abers... Seth supporters managed to excuse Jane Robert's slow, painful death and Christian Scientists found ways of diffusing Mary Baker Eddy's morphine addiction. I'm sure that the same thing will happen here. I do have to say, though, I'm relieved because I think this will encourage people who listen to Abraham's teachings to seek traditional medicine when something goes wrong (rather than intending to rely on Abraham processes). At the least, they won't beat up on themselves so much when they get sick. They'll say, if it can happen to Jerry, it can happen to anyone. And that's good to know because one of my biggest worries about the teaching was with people who were trying to use Abraham processes because they didn't want to go the path of traditional medicine.

One point seems clear, whether you believe in LOA and Abe or not: Jerry and Esther's long-running imaginary-buddies scam has earned them millions of dollars -- more than enough money, I'd imagine, to buy the very best in medical treatment and after-care. Thanks to thousands upon thousands of gullible souls, Jerry Hicks, former Amway exec and current pimp for Esther's folly, is able to afford to take that "path of least resistance" and employ all of the "big guns" he needs to help him maintain or regain his health, and perhaps even buy him a few more good scamming years.

The same probably cannot be said of many, if not most, of his followers, and, for that matter, millions of other people who can't even afford basic medical care. So in that sense, I guess LOA and imaginary pals work very well indeed for some folks, not so well for others.

Something about that just doesn't seem right.

• Related post: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2007/07/you-really-gotta-want-it-but-you-better.html
• And here's a song -- still without a tune -- for all of you who wish you, too, could find a scam that really works: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2009/05/all-thats-missing-is-music.html

PS ~ For those who want to wear their Abe-Hicks skepticism, there's this T-shirt. Click on the pic for a slight enlargement, and here's the link to order.
(Note: I am not an affiliate -- just a sympathizer.)

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You really gotta WANT it (but you better not NEED it)

From time to time I get emails from people who have read my article, "The Wrath of the Secretrons," on the Committee For Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) web site. In that article I described some of the angry emails I’ve received from those who don’t like what I’ve written on Whirled Musings about the hit New-Wage infomercial The Secret.

By far, most of the folks who write to me about that piece are not fans of The Secret, and they weigh in on the "skeptical" end of the belief spectrum. But I recently received an email from someone who is a "believer," or has tried very hard to be. This person, who has been into spirituality for many years, has labored for years in the healthcare field. I was given permission to share part of this individual's email.

OK, so I am what you might call a "New Ager" (no 'w', as I am poor). I try to be a good person and do hope that my work [helping people] will bring me 3-fold what I have given out. I am now applying for disability after years [of hard work] plumb wore my body out, and I am currently struggling to keep my house. So, of course, I was interested in The Secret as well as the publications by [Jerry and Esther] Hicks when several of my friends drew them to my attention.

Unfortunately, no matter how positive I am, or how many affirmations and targeted meditations I have done, I still seem to be having what others have labeled as 'bad luck'. This has been quite disturbing to me. I have asked a few of my metaphysical friends WHY The Secret doesn't work for me..............and do you know what their answer is? Repeatedly? "[Then] you aren't doing it right."

Now I ask you, how positive is THAT? Instead of giving me pointers or talking to me about what I could improve upon, I get criticism.
I agree with you, that the reason that The Secret is working for those involved in it, is that they are making money off of people that are stupid enough to buy into it, [who], I might add, are [seemingly] no better off than when they started viewing and reading...

…Quite frankly, I am tired of being told that my year long…bad-luck-health-and-money streak [is] all my own fault for not thinking positively enough. (Maybe, just maybe, it has more to do with our current faulty health and medical programs in our country, lack of staffing in hospitals, and exorbitant fees for health care.)

I for one, applaud you. And, I AM a self professed new ager (no w!).
Thank you for the information, and for all the smiles. : )

In my reply, I told this person that I have received several similar emails from people who have genuinely tried to embrace the teachings of The Secret, and have made every effort to put the Law of Attraction to work in their lives. When things don't get better, or when they seem to get worse, these people have also sought advice and support from other fans of The Secret / LOA, only to find themselves hit with similar judgmental, non-helpful answers. It’s really just another form of New-Age guilt-mongering, which is every bit as destructive as traditional religious guilt-mongering – a matter I've previously addressed on this very blog.

In a subsequent email my correspondent wrote to me:

I don't understand how all of these supposedly 'evolved' and 'enlightened' people feel it is just to attack ANYONE, let alone someone else for having a difference of opinion. It goes completely against what it is they are trying to GRASP.
Heck, if I could get The Secret to work for me, I would be more than happy to report that to you, without feeling the need to berate you in any way....that is immature and quite frankly, scary.

My correspondent is not the only person who has had second thoughts about The Secret. On his blog a few months ago, my friend Blair Warren wrote about his own "turnaround." He’s written several other posts – some humorous, some serious – about the logical fallacies and other shortcomings of the Law Of Attraction, as taught in The Secret. Yet the stars of The Secret are still using that same "logic" to defend LOA as an actual physical law, on the order of the law of gravity. In so doing they seem to be demonstrating the same level of compassion that my correspondent’s friends have shown.
Esther and Jerry Hicks, who are making a great deal of money sharing the wisdom of the Universe as told to them by Esther’s imaginary friend(s) Abraham, were the original muses for Rhonda Byrne, creator and producer of The Secret. Esther was in the initial version of the DVD, and although she doesn’t appear in the revised version, the Abraham-Hicks influence in Secret and LOA culture is undeniable. Esther and Jerry’s message seems to be that where LOA is concerned, compassion and mercy don’t enter into the equation. LOA as Abraham ’splains it is an immutable law, and that’s that; like it or lump it.

On The Rick Ross Cult Awareness web site, I came across a link to a very interesting article about the Abraham-Hicks phenomenon. It was written by UK journalist Robert Chalmers for The Independent. Chalmers recently traveled to Colorado, where the Hicks were conducting a workshop, and he sat down and spoke with Jerry and Esther. He even got to speak with Abraham for a spell.

The following exchange, I think, pretty much sets the tone for the "touchy issues."

"When you suggested, in Fort Collins yesterday, that if you think about a thing it will come to you whether you want it or not, and that a person draws their destiny to them; when I heard that, the words that came into my mind were: Auschwitz, Bialystock and Dachau. Are you saying that six million Jews invited extermination upon themselves?"

"We would never say they invited it wantingly or knowingly. But we unequivocally say that nothing happens to anyone without a predominant vibration that matches it." Just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, she says, "the people who did not want inconvenience left right away. People who are not accustomed to managing their life well, stayed."

"The poor people stayed."

"They are poor in vibration before they are poor in manifestation."

Okay, now I get it.

Chalmers writes that Esther and Jerry differ from classic charlatans in that they don’t seem to be courting popularity by saying what people want to hear. Esther admitted that she and Jerry "argued with Abraham for years" about certain ideas, such as the fact that people attract everything that happens to them, good or bad, whether they intend to or not. What about the innocent babies who are killed, Esther wondered. Well, Abraham had an answer for that, sort of, and Esther explains it to Chalmers, sort of. But when she and Jerry end up talking about a chicken they had named Renegade, this sort of cheapened the entire discussion for me. Not that I have anything against chickens, but c’mon, guys.

And here is the Abraham-Hicks take on victimization.

"Abraham," Esther says, "told us early on that the person receiving prejudice is the one who has the vibration that is attracting it. If I ever find myself feeling like a victim, things like that start happening to me."

"You say 'things like that' - the Holocaust?" [asked Chalmers]

"Well, no - that's big big big big big big big. I mean, it's ... huge. Probably the most victimised I have felt was over The Secret; but every part of it that happened, I acknowledge that there was a vibrational component of it within me."

Well, at least Esther admits that the Holocaust was a big deal and that she hasn’t ever suffered anything nearly so horrid.
Chalmers’ article goes into Jerry and Esther’s background, relating the tale of how they got into the imaginary-buds biz in the first place. You’ve probably heard the story before, but in this article you’ll get some more details that may, if you’re particularly unfortunate, bring up some unsavory visuals. (Esther, by the way, prefers to call what she does "receiving," not "channeling.")

There’s no denying that even as the Hicks have influenced Secret and LOA culture, it was The Secret that really catapulted them to fame. By their own admission, they’ve handsomely profited, both directly and indirectly, from The Secret.

It's hard to calculate," says Esther, "how much we have benefited from The Secret."

"Millions," Jerry interrupts. "Millions." These days, he says, "I can't imagine money not just pouring in."

Oprah Winfrey, who helped propel The Secret to mega-success by her endorsement, loves Esther Hicks too. She even had Esther on her radio show on XM not too long ago, but she won’t have her on the TV show because "too many people would be weirded out" by Esther’s fake-voice shtick. Esther told Chalmers, "Oprah doesn't think her television audience is ready for something so leading edge as Abraham. I want people who are ready for us to find us."
Well, there certainly seems to be a steady flow of people who are "ready" – enough folks to support an affluent lifestyle for the Hicks, although I must admit they don’t seem to be nearly as ostentatiously egotistical as some of the New-Wage hustledorks in The Secret.

And even though the LOA may be dispassionate, the Hicks have been known to commit acts of kindness. They’re not into charitable giving, though they do give their money away when the mood strikes them – but only to people who don’t give off "needy" vibes.

"What we are teaching," Jerry says, "is that you don't attract through need, but through desire. Like, we were in a little restaurant in San Francisco a while back and the waitress was just so wonderful. We gave her this envelope, with all the cash from that day's workshop. She yelled: 'Oh my God, you can't believe what you have done for me. I was going to lose my apartment.' We said: 'If you'd told us that, we wouldn't have given you the money. We did it because you were wonderful.'"

I’m surprised they didn’t take the money back after the waitress revealed her desperate situation. Anyway, I think the lesson here is clear. The real key to getting your problems solved – the real secret – is not merely to think positive, but to convince everyone else, including yourself, that you really don’t need anything. It’s okay to want money and other stuff, but not to need it. If you can convince yourself you don’t need it, then maybe you can fool the Universe, and you can get your stuff. In that respect, the Universe is sort of like an insurance company. If you can convince an insurance company that you’re highly unlikely to ever actually need the insurance, but you just want to pour your hard-earned money into their coffers for the sheer bloody joy of it, they’ll more than likely write you a superb policy. The rest of us – those who really are sick, and those who simply can't spare the bucks to enrich the insurance company – are S.O.L., insurance-wise.

So here’s my advice to the correspondent mentioned at the beginning of this post: Just be your wonderful self, and pretend everything is hunky-dory, and that your life isn’t in danger of coming apart at the seams. And if you ever get to the point where you're able to work again, and Esther and Jerry ever find their way into your healthcare facility, be extra, extra wonderful to them. If they're fresh from another workshop and have pockets full of dough, you just might get lucky.

And once again, here’s the link to that article in The Independent. It’s long, but very well worth the read.

OMT for everyone: If you haven't already, go see the movie Sicko. I think you'll find something to like about it – and even many things you'll agree with – even if you loathe Michael Moore and his politics.

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Abrascam: Followers may fall, but the snow must go on

Note: I have modified some of the copy in this post since I first published it. In the portion following the "bad poetry" in honor of Abe Forum moderator Jody's birthday, I have substituted my original "speculation" about the forum mods' motives for censoring a conversation with actual private communications about these motives. I was aware of these exchanges at the time I originally wrote the post, and worked the basics into my (informed) "speculation." However, at that time I had not yet obtained permission to share the exchanges verbatim. Thank you to ex-Aber Tina, who brought this sad story to light after two-and-a-half-years, for giving me permission to share them, and for the erudite Clarity, who helped me secure the permission. For easy viewing, the new material will be in this color.
~CC, 19 January 2012

Also see addendum -- an important comment from Clarity -- posted in this color.
~CC, 23 January 2012

Now that we're well into The Year of the Mayan Apocalypse, I suppose I'd best get back to blogging while there is still time. Actually, this somewhat overdue post has been in the hopper for a few weeks, but work and other responsibilities kept popping up (not that I'm complaining).

One of the things I find most frustrating about New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality culture is the constant, contrived, and almost superstitious avoidance of "negativity." This avoidance is manifested not only in ongoing efforts to ignore, discredit, or even take legal action against critics, but, at its most extreme, in the effort to cover up injuries or deaths of followers. While some fans of New-Wage gurus or belief systems may sincerely believe that focusing on the negative is counter-productive to their growth, it seems pretty obvious that the gurus and group leaders have their own motivations for nixing negativity: it's bad for business. When followers die and their death seems even marginally related to a particular New-Wage enterprise, that's really bad for business. And this brings us to the apparent cover-up, by Abraham-Hicks principals, of the 2009 suicide of one of their followers, Karen Shelton.
I am not the first blogger to write the sad story of this talented artist, who followed Abraham-Hicks in the last years of her life and used the name "Ari" (which is her son's name) on some of the Abe forums. She was very active on these forums, and when she took her own life in the summer of 2009, a few of her fellow members who found out about it wanted to discuss the matter on the forum. But moderators of the official online community, The Abe Forum, made a concerted effort to squelch the conversation. And although they didn't wipe "Ari's" hundreds of posts from the forums completely, they changed her status from "member" to "guest," and made it clear that discussing her was verboten.

So why go into this story now, when it is two-and-a-half years old? It started when an ex-Aber named Tina mentioned Karen's story recently on the blog of another ex-Aber, Mariah, and Mariah turned that into a blog post, the link to which is here. Around the same time, long-time Abe-Hicks critic Dave Stone wrote two posts about the matter, one on Seekyt and one on Healthmad.com.
I guess it's my turn now. Originally I had just planned for this to be a short post linking to the others' work. But it grew and grew, as things so often do on this Whirled. As usual with these long posts, you may want to print this one out to read it, and highlight the links you want to follow. I do urge you to read Mariah's and Dave's posts, as well as those on Kyra's blog. And be sure to read the comments from other ex-Abers such as Clarity, Claire, and Charmcat, and, of course, Tina, who brought the story back to light. These bloggers and commenters are the ones who are really the experts on the dynamics of the Abe forums and the whole Abe-Hicks body of work.

A member to remember...or not
Karen Shelton had been through more than her share of bad times in her life. She had battled depression for years, and even mentioned on a post I read that she had been suicidal at different times in her life. She'd suffered through an abusive marriage, the loss of twin baby girls who were born prematurely, and an aggressive form of breast cancer where she was given only a 50-50 chance of survival. Although single and lacking insurance, she did survive, but her hair never grew back after the cancer treatments. Before and after the cancer, her life was apparently a series of financial and emotional struggles.

But Karen had two things going for her: her artistic talent, and her son Ari, an artist in his own right, whose chosen art form was music rather than painting. Ari did everything he could to support his mom, even writing to CBS' The Early Show, requesting that they consider his mother for a makeover as part of the "Week of Wishes" that the show was sponsoring at the time. Thanks to Ari's poignant recounting of his mother's struggles, Karen was chosen and received her makeover, which was featured on an episode of The Early Show. Macy's donated a $1,000 gift certificate towards a new wardrobe, and a team at a posh New York Salon helped her make the most of her looks. According to the story on the CBS site:

In the end, Shelton felt like a new woman. "It's amazing, glamorous and beautiful," she said. While visiting The Early Show Thursday morning, the good news continued. Co-anchor Rene Syler surprised Shelton with the news that art supplier DickBlick.com is donating a $2,500 gift certificate. Shelton also will be getting a professional break that many artists dream of: The Animazing Gallery in New York's SoHO has agreed to hold a show of Shelton's work and to host a reception in her honor.

Hearing the good news, Shelton threw her arms around her son, saying, "He does magic for me."

Here is a link to that story, which includes a video of Karen and Ari's appearance on The Early Show: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/23/earlyshow/series/week_of_wishes/main1433783.shtml
It's important to note that although the article on the CBS site is dated February 11, 2009, the original date of the show on which Karen and Ari were featured was March of 2006. At that time, she had probably been into Abraham-Hicks' teachings for about a year. (Thanks to Clarity for clarifying these points for me.)

The page about Karen Shelton's Animazing Gallery show has some more biographical information about her. In the Artist's Statement at the end, Karen quotes a friend who wrote this about her:

"We should all be writing our books, but now you, you should be having [your son] Ari score your movie, a movie about a too quiet girl who dreams in color. It wouldn't be about all that was taken away from you but all that you create out of thin air..."

But apparently it was not in Karen's nature to claim all of the glory for herself. She added:

My friend could write the same thing about herself; her challenges have equaled mine. “We think of something, and we doos it” is another way she describes how strong we, like so many women, have learned to be.
My desire is to describe this kind of strength through my paintings. It is a subtle kind of strength that comes to us just as a way of being. The flaws, the scars, the scratches in paint reveal a strong sense of presence… a Presence That Just Is...

We all love the heartwarming true-life tales we see on TV, and I'm sure they're good for ratings, but of necessity they provide only a snapshot and not the entire story. It would be lovely to believe that the trip to New York and the attention lavished by CBS et al. marked a turning point in Karen's life: both a happy ending and a new beginning. But there was no happy ending. Karen dreamed in color and committed those dreams to canvas, but her life off-canvas was not a dream. And although she was by all counts a strong woman, in the end there were forces that were even stronger.

At some point after she was on the CBS show, Karen became active on the Abe-Hicks forums (she joined in 2007), and was a frequent participant, not merely seeking support for her own struggles, but constantly trying to help others with theirs as well. Her story unfolded over a series of many posts, some of which were a clear cry for help, but the only "help" she got from Abe forum members were the expected cliches about getting into alignment.
Tina, the ex-Aber I mentioned above, put it most succinctly on Mariah's blog:

I recall Ari/Karen posting and seeking help and alignment, and seemingly, the harder she tried, the worse her life became. She quit her job at the encouragement of fellow posters. She was financially strapped at this time, but trusted she could rely on the abundance that was sure to flow in from her art work because of Esther's teachings. She would post every once in a while her out of alignment, losing her loft, no money, an art job would come in but be surrounded with problems. Most of her issues were seemingly stemming of lack of finances. She was getting deeper and deeper in depression, and her posts were clearly reflecting this, all the while she continued to get the same canned responses about getting into alignment, etc., and reminding her how close she is to getting everything in her escrow. She would get into a happier place, but then return a week later more depressed and discouraged than the week before.

Tina noted that some of Karen's last posts revolved around her excitement over her son's upcoming wedding. But this excitement was marred by financial concerns and not being able to afford a nice dress. She was also uneasy about seeing her son's dad, her abusive ex-spouse. It was all apparently too much for her, and finally, after leaving the wedding, she ended her life.

When Tina found out about it, she broached the subject on The Abe Forum, but the thread was quickly shut down by Super Moderator Jody Baron (more on her in a little while). And when Tina went looking for Ari's posts, she found that the Ari avatar, which was one of Karen's lovely paintings, had been removed, and her status changed from "Member" to "Guest." Wrote Tina on Mariah's blog:

It was as if she never existed on that forum. A few people did see my post before it was removed and starting asking about Ari and surprised at her death. Jody made a post reflecting the topic was not up for conversation, or something to that effect.

Jody also communicated privately with Tina that it was best not to allow any discussion of Ari/Karen; more on that below. 

In a recent private discussion about this, ex-Aber Clarity (who gave me permission to quote her) summed up Karen's struggles and how unhelpful the Abe teachings apparently were:

So let’s see…she comes to Abe, loses her gallery to rotten people…moves 6 times in one year, winds up in a rough neighborhood in an oversized closet, has to borrow money to keep her place, finds a beau and gets dumped. Can we see how always trying to stay positive and figure out how to open that vortex door would tax a stable person, much less a person on meds who is suicidal??? Karen really tried hard to keep thinking better thoughts…and her life kept going downhill. God, the overwhelming sense of frustration that she had to deal with each and every day. The overwhelming sense of personal failure. She did something wrong…she didn’t line up.

...Not to forget she was a very integral part of the forum, a regular poster/always there for others, always trying to help, inspire, comfort. Then one day poof…gone…let’s not talk about it.

[Addendum, 23 January 2012]: Although it also appears in the discussion following this post, I want to insert Clarity's January 21 comment about a detail of Karen's story that I inadvertently overlooked. I'm going to quote Clarity verbatim.

…Karen’s last post on the Abe forum was the day before the wedding, the day before she took her life. From someone who recalls the post it wasn’t any kind of post that would be um, incriminating. She was excited about Ari’s wedding, wished she had something nicer to wear and was nervous about seeing her ex after so long. That post was removed, puff into thin air. I wondered about that for awhile…why remove a not damning post? It wasn’t till a few days ago that I got it. It was the last post she made and in spite of her happy face the next day she took her life. That was why it had to be erased. That is in fact the most incriminating of all…happy face today, gone tomorrow. The Hicks, who control the forum and make all the decisions, I would best guess went over Karen’s post and decided how to handle it…remove her avatar of one of her beautiful paintings, remove her as a member to guest status and remove her last post. Now that I understand why they removed her last post (because I really didn’t understand why when I first heard) it is reflective of not only sinister motives in how her passing was handled but someone’s looking at each detail carefully to sanitize her presence on the forum. What kind of ghouls go over her post like that? What kind of sick sadistic ghouls???

Just for the heck of it I Googled "Abraham Hicks suicide." The first few results were videos of what "Abe" says about death and dying. Then there was this blog post, which was hard to read for more than just the totally lousy typography. The gist of it? "Every death is suicide." Or so says "Abraham."
Dave Stone has written quite a lot about the Abraham-Hicks teachings on death and suicide. In his recent Seekyt article he wrote:

"'...death' is a matter of closing one's eyes in this dimension and literally opening one's eyes in the other dimension. And that, truly, is how all death is, no matter how it looks, up to that point.. The re-emergence into Source Energy is always a delightful thing."
This was said by Esther Hicks, posing as Abraham, in Buffalo, New York, two weeks to the day after terrorist attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives on September 11th, 2001.
Not to worry. Pregnant women crushed by collapsing towers or jumping to avoid being burned alive, others on jetliners with babies in their laps, men with dependent families waiting for them to come home, telemarketers slugging away another day on the phone--no matter, they killed themselves, fully aware and instantly without a regret, according to Esther Hicks. “The death experience is always suicide.” Also, it “is always a delightful thing.”

Someone going by the name of Wide Eyes wrote this on a recent Salty Droid post, in a thread about the narcissistic mindset of The Secret:

January 11th, 2012 at 2:28 am
...Speaking of the evil of the secret, I’ve lost a newborn (stillbirth) and was told by a Secret/Abrahams Hicks devotee that it was probably because of a “negative thought”
This was the worst thing i’ve heard. So f-----g mean
But it was also total b.s. As in fact I did not worry at all
needless to say I erased this woman from my life… (who fancies herself as a coach helping people!)...
...Btw we had another child and worried sick for her (lots of negative thoughts)… She’s perfectly healthy...

It seems that the real laws of cause and effect are far more complex than the all-knowing "Abe" -- and other LOA gurus and followers -- would have us believe.

The mods versus realityAs you may know, the Abraham-Hicks empire is on somewhat shakier ground now than it has ever been, and it's not just because Esther and gang apparently got on the wrong side of an influential Hollywood celeb (but that's worthy of a whole other blog post, which I won't write but will link to when it is written). The shakiness is due in large part to the recent death of the original brains behind the whole Abrascam, Jerry Hicks. Granted, Jerry was old -- in his eighties -- and he had leukemia. Yet many are questioning why the Abe-Hicks teachings on health and illness apparently failed him. And even though the fact that...um...he was quite elderly and had a terminal illness should have been a sufficient explanation for his demise, the manner of his passing did raise interesting questions about the apparent disconnect between Abe-Hicks teachings and Jerry's choices at the end. For instance, there was his choice to use every conventional (and unconventional) medical treatment available as he fought to hang on to his earthly existence, despite Abe's teachings to the contrary. And then there's the question of why he "attracted" the cancer in the first place.*

The moderators of the official Abraham-Hicks forums have apparently been putting forth their best damage-control efforts, much as they did with Karen Shelton. I'm certainly not an expert on these forums and their dynamics and politics, but I think I have a grasp on the basics, thanks in large part to the Abe-Hicks critical bloggers and those who have participated on their blog discussions. In fact, the ever-intrepid Kyra, who takes her job as Nancy Drew and Scooby Doo seriously, connects some dots with the Abe forum(s) in this recent blog post.

Apart from Esther-as-Abe, perhaps the most influential voice on the official online community is long-time Abe-Hicks house boy David Gordon, who seems in many ways to be a typical SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy). In his profile on The Abe Forum, he lists his home page as abrahamappreciators.com, but it directs to this URL: http://whatanicewebsite.com/faces/. David apparently received his noble calling to pilot Abe-Hicks' online conversations back in the late 1990s, as he relates on this link. Called to the "hotseat" at a live event in 1998, David had a convo with Esther-as-Abraham that began like this (with brief annotations from your hostess):

ABRAHAM: Right here. You've just been given a new birth.
DAVID: That's going to be a hard one.
ABRAHAM: Better than a lobotomy. [Yuck-yuck. Oh, that Abe gang. What a bunch of cut-ups. ~CC]
DAVID: What a wonderful act to follow. I have been given the wonderful opportunity to administer an E-mail list for the body of information that is Abraham-Hicks. There are over 140 people on this list. It's been in existence for about three years.
ABRAHAM: How did it come about? How did it begin? [Why would Abe ask these questions? I thought they knew everything. Oh, well. ~CC]
DAVID: It came about by a particular individual who is in this room coming up with the idea of linking on-line folks on the leading edge, as we are, together to discuss the works of Abraham.
ABRAHAM: So they are independent students of the process of deliberate creation.
DAVID: Yes....

And it goes on and on like that. Oy. I'm quite familiar with that "we're on the leading edge" mentality, by the way. It's a banner proudly carried by woo armies everywhere, providing the foundation for some of their most common (and fallacy-ridden) counters to criticism.

In May of 2011, David started a Love for Jerry thread on The Abe Forum, the URL of which is www.LoveforJerry.com, though it directs to http://www.abeforum.com/showthread.php?23438-Appreciating-Jerry-Hicks. Presumably this love-bombing was an effort to support Jerry as he fought his cancer battle...oops, I mean "allowed" the medical treatment. On one of his posts on that thread, David quoted from another Abe-Hicks fan named Tewa:

Jerry I love you SO much
It will take me a thousand rampages of appreciation to list the things I
love
You and Ester [sic] have given us all so much
My heart is so full tonight of all I have received

I love that you take the Chemo in true wonderful Jerry style
watching and allowing
i love how you Live Abe
i Love how you are
I love what you asked into Being for all of us
with your thirsting questioning mind and your great loving and appreciating
ways
And I love you
I love your zippy do da -ness
i love how you are so tuned into FUN!
i love your incredible life

I love your courage and resilience
Love YOU Thank-you Jerry
SO MUCH!
Love Tewa

But in spite of all of that love and zippy do da-ness and being tuned into FUN!, Jerry croaked anyway on November 18, 2011. Or, rather he "made his transition," though Esther waited a few days to announce it to the world. And there seems to be some pretty interesting buzz about that, about what was really going on while Jerry was being launched into the vortex and the Abe-Hicks propaganda machine was spinning its tales to keep the shocked and the doubting in thrall. There appears to be an interesting Korea story here; I do believe some of our Abe-Hicks sleuths are looking into that even as I write this. 

But I digress. The point towards which I am meandering is that at least the participants were allowed on the forums to talk about Jerry's passing...well, sort of. Apparently they can't comment about Jerry anywhere but on the "I love Jerry" thread, where the post-croaking rampages continue. Head SNAG David Gordon makes it clear:

Posts in the "main" forum, Abraham Teachings and you, are open only for that topic and not comments about Jerry.

And I'm sure that any critical posts will be disallowed.

David has been aided in his guard duties by several others, most notably, the aforementioned Jody Baron, Super Moderator. Here are some highlights from Jody's profile on The Abe Forum:

Location

Where Life is FUN

Favorite short Abraham quote

"Stop making such a big deal out of everything!"

How did you find the Abe forum?

I created and launched it with David Gordon in may, 2007

It seems Jody and David once had a thing going, but alas, the love did not last, and Jody ran off with another SNAG, with whom she is now co-author of a book on tantric boinking called Relax Into Sex. Jody and her partner are apparently delivering workshops on how to use the Law of Attraction to have great sex. Icky, icky.

But that is now, and this was then. And for the benefit of those who might accuse me of indulging in gratuitous gossip, let me state that I am merely providing some context for Karen's story. As both David and Jody were instrumental in the censorship of her story on The Abe Forum, it only seems appropriate. It's also appropriate to mention that around the time when a few of the regular participants were trying to bring Karen's story to light on The Abe Forum, and the mods were busily wiping the forum clean of her presence, David Gordon began a "rampage of appreciation" for Jody to celebrate her birthday. On August 19, 2009, David introduced a new topic: "Rampage for Jody Today." Judging from the time stamp, he got up pretty early in the morning to do it:

From David
Administrator
Posted: Wed Aug 19th, 2009 03:35 am
I thought I'd give a Happy Birthday to our Beloved Super Moderator today. Today is her birthday, and I wish her a GREAT day today.... and every day.
It may not be enough to just write some appreciation, and words may not work or be enough to express how much I appreciate her, but I wanted to at least try!

The Abe Forum is yet another one of Jody's expressions of Love in her life. And like her sons and daughter, it has turned out magnificently. Without the energy of Jody, this place would not be what it is. (okay, she has a lot of help from Marc and Scott, but it's not their birthday today, it's hers.)

And so today I rampage for Jody. The world has the best possible forum for the appreciation of Abraham because of her amazing talent and focus. It's a LOT more than just her talent that is involved, there's an energy that is off the chart for helping others understand and use the Abraham teaching. And she does this tirelessly, day after day after day. (unless she is on a cruise, which is OMG.. often!) Even then there's hardly ever a time when this place is not on her mind and in her heart.

I practically go breathless to encompass all the Love she is. The Forum is just a portion of that Love. I see how she is as a Mom and there's not anyone around that can know the feeling that I feel or understand the Love that is present. I have told her that she is Love on steroids, and that is SO true!!
So Jody, this rampage is for you today.
Happy Birthday!!

May you feel Loved and Appreciated today beyond anything that makes any sense.

with Love and Rampages,

David
Last edited on Wed Aug 19th, 2009 10:45 pm by

This open invitation was followed by a page of emoticon-heavy, animation-infested, happy-happy joy-joy messages from participants whose profiles listed their locations as places such as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "The Vortex." It was a true "rampage," Aber style. There was even some bad poetry (and goodness me, you know how I love bad poetry):

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAY JODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Birthdays come but once a year
But, your radiant love is always here
Your style and grace never cease to be
And we all appreciate you responding so inspirationally
Your energy and enthusiasm radiates to us all
As Abraham's philosophy you so KNOWINGLY recallJody you're an uplifter of pure clarity
Which we can all enjoy for eternity...

Meanwhile, the discussions about Karen's death were wiped clean, and "Ari" was de-avatar'd and re-listed as a "guest" rather than a "member."
Some might say that the forum moderators had good reasons to suppress discussion about the tragic end to Karen's life, apart from the obvious agendas to keep negativity to a manageable level and to avoid anything remotely resembling liability for a member's death. In fact, Birthday Girl Jody, in private communications with Tina at this time, expressed these reasons like a true expert in obfuscation (Abe-fuscation?). As I mentioned in my Jan. 19 note at the beginning of this post, Tina has graciously given me permission to share this exchange.

Jody begins with this communication to Tina:

I think we're going to make any discussion of Ari off-topic. What do you two think?

Meanwhile, the consensus of the moderators is that we'll discuss it in PM [private messages] - those who are aware, but we don't see value it discussing it on the open forum. I'm very willing to entertain opinions to the contrary though... any thoughts?
Jody

Tina's reply:

Hi Jody,

My thoughts on Ari's transition. Obviously, the decision is yours and David's [that would be David Gordon, of course ~CC], and I appreciate the opportunity to give you my thoughts. With this being the Abe forum, and Abe always referring to us humans in physical forms attributing negativity to death when it is not a negative experience, I feel in keeping quiet when someone from the forum transitions, well, it gives me the feeling that death is bad in some way, which contradicts Abe's teachings on the subject. It doesn't feel right to me .
I honestly feel a guided thread, perhaps started by a moderator with clear intentions in place of it being about Ari and the teachings of Abe to keep the flow on the experience of death from Abe's perspective would be beneficial to those on the board following Abe and his words. We need to comprehend and totally understand that death is not something we should be afraid to face, it can't be swept under the rug, but should be addressed in some fashion. Even to make a positive comment about Ari transitioning and then locking the thread would be better than not acknowledging her transition at all.

As I said, of course, the call is yours and David's, but to pretend that it didn't happen would be a travesty and certainly not in line with what Abraham teaches.
Tina

Jody's response:

Hi Tina,
I totally hear what you are saying, of course. We would never censor the subject of death, as you know, and we have had many very intense threads on it. The reason I'm hesitant to allow a discussion of Ari is that she was sort of anonymous here - if she was your mother, then of course I would allow you to discuss your use of the Abraham teachings while "dealing with" (for lack of better phrase) her death. But just the fact that she was a forum member doesn't seem a "good reason" for us to get into a discussion of it. Does this make sense? It is what feels right to me and David and Scott and Marc right now, but again, I'm happy to keep up the dialog with you here and if you feel there is a thread in the making that you have bubbling up in you that involves Ari's death and directly relates to the teachings- please run it by me here?
(I'm copying my co-moderators on this note in case they have words of wisdom..)
Love,
Jody

Tina's response to Jody:

Hi Jody,

I have come to the thought that being anonymous, then the name is not known, so to speak, outside of the board. It is a screen name. Ari is known as Ari the screen name. I see no contraindications to making a thread about Ari transitioning and locking it. Ari is a screen name. The screen name transitioned and will not longer be posting. Does that make sense? Separating the real person from the anonymous screen name?

I didn't know Ari's real name or even where she lived, but I do see a difference in stating on the forum that Ari transitioned versus Karen Doe of West Sawdust, MA transitioned. She posted here as Ari. The use of the name Ari would still allow the person behind the screen name to remain anonymous.
Tina

Jody's reply to Tina's response:

Tina:
I'm not sure what would be gained by announcing her death, and then discussing it. To discuss it "just because" she was a forum member seems a little "off". Does this make sense? I don't think we are "grieving" for her or really in any way having to deal with her passing, so a thread just to let people know that someone who was on the forum is now in non-physical doesn't make sense as far as topic.
For me, it seems most downstream just to answer the questions of those who PM me or the other moderators (of they will) asking why she is no longer on the forum. But since even that has not happened.. I think with over 4000 members, in and out of physical, we're not going to be able to keep track!
Am I over-thinking this? It's very possible!! I do have a tendency to do that!
Thanks for mulling this over with me!
Jody

Today Tina says, "Of everything Jody said in those messages, this stuck out the most to me: 'I don't think we are "grieving" for her or really in any way having to deal with her passing.'"

Indeed. That's the part that sticks out for me too. Jody's arguments come across as just so much rationalization. First there are the issues of privacy and anonymity. As Tina pointed out, it would not have been a violation of Karen's privacy or anonymity to discuss her death using her screen name, Ari. For that matter, on other platforms, both Karen (using her real name) and the son who survived her (more about him below) have been quite public about their troubled stories. Had this not been the case, I would not have used their real names here.

Moreover, grief has many faces, and I think it is indeed possible to grieve for a relative stranger, even if you don't have to directly deal with the logistical matters or the deeper emotional issues related to their passing. To imply that those who mourned Ari/Karen's passing were not dealing with real emotions is ignorant and cold. Tina and the others who wanted to talk publicly about Ari were motivated by empathy and compassion, traits for which the Abe machine apparently has little use. And the matter of Karen's untold story has remained painful for Tina even after two-and-a-half years.

When I speculated on these matters in a private conversation with a small group of Abe critics, and added that empathy and compassion do not seem to be stressed in the Abe-Hicks teachings, Dave Stone responded (and has given me permission to quote him):

You think empathy and compassion are not stressed in the Abe-Hicks teachings? Worse they that, the embedded, radical narcissism makes them anathema. If it ain't about me, it ain't.

I remember one heavy-duty Aber... in one of the last debates I ever had on AbeTalk [another Abe forum], insisted that she would waltz past the children being forced to ingest poison in Jonestown, singing La-di-da-di-da. It was law of attraction in action, after all. The children, even infants brought it on themselves with their "vibrations," and it wouldn't be right to interfere. Hers was a pure expression of the teachings in real life. It's about me, me and me, or it just isn't. After all, I created the whole thing, and I can just ignore what I don't like.

The philosophy gives a bad name to sophomoric and shallow.

I couldn't have said it better, Dave. And that whole Jody birthday exchange leads me to wonder: If, according to the Abe-Hicks mindset, the grief that some members felt for Karen/Ari wasn't "real" because after all, they only "knew" her through the forum, how could all of those joyful rampages of appreciation in which the Abers indulge on the forums be "real?" And how genuine is that effluvium of professed "love" for Jerry and Esther? Granted, some of the gushers and fawners have probably met Esther and Jerry -- and each other -- in person on cruises or at other Abe-Hicks events, but do they all really "know" each other? Probably not.

But then, much like the Beatles' fabled Strawberry Fields, in the Aberhood nothing is real.

What is real is the life that burns beyond the ecstatic rampages on the forums, but those stories can be so distressingly mundane. I think Tina summed it up quite well on Kyra's recent blog post (Jan 11, 2012 07:31 PM):

I find that most people on the forum are either looking to attract a relationship or money, money probably being #1, but relationship is a close second. A lot of posts I read on the forum are people who are down and out, can't pay their basic need bills, strapped for cash, yet continuing to use their last dime, so to speak, to buy a Hicks's book, a video seminar, or actually going to a seminar in person (all when posting they are soon to be evicted for not paying their rent). They are willing to spend their last bit of money on anything Hicks's related because they think "I just need one more piece of information and then all my abundance will come to me, this might be it, this might be the final piece of the puzzle I need." Unfortunately, reaching their goal through the Hicks's "scam," for lack of a better word is always elusive, dependent on the new book, the next seminar, the next great recycled idea that the Hicks...and Company come up with.

That's a familiar scenario, one that is no doubt played out over and over and over again across the New-Wage (and Internet Marketing) universe, on everything from Marcy From Maui's Powerful Intentions forum to Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale's Attract Miracles "community" to the wretched hive of self-described "Syndicate" members that Salty Droid writes about on his blog. There will always be people who are willing to spend their last penny and even go into debt for overpriced products and events, hoping that the next one will be the portal to the realization of their hopes and dreams. 

Same story, different verse
When I first read the story of how Karen/Ari was all but "wiped away" from the Abe forum after she killed herself, and particularly after I read about the Jody birthday appreciation rampage, I immediately thought of another tragedy that also took place in 2009. I recalled how James Arthur "Death" Ray and his minions worked so hard to cover up Colleen Conaway's death after she (apparently) jumped off of a third-floor mall balcony during one of Ray's Harmonic Wealth weekends in San Diego in July of 2009 -- less than three months before the fatal sweat lodge in Sedona. Many of you who are reading this probably know the basics of Colleen's story, but it bears repeating in this context. (For those who are interested, Salty Droid wrote of the tragedy of Colleen in detail over the course of numerous posts.) One of Ray's minions, Greg Hartle, actually witnessed Colleen's fatal leap from across the mall, and instead of calling 911 he simply tweeted: “Just witnessed a woman jump several stories down onto pure concrete. I gotta say it was disturbing. I’m sending her my love right now.”

Even after Colleen's body had been identified and Ray was notified, some of his assistants pretended to still be looking for her. One of them even called her cell phone repeatedly and left messages asking her where she was -- after it was known that she was dead. And that night, they all had the wrap party and danced the night away, with the principals knowing full well that Colleen was lying dead on a slab. In all fairness I'll say that most of the dancers and party animals did not know that one of their fellow participants was dead. Most did not have a clue until months later, after the Sedona tragedy put James Ray in a harsher light and the news media and critical bloggers started digging. But Death Ray and the Rayettes did know that very night, and still partied up a storm.

As Abe-Hicks critic Clarity wrote recently about Karen and the Hicks, "In the name of the franchise must go on it was hushed up." That tactic backfired big time on Ray and will continue to backfire. He is currently serving a prison sentence -- a paltry one but a prison sentence nevertheless -- for the three deaths in Sedona, and Colleen's family is reportedly pursuing justice. I find the tale of Karen and the Abe forum to be equally sad and disgusting, and especially poignant as there seemed to be ample red flags leading up to her suicide. (Colleen's death, on the other hand, took everyone by surprise -- particularly her family -- since she apparently had no obvious problems before that, other than the problem of being utterly hooked on James Ray seminars and spending all of her money to attend his increasingly pricey events.) 

The story of Karen and the Abe-Hicks forum also reminded me of another sad tale that didn't quite have the legs of the James Ray cases, but seemed to be another clear example of the harm that can be caused by New-Wage nonsense, and a reminder of how grievously unprepared the hucksters who peddle this mindset are when it comes to dealing with people who are in real trouble. In December of 2005, a 34-year-old Australian woman named Rebekah Lawrence, described by many as normally shy, modest, and polite, took off her clothes at work, hurled insults at her coworkers, shouted out her love to her husband David, and jumped out an office window, plunging to her death. No alcohol or other drugs were found in her system, and she did not have a history of psychiatric problems. Yet according to at least one forensic psychiatrist, she was clearly in a state of psychosis.

A couple of days earlier, Rebekah had completed an intensive and emotionally grueling $695.00 "experiential" self-help course called The Turning Point, which, among other things, focused on bringing out one's inner child. In the days leading up to her suicide she had tried repeatedly to get phone support from the folks at the company sponsoring the course. She said she was having some awful thoughts about death. Yet she was met by platitudes from various volunteer support workers, one of whom advised her simply to take a warm shower, have a hot drink, and be gentle on herself. Instead she took herself out. And she wasn't the only one; at least two other suicides, both before and after Rebekah's, were linked to The Turning Point course. I wrote about this in September of 2009.

And then there's the tale of Michael Scinto, who killed himself after some harrowing experiences with the men's selfish-help group the ManKind Project. I wrote about that on this lengthy post in January of 2011.
Sad stories just keep popping up to rain on the New-Wage parades... or should I say the charades?

All is not well
By mentioning those other examples, my intention is not to take anything away from Karen's story, nor to gloss over any unique characteristics of the Abraham-Hicks community. But it is hard not to notice a common pattern among all of these organizations. While countless folks have claimed over the years to have been helped in some way by various New-Wage/McSpirituality/selfish-help ideas, leaders, and LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings), there is also a body count. Ever since the days of Esalen and est (the forerunner to the intensely annoying Landmark Education), disturbing news of deaths or serious injuries have surfaced on occasion -- relatively rare and briefly newsworthy tales that for the most part are quickly forgotten by the public. But the true body count probably remains unknown (at least in this dimension). What is known is that there is a body count, to which the Abraham-Hicks machine has apparently contributed in its own way.

Besides Karen there is the sad and puzzling (well, it's puzzling to me, anyway) story of Andrew Wilcox, reportedly a former Abe insider who at some point decided Esther was a fraud and apparently spent the rest of his life trying to prove it. The story goes that he even went so far as to track down Esther and Jerry in an elevator, following them down the hall and challenging Esther about faking. Esther's only response was to repeatedly chant, "All is well. All is well" -- presumably in her Abe accent.

Andrew took his own life in May of 2009, leaving behind a body of work that included an angry blog. In one post titled, "Abraham's Lies Part 1," he wrote this about one of the Hicks' bestselling books:

The premise, THE F-----G TITLE, is, "ASK and it is Given". BUT... it should really be...

Ask, and then visualize, and then work up the emotional scale, and then buy another book, and then come to the seminar, and then only talk pleasingly and upliftingly about Abraham only on The Abe Forum, and then make sure you really believe this stuff, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then... it MIGHT be Given... might be... if you're lucky, and you didn't complain to[o] much, or have a few doubts or negative "episodes" along the way... maybe.

I'll say this for Andrew: Just judging from his last blog post, written two days before his death, he seemed to be good at spotting liars. Word is that he was actually a kind and gentle soul, not nearly as in-your-face in private as he was on his blog and on some of his forum and blog posts, and I also hear that there were Abe forum members who genuinely tried to help him. (Here's a thread on what has been described as a "renegade" Abe forum about his passing: http://abetalk.com/showthread.php?t=3396.) I'm told too that Andrew Wilcox was the one who coined the name "Estherham" -- a name that surely has two meanings, for what is Esther if not a large and egregiously over-cooked ham?

Andrew had his own set of problems, which may or may not have been exacerbated by Abraham-Hicks. But I have observed over the years that groups such as Abe-Hicks seem to attract more than their share of broken people. Is it that groups such as these are seemingly less judgmental than traditional institutions such as most churches? If that's the motive, many soon learn that the lack of judgment is illusory, for while New-Wage communities may be accepting of things that would make the church ladies at the local Baptist church cluck disapprovingly, they are peopled by positive-thinking fascists who level their own set of judgments. Or do troubled folks flock to these groups because participation at its most basic level is generally free or cheap (cheaper than legitimate therapy), and most of these broken people are also broke? Beats the heck out of me, but it's good discussion fodder, anyway.

It could be argued that the body count in the Aber-hood goes beyond the suicides. Kyra recently shared a story of a woman in the "hotseat" at a live Estherham (oh, I do love that word) event, whose husband had recently died of cancer after refusing chemotherapy. The grieving woman said her husband had opted out of conventional treatment because he intended to cure himself of cancer by using the Abrascam virtual-reality method. Now the man's widow wanted to know why this had failed. Estherham's answer? "All is well." This seems to be a standard response not just from the Abe-Hicks machine (apparently the forum moderators love it too) but also from numerous faux-wise New-Wage/McSpirituality gurus. I suppose it is marginally more enlightened than "It was God's will," but not by much.
With Karen Shelton in those final months, it was painfully obvious that all was not well. But Abraham-Hicks did not provide a proper framework for her to even express the not-wellness of her world, much less provide a solution.

Liability versus responsibility
I know what you may be thinking: It's possible that the hotseater's husband would have died of his cancer anyway, and that the chemo would have just delayed the inevitable, adding a few months or years to his life. And that life may have come with a lot of suffering in the bargain, as conventional cancer treatment is grueling and sometimes turns out to be almost worse than the disease itself. One can hardly blame people for seeking an alternative to being disfigured by surgery, burned by radiation, poisoned by chemo, or some tortuous combination thereof. But I guess we'll never know what might have been, and the kindest thing I can think of to say about this infuriating hotseat exchange is that "All is well" in this circumstance is a callous and cold response. (And do I even need to remind anyone that Jerry Hicks didn't stick with Abraham's usual "medical" advice when faced with cancer himself?)

This question has certainly been raised before on other blogs, but how many other people have refused possible life-saving medical treatment because of the Hicks' dubious advice? Or for that matter, because of the advice and "counsel" of any other Law of Attraction guru or Internet marketing mercenary? I believe in free choice, and I generally don't think Draconian measures should be taken to protect people from their own choices. But by the same token, I believe charlatans should be called out, loudly and often. And I don't believe that they deserve any special legal protection from critics who wish to expose their nonsense, either through the presentation of facts or informed opinion. But that's definitely a whole other (long) blog post.

Abraham-Hicks has alternately been called a cult and a religion, as have many other New-Wage and LGAT orgs. Most of the principals and the followers of these gurus and groups bristle at the suggestion that they are part of a cult. (Some groups apparently don't mind being tagged a "religion," however, if it will earn them some of the tax breaks and other perks that mainstream churches receive in the US, including the right to accuse critics of religious discrimination.) Some groups, such as Scientology and Landmark Education, even go so far as threatening to sue anyone who dares suggest they are a cult. From a technical standpoint they may not be cults, but all too often the results are cult-like, and sometimes tragically so.

In today's litigious milieu, one of the first questions surrounding any tragedy is that of liability. Who's responsible, and how can the responsible parties be made to pay? But with New-Wage gurus liability is generally very difficult to establish, even in cases where there seems to be a fairly clear cause-and-effect relationship between the guru in question and the deaths or injuries or emotional harm suffered by followers. Consider, for instance, the James Ray trial for the three deaths in the fake sweat lodge in Sedona. That trial was a long and expensive ordeal that resulted in the aforementioned light sentence for Jimmy Ray Jumpsuit, a sentence that his lawyers are still fighting (pro bono, or so they claim, because Jimmy Ray is indigent, or so he claims). Colleen Conaway's family may or may not eventually get some sort of justice, but it seems like a long shot. 

With the Hicks enterprise and Karen, it would probably be even more of a long shot, should someone wish to pursue legal remedy. Karen clearly had a troubled history, and it could not reasonably be said that the Abe-Hicks teachings were the cause of most of those troubles. She came to Abe-Hicks relatively late in her life. I imagine that criminal or even civil liability would be exceedingly difficult to establish. The case isn't even as clear-cut as that of a party host or bartender who knowingly serves more alcohol to someone who is visibly intoxicated.

However, moral liability/responsibility is quite another matter. And while Abers may be all lah-de-dah about how all deaths are suicides anyway, and death is no big deal, and that it's a joyful experience, and so forth, it seems to me that the forums did play at least a cameo role in the final scene of the tragedy that was Karen's life, and the moderators' attempts to wipe her away are reprehensible. But then I have to remind myself that a moral sensibility -- and a conscience -- much like empathy and compassion, are not required to get you in the door at Big Abe's Speakeasy. If anything, conscience is a hindrance.

What part did Abraham-Hicks really play in Karen's death? We can only speculate, but I think Dave Stone said it succinctly and quite well in the conclusion to his recent piece on Healthmad.com:

Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari? No, Ari killed herself, but Abraham-Hicks and the Forum helped her get there.

Lost in the Trees, found in the music

The trees may be scary
but hidden among them
is your house.~ Poet and essayist Andrei Codrescu

These days Karen's son, Ari Picker, is coming to terms with his mother's death -- and her life -- through his music. Since 2002 he has headed a group called Lost in the Trees, whose music reflects Ari's classical training. Though classified as "alternative," the band's work has been more accurately described by music writer Cameron Matthews as a combination of the pastoral and the orchestral. I find it very compelling, so compelling that I recently bought the group's debut CD, All Alone in an Empty House.
In December of 2010 Ari's story appeared on Indyweek.com. Wrote music editor Jordan Lawrence about All Alone in an Empty House:

On the album, Picker turns his adolescence—a dark saga steered by an emotionally abusive father and a mentally troubled mother—into searing episodes. Recollections of conversations and glimpses of intimate imagery combine over the stacked textures of a beautiful orchestra and heartache-fueled folk music. The two stylistic poles tug at each other, pushing into the other's territory, blurring into a cathartic whole. It's a fitting backdrop for a narrative that's rich with moral ambiguity and poetic sorrow.

Not to mention a combination of disturbing, whimsical, and beautiful visuals in the music videos, such as the one for the CD's title song, "All Alone in an Empty House." The moral ambiguity to which Lawrence referred is Ari's refusal to morally condemn his abusive father; the video concludes as illuminated lanterns sail up into the night sky like souls returning home as Ari sings:

no,no one is perfect
and, no one is perfect
we've got holes in our heart
no one is perfect*

Here's a link to the April 2011 Spinner.com story accompanying the release of the video.

"All Alone in an Empty House" is powerful and moving, but the song that won't leave me is "A Room Where Your Paintings Hang."

i have a whole room
where your paintings hang
i have a whole heart
where you can plant your garden
it would grow, oh*

Here's a video of a live performance. Here is a link to the lyrics.
Lost in the Trees will release a follow-up CD, A Church That Fits Our Needs, in March. The title echoes lyrics in "A Room Where Your Paintings Hang":

and we will find a church
that fits both of our needs
and we'll forgive ourselves
and forgive our enemies
dump them into the sea*

According to the write-up on the billions.com site:

At end of day, this is the album Picker set out to make, a celebration of the woman he calls a "warrior," and a testament to the power of music to heal and transcend.

And if the following preview video is any indication at all, Ari has done Karen proud. This collection promises not to be just a continuation of the first one; it is taking Lost in the Trees' music to a new level. I'm definitely going to buy the new CD too as soon as it's available.

While I am frequently snarky about McSpirituality and, to a lesser degree, organized religion, at heart I remain sympathetic to the spiritual quest. I may laugh, I may snark, I may roll my eyes at times and giggle fiendishly as I Photoshop, but in the end I really cannot bring myself to categorically condemn people for the very human desire to find answers to the mysteries of life and death and love, answers that normally can't be found in a life lived on the surface. I don't fault Karen for seeking answers and support in an online community, nor do I fault her son for the new and more mystical direction of his own art (and his explanations thereof). He has taken his pain, and his mother's pain as well, and used his talent to mold that pain into something gorgeous.**

For Karen, Abraham-Hicks was far from being the church that fit her own needs. When she needed it the most, it failed her, adding to a long list of other people and institutions that had failed her. When a few concerned members of her final "church" tried to express grief for her passing, they were silenced.
But we need to remember that The Abe Forum is just one little corner of a vast world. (And in fact, the "renegade" Abe Talk forum did allow discussion of Karen's passing: http://abetalk.com/showthread.php?t=4129.) Karen lives on, in her own paintings and in the soaring, atmospheric music of her son Ari and his band. And no amount of rationalization or heavy-handed moderation from the loyal followers of an imaginary-friends-spouting charlatan can keep Karen's story from being told in many other ways as well, and by many other people. I imagine that we will each contribute our own spin and that we'll bring, as Clarity has observantly noted, our own biases to the story. And that's okay, I think, for the room where Karen's paintings hang is a boundless place, larger by far than even her son -- the one person who never failed her -- may have imagined.

And I predict that the population of the Aber-hood will continue to shrink, as more and more people awaken from their daze and come to realize what a garish, silly, and ultimately empty place the house that Jerry and Esther built really is.

* This just in (19 January 2012): Dave Stone presents "Jerry Hick's Bio, A Strangely Short Story." Seems like serial con artist Jer's bio is spottier than his head was in those final years.
** All lyrics copyright © Lost in the Trees. All rights reserved. I did not get permission to use these lyrics and will remove them if requested by the copyright holders. I just thought it was important to share them, and I urge everyone to buy this group's music (from legitimate sources, of course).
*** Contrast Ari's efforts to a certain selfish-help guru/frequent Whirled snarget's recent efforts to produce "the world's first self-help rock-n-roll CD," a work that sounds in places like the worst outtakes from American Idol auditions... and, well... jeez, I'm sorry I even brought that up. Lost in the Trees deserves better than that. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. 

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