Esther Hicks is controversial as she is contradictory, but is there truth in what she’s been saying for decades? Is there really a congress of 100 spirits – “dead people” – planting “blocks of thought” in her head, and is it wisdom straight from God?
Esther says she’s a spirit medium who interprets the blocks of thought “Abraham” drops into her head, reproducing them as spoken words. But is that true?
by David Stone
Who Is Abraham?
Abraham is a “nonphysical entity” – or, as Esther jokes, “dead people” – consisting of roughly a hundred spirits acting as one. But they are not just any gaggle of dead people.
They are an advanced group with a direct connection with “Source” – or God – privileged with access to all the wisdom of the universe, which they transmit through Esther.
This claim makes the many mistakes, some hilarious and others painful, inexcusable. Why would they drop blocks of thought into her head that are not just contradictory, but also sometimes simply stupid?
And it’s not just the mistakes, it’s the nastiness, even meanness, at times. Facing a person deep in mourning, Esther insists that all deaths are suicides.
Death, she calls “croaking,” then cackles, adding “It’s so disrespectful.”
Before her husband Jerry died, she said, “It’s good to see the old ones go.” It cleared space for the younger generations. When Jerry died – in his 80s – she dropped that opinion.
And she dropped “croaking” too. Or was that Abraham as she claims?
You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks #Zero:
This one’s a bonus.
So, make that sixteen reasons you can’t trust Esther Hicks. Honestly, I was going to stop at fifteen, but this one was so awful…
“There is no state of physical decline or damage that you could not recover from — none — not any, if you knew it. If you wanted it and knew that you could. And that’s those miracles that they talk about every day. They’re not miracles at all, they are the natural order of things. But because they are rare, people think they are miraculous. They’re not. That’s the way it is supposed to be. You’re supposed to thrive.”
—Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in San Diego, CA on February 23, 2002
Let’s start with “…if you wanted it…”
If it’s physical decline and you want it gone, then, it’s gone, according to Esther. She adds a condition: “…if you knew it…”
And now that she’s told you, you know it. So, how come everyone keeps declining with age, and we end up in hospitals where doctors try halting the decline?
The first Abraham-Hicks follower getting fixed or reversing decline with this insight, send before and after pics. I’ll post them here. I promise.
But I won’t hold my breath waiting.
Editor’s note: Still waiting.
Leading Off #1
In Boulder Colorado in June of 2004, Esther Hicks said this: “Every bit of it is about economics. Every bit of it, without exception. Everything about religion is about economics. Everything about politics is about economics.
“And everything about economics is personal satisfaction. Everyone is personally motivated to do the best that they can possibly do for themselves.”
But in Kansas City in September, the same year, she said, “Your world is pointing toward an insistence on conformity which is causing you enormous grief. It’s what’s at the heart of all of your religious battles, and religious battles are what are at the heart of all of your battles.
“In other words, all of your wars and global irritation with one another are over your determination to promote sameness. Your democracy insists that it’s the only government that works. And every religion (it’s interesting to note) proclaims that it is the only one that works.”
But Esther, didn’t you say it was all about economics?
Two Is Medical Advice They Don’t Follow Themselves
“The very best approach to medicine is, ‘Well, I see your physical body is sick, what’s been bothering you? What are you worried about?” she says. Then, continues, “What are you angry about? What are you frustrated about?’ Because that is what is at the root of all of this. And then say, ‘Let it go, let it go, let it go.’ That’s the message, and if they could hear you and do that, then they would all be well right away.”
— Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Ashland, OR on Tuesday, May 16th, 2000
Jerry Hicks lost his battle with cancer after choosing a course of treatment in direct contradiction to “the teachings of Abraham.”
Dismissing conventional medicine, Esther — as Abraham — says that a near-immediate return to health is possible.
Just change your vibrations. It takes as little as an afternoon, she says.
While she blames victims of cancer for not getting their vibrations right, she’s silent on Jerry. He slept next to Abraham for 25 years, Esther described Jerry as better at managing his vibration than anyone else alive.
But then, he died.
Devastating was the news of Jerry Hicks’s illness, it threatened to expose Abraham Hicks’s teachings as fake.
After a clumsy effort to blame his hospitalization on a spider bite, they adjusted the story. He chose “heavy chemotherapy” as the “path of least resistance,” a throwback to older, forgotten “teachings.”
Only after Jerry Hicks died did Esther concede that he battled leukemia.
She offered no explanation about why he hadn’t simply followed Abraham’s teachings.
Reason Three: Why You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks
Did you know that a selfish child is “like Jesus” who didn’t bother himself with concerns about others’ (using Esther’s word) “toylessness?”
With this fantastic claim, Esther abolished Jesus’s empathy and replaced it with indifference. (She claims that Jesus is a member of the Abraham collective of “nonphysical teachers.”)
Earlier, she aligned herself with Jesus and other religious figures like Buddha and Mohammad. “That which Jesus was, Esther is,” she said while in her Abraham trance.
It was the first time Jesus ever became that narcissistic or enamored with wealth and possessions.
And there’s more.
In the same sequence, the concerned mom introduced another concern. It worried her — She couldn’t stay “in the vortex.” — that her son had a habit of kicking the family’s cat.
The all-wise Esther ordered the mother not to interfere when her child kicks their cat. It’s between her kid and the cat. The cat was “teaching” the brat, according to Esther.
Favorably comparing a child’s selfishness to Jesus, followed up by encouraging animal abuse… Is this the spiritual guide to follow?
Esther Hicks may be making it hard for even true believers to stick with her. Even the most duped in a cult should see the dangers of letting a child kick a trapped cat.
Fourth Reason for Distrust…
Lack of empathy exposed limited awareness about the contours of engagement in physical relationships. This is best seen in Esther’s response to pain caused by the loss of loved ones. She’s mocked mourners, referring to death as “croaking.”
She chuckled at “being so disrespectful.”
Esther declares every death experience “delightful” without exception. No one’s around who can contradict her. Growing mountains of evidence from NDEs, however, tell a different story.
(Note: Esther dropped the “croaking” references when Jerry died. He “transitioned,” instead. Gone also was her heartless observation that, “It’s always good to see the old ones go.” Jerry was, at 84, an old one.)
Probably the meanest is her claim that, after dying, we are — without exception — happy, even blissful. Even those with joyful lives who left children, dependents and other loved ones behind.
This trivializes life on Earth, just as traditional religions do, showing this “leading edge of thought” as simply a variation on a tired theme.
#Five
Humans did not evolve from apes, Esther claims, but were “a whole new idea.”
Nice try, but we share about 97% of our genes with our jungle ancestors. And the evolutionary track is fairly well known.
Other channels, such as Theo, have no trouble with evolution. We may be cluing in here more to Esther’s (and the rest of the country’s) lack of scientific knowledge.
Here is the quote in all its thickheadedness:
“There is thought, and there is Thought Form, and there is Manifestation. Manifestation is always in the eye of the beholder. So this time-space-reality that everyone is perceiving is nothing more than vibrational interpretation.
“So the Thought Form of that which is man was set forth from Broader Perspective, and has continued to evolve by the experience of those who were having the experience here on the planet. And what you actually see as man or human is vibrational interpretation.
Now, did man come from ape? No, man was a different idea. So how does the idea of evolution occur? And we say: because the idea of each species was set forth, and as the experience of the species is lived, the idea expands. So the expansion is happening from the Leading Edge place and is supported from the Source Energy that flows everywhere the idea goes.“
Esther has also said that humans were on Earth during the time of the dinosaurs, missing her guess by only a few million years.
Wouldn’t you think any “nonphysical entity” with access to all the insight in the universe, as Esther and Jerry Hicks claim Abraham has, might actually know what every high school science student knows already?
Five More Reasons You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks
Reason Number Six
”Abraham Live,” maybe the creepiest thing to come out of the Abraham-Hicks marketing machine, even if the title itself wasn’t weirdly funny, ran concurrently with the workshops. For only seventy-five bucks, with no right to record a copy, followers could watch Esther do her shtick on their computers.
In short, the Hicks Team was webcasting their workshops, much as the monster churches do and were probably gearing up to ask followers to pony up subscription fees, taking greed to a whole new level.
As Gordon Gecko pointed out, greed can be good, but when you consider the sales pitch for this thing, it’s hard to imagine who would pony up seventy-five hard-earned dollars for it or, really, why followers aren’t already fleeing.
Quoting directly from the announcement:
We recently had a chat with Abraham about these upcoming global broadcasts of our live seminars, which will allow people to participate in a live event without actually being in the room. So many people, from so many places around the world, have requested that we travel to their countries so that they can participate with Abraham, and this new Live Stream broadcast answers that request. It will be a great way for people who can’t be, or don’t want to be, in the seminar room to still participate in the seminar.
As Abraham used the word ‘participate,’ Jerry asked, ‘Since the people won’t be in the room and won’t be raising their hands, and won’t be able to sit in the hot seat to ask their question, what does Abraham mean by participate?’ Abraham smiled…
Now when you consider the unintentional humor of going “live” with a group of “nonphysical teachers” who claim to be “deader than dead,” you might overlook the suggestion of having a “chat” with them, but what got me was “Abraham smiled….”
Now just exactly how does a nonphysical entity, who Esther Hicks claims gives her “blocks of thought,” smile…?
Nathan argues in comments that, if Abraham can convey thought with emotion, then they can convey a smile.
Of course, in reality, Esther claims they convey “blocks of thought,” not “thoughts with emotion” and a smile is a whole other thing. Nice try, Nathan.
The word whacky doesn’t even cover it.
And then, there were seven…
Asked about severely disabled children Abraham said these were “old souls” arriving damaged, just for the experience, saying nothing about how struggling parents attracted them.
An important aspect of their preaching about the law, as explained, is that we are always in control of everything that happens in our lives. A random genetic error, an accident, is not possible, since each individual creates every aspect of their experience.
Esther here comes up with fairly crackpot theory and impossible explanations to justify implausible circumstances.
You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks Number Eight
In Boulder Colorado in June of 2004, Esther said this: “Every bit of it is about economics. Every bit of it, without exception. Everything about religion is about economics. Everything about politics is about economics. And everything about economics is personal satisfaction. Everyone is personally motivated to do the best that they can possibly do for themselves.”
But in Kansas City in September of the same year, she said, “Your world is pointing toward an insistence on conformity which is causing you enormous grief. It’s what’s at the heart of all of your religious battles, and religious battles are what are at the heart of all of your battles. In other words, all of your wars and global irritation with one another are over your determination to promote sameness. Your democracy insists that it’s the only government that works. And every religion (it’s interesting to note) proclaims that it is the only one that works.”
But Esther, didn’t you say it was all about economics? Oh, well…
Now, You’ve Got Nine
Recent books, especially in the series starting with the Power of Emotions as a subject, are not direct quotes from Abraham. They’re rehashed, teachings stretched out with object lessons, in the style of the earliest Abraham recordings.
They are expurgated by Jerry Hicks, according to his own lights, which reduces their credibility for several reasons we can save for another time.
To get a better perspective on this, try to get your hands on the audio version of these books. At the close of each, they include an Abraham-Hicks live session recording. The difference is dramatic. Moreover, Jerry, not Esther who appears only in the introduction, reads aloud.
Jerry never claimed to channel Abraham.
Note: These later books were repackaged Abraham for profit. This makes them someone’s selective interpretation, not the pure, gut stuff straight from Abraham.
Ten: From the simple Law of Attraction teachings, the Abraham-Hicks team has added many complicated procedures and new ideas. Now, instead of “you get what you think about” and “birds of a feather flock together,” we have a “vortex” where desired things are held in “escrow.”
They haven’t been delivered because the time is not yet right or, the standing explanation, “You’re not letting it in.”
When it was revealed that, contrary to Esther and Jerry Hicks’ claims, the “Law of Attraction” did not originate with them, they migrated it to the clunkier but original term “Vortex of Attraction,” which does.
End Of The List For What Esther Hicks Always Gets Wrong
Eleven:
The 2012 harmonic convergence predictions. At first, Abraham shrugged these speculations off as useless because, according to the Law of Attraction, we will get what we attract at the time, and nothing can be predicted in advance.
Later, pressured by true believers in their New Age audiences, they fell into the harmonic convergence line and talked about new knowledge and awareness in the world today that would lead to great change in 2012. Popular demand engendered new truths, it seems.
By the way, none of the big changes ever occurred. Wrong again, Abe.
Twelve: Wisdom
Wisdom, if viable, doesn’t need all the marketing and image control used by Abraham-Hicks. It’s getting to be as if Jesus were pitching pricey sandals and offering to lead pilgrimages for a fee.
In a nearly ghoulish twirling of Jerry’s cancer into a marketing tool, Abraham Hicks on July 7th, 2011, sent out an email blast with this exact wording:
“We so much appreciate all the inquiries and love that you have been sending our way and we wanted to give you a quick update.
“We’re going to fly to Del Mar on Monday for the next phase of our rebalancing act in getting Jerry back on his feet and feeling frisky. Every day we’re experiencing the relief that we can only receive from Abraham as they remind us about the power of the Vortex. We are enjoying the comfort when we are able to ignore the temporary what-is.
“Abraham recorded a wonderful segment for Jerry last night guiding him toward complete comfort and ease, and that is exactly what he is focusing on now. We’ll continue our city-to-city workshop schedule as posted, which means that we’ll be enjoying the company of our friends in San Francisco on Saturday, July 9th. If you’d like to join the generally frisky Frisco workshop group, you can call the office before 4 p.m. CDT on Friday (830-755-2299). The last San Francisco workshop was filled to capacity, so a phone reservation would ensure that we won’t run out of chairs.”
They didn’t even enter a paragraph break between the news of Abraham recording a segment, whatever that might be, probably a workshop rehearsal tape, for Jerry and the pitch for tickets. This isn’t illiterate as much as it is Freudian.
Thirteen:
In twenty-five years, wouldn’t these “eternal beings”with direct access to the “Source,” or supreme being, have come up with one original, really useful idea? I’d have been happy with a simple cure for the common cold.
(Nathan again, commenting below, implies that Abraham did provide a cure for the common cold. Right. My mistake. Here it is: Don’t think about colds and you won’t get one. How did we all miss that for so long!)
“Move over, Jerry, we’ve got tickets to sell.”
Abraham has never come up with a new idea. Esther and Jerry just took techniques developed by Seth and Theo, with both of whom Jerry and Esther were very familiar before Abraham arrived and blended in ideas from the “New Thought Movement.”
Abraham’s “hot seat” conversations with attendees are entertaining and sometimes enlightening, but they never break new ground.
I’m not saying they don’t occasionally come up with something fantastic, but something useful and objectively observable would be nice. Most of us would love to have what Esther preaches be true. Well, not the animal abuse stuff, but a lot of it.
How about telling us how radiation or toxins cause cells to become cancerous? Gold star for Esther, if she can peg that one.
Fourteen:
Abraham’s teachings are simple. There has been nothing new in decades, except for exercises and concepts like “the Vortex.”
But like a jalopy without brakes, the machine keeps rolling from seminar to seminar as long as cash is available.
Is this what one who professes to be as wise and all-knowing as Abraham would do? Why not give it away?
So, why keep pumping out new products and cruises when there is nothing more to say?
It’s only fair to assume that an entity with the wisdom and access Esther and Jerry Hicks claim for Abraham would be thrilling. For many of us, they once were, but here’s a recent entry from their Vortex writings:
Fifteen: Thudding boredom and marginal literacy have entered the realm of Esther, Jerry and Abraham Hicks.
I Can Attract Relationships That Agree with My Desires… People are not finding it difficult to find the mate of their dreams because that person is not out there, but because of their own contradiction to their own desire in the thoughts they offer about the subject every day.
When you consistently offer thoughts about your future relationship that feel good while you think them, that means you are consistently matching the desires that you have discovered as you have lived life. And under those conditions, only someone in agreement with your desires could come to you. Under those conditions, no need for control is necessary.
Through each exposure to interacting with others, you launch continuous rockets of desires of what you prefer. And only when you are a Vibrational Match to the culmination of those desires will you allow your rendezvous with someone who matches those intentions that you have gathered along your physical trail.”
— Abraham
Excerpted from the book, The Vortex, Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships # 80
Anyone who can read that through without dozing off has my admiration. Who thought anyone claiming so much wisdom could be such an infinite bore?
Sixteen: Abraham-Hicks Baffled by String Theory…
You’d think an entity claiming access to all the wisdom the world has ever known would be able to comment on a popular scientific thread that might bolster some of their claims, but no. According to a recording supplied by a friend who prefers to remain anonymous, Abraham doesn’t even know what the best-known theory for explaining the existence of the universe is.
Simply, Superstring (commonly known as just “string”) theory tries to explain some of the peculiarities of quantum physics and how it fails to match up with relativity by proposing extra dimensions and constituents of matter that make the quantum world appear as it does.
Abraham, after hearing a man describe himself as a “recovering physicist” and make a simple explanation of what string theory was supposed to do, Esther explained that going back in time was a waste, seeming to see string theory as something to do with evolution, which, of course, we already know she hasn’t a clue about.
If Esther Hicks is going to continue faking Abraham, she’d do well to read some newer books and stop looking at herself in the mirror while counting ticket sales.
In Conclusion: Why You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks
If you believe, as I do, that anyone offering guidance from the highest spiritual source ought to be consistent and original, you’ll find Esther Hicks lacking. If you believe any God worth having would be compassionate, you won’t find that in Abraham.
My fifteen reasons are a brief summary. I could easily find a hundred contradictions and errors in fact. If you’re looking for a teacher, you can find better.
And that’s a fact.
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I won’t go into all of them it’s too long, but I’ll address the first. You wrote ….
Let’s start with “…if you wanted it…”
If it’s physical decline and you want it gone, then, it’s gone, according to Esther. She adds a condition: “…if you knew it…”
And now that she’s told you, you know it. So, how come everyone keeps declining with age, and we end up in hospitals where doctors try halting the decline? “
It’s in your asking “how come everyone keeps declining” that is the cause of decline. Your attention to decline. You can’t “know it” and ask why you are getting something unwanted (in this case decline). That means you don’t know it. Abe says you pass through space in time but you don’t have to decline. People who end up in hospitals are those who are giving their attention to decline (Most people give most of their attention to unwanted). Those who know it are focused on wanted (well being) and thrive at every age.
Malarkey. You decline with age. Everyone does. Get used to it. Esther’s nonsense can’t save you.