Is this true?
In Abraham-Hicks’s law of attraction, Esther Hicks claims a channeled entity drops blocks of thought into her head. She then interprets them into everyday speech. Does this make sense? More important, is it true?
By David Stone
Did Jerry and Esther Hicks Just Make It All Up?
“It all started here,” their website sings, but a look at history says otherwise. That alone doesn’t prove it untrue.
Did “It all start here?”
Neither Esther, Jerry or Abraham Hicks had anything to do with discovering or inventing the Law of Attraction, no matter what they claim. But they took a joy ride on it, anyway. They birthed Abraham, Esther and Jerry say, while coasting along in his Caddy, squeezed between trucks on a highway.
Since, they’ve outdone even the legendary Reverend Ike in the art of spiritual marketing.
The Birth of Abraham-Hicks Law of Attraction
How did Jerry and Esther Hicks bring Abraham, their “nonphysical entities,” into being? The truth is entangled in their refried version of the Law of Attraction.
The story is murky, complicated and ripe with incomprehensible claims, contradictions and evasions. But a reasonable explanation, relying on some educated guesses, may be possible.
What do we find when we dig into the history of Jerry and Esther Hicks?
Jerry and Esther Hicks Spiritual Money Tree
The Whole Messy Story
What are the Teachings of Abraham-Hicks? Where did Abraham come from and how was he born? And what’s with all the deception about how Jerry Hicks died?
Three years after his death from leukemia, the Abraham-Hicks website claimed he was alive and well. What’s the truth?
Abraham Hicks Scandal
A Fable of Sorts
Because so much of what Jerry and Esther Hicks say about their pasts is either provably wrong or questionable, their stories aren’t great references.
Jerry says he’s a lifelong seeker of esoteric truths, for example, influenced by Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. But there is nothing on the record to verify much of his autobiography, which is odd in itself, given the fabulous claims of adventure and business success.
Even the story on Abraham-Hicks website is provably false. It said for years after he died that Jerry was alive and tooling around the country with Esther in their “Monster Bus.”
And not just that… it says he’s sprier than men half his age, a difficult trick for a three year old corpse.
Researcher into Jerry Hicks’s history gets a sense that an eraser has been taken to the records.
History That Reads Like Fiction Because It Is
Some of his claims, such as knowing Rip Taylor from his days in the entertainment business, were denied outright by the parties involved.
What we know as fact is that, when he became involved with Esther, Jerry was recently divorced from Trish Hughes. Esther worked for Hughes as a bookkeeper. Jerry and Trish reached the Crown Level with Amway, thanks to her family connections.
But Jerry moved on, leaving the wealth behind and was already engaged to would-be wife #5 or #6 when he hooked up with Esther.
While Esther was Trish Hughes’ bookkeeper, nothing suggests their affair started while he was still married. It just happened to be how they met.
Esther was, however, married when their affair began.
Richard is a Mormon as is most of Esther’s family. They had a daughter, Tracy. Single again after four or five marriages, Jerry was in his sixties, twenty-five years older than Esther.
Jerry’s engagement as well as Esther’s marriage ended after Richard found her car parked in a motel parking lot.
A Happy Marriage and the Birth of Abraham-Hicks and the Law of Attraction
Esther and Jerry Hicks married shortly after her divorce.
By all public accounts, the marriage was happy, the pair well-matched. But friends say Esther eventually resented Jerry as “controlling” as fame and fortune changed family dynamics.
Abraham-Hicks along with their version of the Law of Attraction arrived about five years into their marriage.
By then, Jerry discovered books written during the 1920s New Thought Movement, The Law of Attraction originated there. Jerry used its tools, teaching how-tos about the wealth he claims he created prior to Abraham-Hicks.
Abraham-Hicks meets Seth
Jerry and Esther began reading Jane Roberts’s books, channeled from a nonphysical entity known as “Seth.”
Esther tells of lying on the couch with Jerry, reading the Seth Material aloud as he tickled her feet.
Esther and Jerry Hicks probably wish they hadn’t shared that history because their official tale about the emergence of Abraham starts with a visit with Sheila Gillette (then, Sheila Petersen-Lowary).
Author of The 5th Dimension: Channels to a New Reality, Gillette channeled “Theo” since a severe stroke brought her to a near death experience as a young woman.
According to Esther’s version, they heard that Petersen-Lowary was in town and, out of the blue, made an appointment for an encounter with Theo.
At their session with Theo, Jerry asked questions while Esther listened until, as they were leaving, Theo asked if she would like the name of her “spiritual guide.”
Esther claims she was flabbergasted, had never heard the term before. Petersen-Lowary said the name would be given to her independently in a “clairaudient experience.”
Getting the Notion: Abraham-Hicks Law of Attraction
Esther and Jerry began meditating regularly.
But here’s where the more glaring contradictions start. As the official story goes, Esther never knew anyone who meditated. She thought it was weird.
To the contrary, the Seth Material, which she and Jerry read, lying on the couch, tickling feet, is full of references to meditation.
The official story of Abraham-Hicks also says that Esther Hicks was an innocent chosen by Abraham because she had so few strong opinions.
In a series of steps, then, Abraham-Hicks and the law of attraction are born.
“I am Abraham. I am your spiritual guide.”
Meditating, Esther suddenly realizes that her head is being involuntarily swiveled, her nose drawing letters. (Honest!)
While still in meditation, she calls out to Jerry to alert him, and he jots down what her nose spells:
“I am Abraham. I am your spiritual guide.”
(Note: this is not clairaudience, as predicted earlier, by Theo.)
Sometime later, Esther is watching television in bed with Jerry when Abraham takes control of her hands, thumping them against her chest.
She gets “an urge” to go over to her IBM Selectric typewriter, and Abraham takes control of her fingers, searching the keyboard, apparently trying to understand the letters.
(Coincidentally, Seth also communicated with Jane Roberts through a typewriter.)
Soon, her fingers begin typing out words.
“I am Abraham,” again, but as she reports it in Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, adding “We are going to write a book together.”
(Heads up. At least two Abraham Books, New Beginnings I & II, preceded this. But, for some reason, they were suppressed.)
The Abraham-Hicks Story Get Denser
What makes this hard to believe is that Jerry Hicks has just explained that, in Abraham Hicks’s world, they do not have words, reading or hearing. They communicate by a sort of ESP.
Esther says that Abraham delivers “blocks of thought” in her head, not words or sentences. They didn’t even know the mechanics of a typewriter or the features on the keyboard, so how did they decide to “write a book together” or even care about writing one?
The next phase in the birth of the law of attraction is even more confusing.
Esther tells a story in which she and Jerry are nearly crushed by trucks on a highway. Abraham (now seizing Esther’s voice) orders Jerry to “take the next exit.”
Jerry’s First Talk With Abraham
(A written version from a decade earlier has Abraham prefacing this order by saying the highway was “too dangerous.”)
After exiting, they sit in the car in a parking lot under the highway, and Jerry converses with Abraham, who has taken control of Esther’s voice, “for hours”
Channeling is born with Abraham-Hicks emergence in the physical form of Esther Hicks’ body, and after Jerry Hicks breaks his promise to keep her fantastic abilities quiet, a series Abraham-Hicks Law of Attraction Workshops begins.
The style of presentation repeats what Sheila and Theo have done for decades.
Jerry Hicks’s illness and death slowed things down. But in the meantime, the workshops along with books, cards, recordings and other gift shop items made Abraham-Hicks a prosperous organization and Esther and Jerry Hicks wealthy.
So, What About Jerry, Esther Hicks and Abraham and The Law of Attraction?
Really….
An Abraham-Hicks workshop inspired Rhonda Byrne’s wildly popular, The Secret.
Esther Hicks was initially the main narrator and focal point of the movie, but dropped out (with cash) in a dispute over “intellectual property.”
Even so, this put Esther and Jerry Hicks, along with their only child, Abraham, (joking!) more in the limelight than ever before.
The seductive powers of The Secret and the Law of Attraction were irresistible for a culture historically eager for spiritual insights.
The Law of Attraction
“That which is like unto itself is drawn” is the biblical sounding mantra used by Jerry and Esther in selling The Law of Attraction.
An altered version of a slogan used by the creators of The Law of Attraction, it first came into play in the New Thought Movement.
The Law of Attraction, which Jerry and Esther falsely claim to have originated, is, according to Abraham-Hicks, the most powerful law in the universe.
According to the Law of Attraction, whatever you think about instantly begins to manifest as the universe constantly gathers all its forces to deliver what you are focusing on.
The trick is that you may be careless in your thinking. If you’re wishing for a better car, a strange analogy Jerry Hicks frequently employs, by thinking about what you hate about your old car, you’re attracting your old car, not the new one.
Sound weird? It gets weirder.
“You get what you think about, whether you want it or not,” Jerry Hicks proclaims in the audiobook for Ask And It Is Given.
The all powerful Law of Attraction works in a three step process…
If you are not getting what you believe you clearly want, the flaw is in your way of thinking.
Banish all but thoughts about the features you crave in that new car, and presto… Well, not quite. There is another caveat.
According to Abraham Hicks, the all powerful Law of Attraction works in a three step process.
First, you ask with your thoughts. This is automatic because you’re thinking all the time. If you think predominantly positive thoughts, you’re asking for positive outcomes, whether you’re conscious of the asking or not.
(In different versions, Esther Hicks claims that words and thoughts are meaningless and that you ask with your “vibrations,” which draw other vibrations. In Ask And It Is Given, the couple writes that your thoughts attract similar thoughts.)
Step two, Abraham Hicks claims “is not your job.” In step two, “the universe answers.”
Delivery is immediate.
“It is law,” announces Esther Hicks, acting as Abraham. “No exceptions.”
But here’s the catch.
Esther and Jerry ran a string of “art of allowing” workshops because, in step three, you can’t get your stuff until you learn to allow it.
The universe, Jerry and Esther claim, did its job, delivering the car, the perfect health, Montana Wildhack, Tarzan, a string of McMansions around the world, whatever you asked for.
If you don’t see them, it’s simple:
“You’re not letting it in.”
Almost in the same breath, they provide another, somewhat contradictory escape hatch.
The reason you don’t see that Rolls Royce in your driveway, Montana Wildhack topless in the front seat, is because of “the buffer of time.” That lets your dreams come gloriously through but only in a proper sequence.
Denied trademark status for “law of attraction,” Abraham-Hicks evolved the buffer of time into the “vortex of attraction,” a holding tank for new cars, big houses and perfect lovers.
The Law of Attraction, the whole basis for the teachings of Abraham-Hicks, came with an out for which Esther and Jerry could not be faulted.
You weren’t letting it in.
Or, if that didn’t sell, you get your buffer of time extending the abundant roll out of pleasures into infinity.
O-O-T-V
Followers now refer to themselves as being “o-o-t-v,” or out of the vortex, when they they don’t get their request.
That is, if the teachings aren’t working, there’s an add-on package that makes it your fault along with fate taking its sweet time with deliveries.
Abraham-Hicks, A Nonphysical Entity
Abraham, Esther Hicks tells us, came with a biblical, male name because that made it easier for followers to relax and learn.
Esther claims that Abraham Hicks is a gathering of about one-hundred nonphysical teachers who coalesce to deliver answers and teachings at workshops and write bestselling books.
All of it happens in with blocks of thought deposited in her noggin.
Abraham Hicks enters Esther instantly as she relaxes into a meditative state, standing in front of live audiences in her bare feet.
They speak through her voice and talk about Esther and Jerry in the third person.
Initially, they were a bit solemn but later played with and teased audience members.
Trouble in Paradise
A kink developed in 2010 when Esther, as Abraham, began verbally abusing audience members. She evicted some because they were “out of vortex.” That tickled audience members, according to posts in the Abe Forum. All of them must have been in the vortex.
For reasons detailed in Fifteen Reasons You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks and Abraham, I don’t think it’s possible that any entity like what is described as Abraham-Hicks reaches out through Esther Hicks.
At least, not now.
If they were, these nonphysical teachers with access to all the knowledge in the universe is a sort of dunce, making errors from the obtuse to the silly to the offensive.
Did Jerry, Esther and Abraham-Hicks Pick Up Their Law of Attraction Marbles and Go Home?
These days, Abraham-Hicks Publications is a successful business in the state of Texas. They promote workshops and sell merchandise from recordings to guided meditation DVDs to printed transcripts.
Jerry Hicks, before succumbing to leukemia, was the boss. His management style was autocratic, requiring employees to punch time clocks and maintain diaries of their daily activities.
He left a trail of bodies of ex-employees and associates when he and Esther found them expendable or wanting to share too much of the bounty.
They told several dismissed associates upon termination, “Abraham said you’d be okay with it.”
Esther Hicks, in real life, is the warmer, friendlier one of the pair but has a short temper, prone to meltdowns over mistakes by underlings.
Life Is Fun
The picture you get from people who worked for them is not one of a couple with special insights or joy. Their “Life Is Supposed To Be Fun” motto undermined by years of hard work and long hours.
There were tensions between Esther and Jerry, as there are in any marriage. He resented her getting most of the attention, and Esther’s daughter Tracy was unhappy over Jerry’s role in driving a wedge between her parents.
The image of a happy go lucky pair bouncing through a life of joy was part of the sale with no recognizable counterpart in real life.
Conclusion
Abraham Hicks claims that you create your own reality, no exceptions, including Zanzibar, nuclear waste dumps and paradise:
“You are the vibrational writers of the script of your life, and everyone else in the Universe is playing the part that you have assigned to them.”
Abraham
San Francisco, California, March 2nd, 1997
Their alleged insight comes from stretching out an intuitive sense many people have about a “law of attraction.”
But for profit, they take it to absurd lengths, and give it power by claiming it’s not Esther and Jerry Hicks’s concoction, but the message from a higher source, one you should not question.
But no credible higher source of insight would tell you to ignore your highly evolved ability to reason in favor of “just trust me.”
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