As decades of workshops, cruises and bestselling books show, many Esther Hicks fans love her. But what’s behind the unflinching adoration? Their devotion rivals religion, even as it excuses or overlooks major flaws. So, why?
By David Stone
Assorted Ideas, Large & Small
What brings the love out in Esther Hicks fans?
For some, it’s simple. What she has to say resonates with them, like a beacon of feeling in the dark. And there’s no question of Hicks’s charisma and easy humor, making for the teaching’s easier digestion.
But a critic surely wonders, What truth? Or, which version.?
Among the huge stash of results from thousands of public appearances is a satchel full of contradictions and plain nonsense. Some of the worst helped make up our 15 Reasons Why You Can’t Trust Esther Hicks, but there’s much more.
Troubling is her long standing claim, still repeated on her website: “It all started here.”
Because it didn’t, none of it, and when the lead’s a falsehood, what can you expect from there?
Truth? Wisdom? Genuine insight?
Of course not, but what I’ve come to realize is that none of those things matter because Esther Hicks gives fans something more intoxicating, a brew that hooks.
Optimism
A key phrase in all of Esther Hicks’s teachings, attributed to “Abraham,” soothes anxiety among folks searching for something to believe.
“All’s well,” she says.
“The universe is unfolding just as it should.”
“You’re supposed to thrive.”
And, “You can’t get it wrong.”
For the stressed out, “It’s supposed to be easy.”
With these, she absolves guit, shame, bad behavior, self-doubt and the lack of concern for others.
Confronted with a question of how these truisms fit for people who abuse others, even killing them, including children, Esther Hicks issues a flat-footed dodge: No one connected with Source would do anything to harm anyone else.
And gets away with it.
She knows her audience, populated with Esther Hicks fans who rarely doubt her.
When questioned in a workshop in 2001 about her insistence that “Every death is a suicide,” he repeated that all 3,000 who died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center killed themselves.
Growing irritated at skeptics in attendance, she roared, “It is law. No exceptions.”
Laziness and Esther Hicks Fans
As with most religions, laziness is a major factor, offering easy answers and relieving the mass of followers of the need to think or make sense of reality.
Because it’s given.
Belying her “It’s supposed to be easy” promise, Hicks lays the hardest “work” on true believers. It’s pretty nifty.
The primary precept of the “law of attraction,” is the idea of “ask and it is given.”
According to Hicks, all you need do is ask for whatever you want. In fact, you’re always asking through your vibration or thoughts. (She’s said both.) But the big deal is, “The universe always answers immediately..”
What could be easier?
Ask and it is given….
But there’s a catch that Esther Hicks fans accept: “You have to let it in.” Keys to your complete happiness are waiting for you in a kind of escrow until you figure out how “to let it in.”
How about that? A God who’s a tease, a sadist enjoying your discomfort while relief lays just out of reach.
Now, no sane person would ever except this, if truth governed the pursuit of happiness, but for Esther Hicks fans, it doesn’t.
Laziness and self-interest does.
Conclusion
There is a payoff for followers, but it’s not what those attending Abraham Hicks workshops say they want. It’s actually a kind of freedom.
Esther Hicks fans can sit tight because “It’s supposed to be easy.” And they can evade caring about others because they brought any pains on themselves through their vibrations.
They never have to work hard or struggle because “It is given.” Until it isn’t.
Who cares if 3,000 people died on September 11th, 2001, because all were suicides? Pregnant women, men with dependent kids at home, young people barely started out on life and those nearing easier years in retirement. They were all suicides.
“It is law!”
And for Esther Hicks fans, “it’s supposed to be easy.”
Wish fulfilled.
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Well…on the mark again. I posted a reply to your “15 reasons” and this article resonates too. There’s a judgmental quality about it all– which, flipped over, is blame, superiority, and quite frankly narcissism. I would ask people to really, REALLY check in with themselves, deeply, to discern if Abraham really ‘feels right’. It certainly doesn’t to me. I don’t need to be chided, scolded, or lectured to by a non-physical being who is basically telling telling me I’m not responsible for my behavior but I am responsible for what I believe reality to ‘be’. Yuck. Thanks for the forum!
The mystery here for me was, “Why Esther?” Finally, I got it that she’s the easy choice. No soul searching. No insight. No empathy. Just change your vibe and all the goodies roll in. You won’t be wiser or a better friend, but you’ll have a bigger car. Easy. That’s the sales point.