The Dark World of New Age Gurus | Documentary.

before we begin it's important that I emphasize a few disclaimers by no means am I calling the individuals mentioned in this video scammers consider what you are about to see a criticism of their business practices and promoted ideologies not an incitement of harassment or hate I have no way of knowing their true intentions it is entirely possible that those mentioned have created their teachings with good Intent no matter how misguided those teachings have become and whilst I will be including sources to back up every claim that I make treat this video as my own opinion and conclusions surrounding the subject of new age spirituality and new thoughts related ideas now to those who think I am criticizing anyone who is trying to make money you have misunderstood my position one look at my channel will show you I have no problem with somebody making money however I do take issue with the context surrounding how they make their money A lot of people actually were in my group were attending the events the courses and I hope to make money so that they could feed their family but you know unfortunately I've lost it so new age spirituality has seen incredible growth in the mainstream having a huge influence on the self-help industry thanks to figures like Napoleon Hill Ronda Byrne and others who I will be discussing further but what seemingly goes unnoticed is the booming business behind it that I think does more harm than good when you recognize your vibrational frequency you're drawing into yourself all the time literally the vibration that is most like what you're putting out right there was a woman had cancer who refused medical treatment because she believed in the secret in this video we'll take a look at some of its most influential figures its roots and how it is fundamentally built from a flawed and dangerous disregard for reality now it would be impossible for me to cover the entirety of the new thought movement in just one video so bear in mind that there will be influential figures in this industry that I fail to mention or decide to cut however I want you to take notice of the patterns from multi-level marketing to scammers to self-help to pseudoscience to subtle deception I'll aim to demonstrate why I think New Age spirituality has inherently allowed itself to become the perfect grift [Music] foreign [Music] hey how's everybody doing today me too all right here's what I want to talk about today working in an office this class exclusive all-wheel drive a premium navigate this low everyday price is here to stay we'll get you approved in 30 minutes or less I guarantee it did I know at the time out of my greatest despair was to come the greatest gift I couldn't believe all the people who knew this they were the greatest people in history I began searching for people alive today who know the secret you know this secret gives you everything you want in 2006 Rhonda Byrne released her film The Secret a film that promised to change your life featuring various gurus who promoted an idea that could bring you health wealth and happiness that idea was the Law of Attraction everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into your life and it's attracted to you by virtue of the images you're holding in your mind a film that suggested being overweight came from thinking fat thoughts or that the only reason a person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their own thoughts the secret is the law of attraction it was a feel-good message the film exceeded 65 million dollars in sales and became something of a cultural phenomenon have you heard about it this is the secret talk about this DVD has been spreading around the world I had friends that were telling me that the secret is real girl I knew sent me a book [Music] called The Secret she was like listen David this is going to help these but what you are also witnessing here is the success of another kind a success at rebranding an idea that had been cultivated for many years before Burns film fast forward to present day and you'll find no shortage of gurus promoting these same rehash ideas the moment you start feeling abundant and worthy you are generating wealth three Law of Attraction truths that I wish I knew earlier whatever you can see in your mind you can hold in your hand whether you want to be a millionaire seven steps to speed up the Law of Attraction using your spiritual Powers here we establish the first pattern of this industry targeting a vulnerable audience those who are struggling financially having relationship problems or suffering from a disease are particularly favorable or perhaps you're just searching for answers this idea this Law of Attraction seems to serve up answers in such a simple yet idealistic way and the truth is you can actually get whatever you want in life whatever you can see in your mind you can hold in your hand whether you want to be a millionaire whether you want to give some three ways to manifest money within 24 hours you'd like to get your ex back the Law of Attraction may be the power you need When You're vulnerable or desperate critical thinking is dull and feeling an emotion Cloud your decision-making abilities so when you're presented this secret a secret that promises to change your life with so little effort who could possibly fault you for wanting to believe the bait has been set but you have to understand the law of attraction is only one branch of a bigger belief system to understand the problems with the ideas Ronda presented you have to examine the roots of Where it All Began from here you can trace the same patterns and the influence it's having over the gurus we see today the new thought movement was centered around a few key ideas that we and everything in existence are essentially God or at least we all have some level of divinity within us positive thinking has the power to carry forth manifestations into the material world new thoughts supposed Origins travel back to a man named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby an American clockmaker born in 1802. Quimby became interested in the idea of using the Mind as a way of curing people from illness and disease after he himself had supposedly recovered from tuberculosis through his own healing methods his philosophy became the basis for new thought Quimby's teachings inspired many other authors and so-called philosophers to continue spreading and expanding on his message and the overall new thoughts movement in those years new thoughts focused on our mind's ability to heal us from illness and disease it emphasized intuition feeling and anecdotal evidence rather than empirical science-based evidence it wasn't however until the 20th century where the new thought movement extrapolated this into wealth creation the ideology is perfect if our thoughts had the power to quite literally change the material world surely they could manifest wealth too then a man named Napoleon Hill came right out of the blue with his first book The Law of success and a decade later his best-selling book Think and Grow Rich up to this point it's now impossible to tell what the intentions of most new thought authors were the ideas they presented in their Works were logically flawed in many areas some of which I have already discussed in the first installment of this series others of which we will get into soon but it's when we get to figures like Napoleon Hill that the lines between good intentions and con Artistry are blurred because Hill had an immense influence over many of the new thought Law of Attraction gurus that have come since having had his Works promoted and circulated in countless business and self-help circles I promise you if you yourself haven't heard of this book you know someone who has but my question to you now is how much do you really know about Napoleon Hill because if we take a dive into Hills past we notice that the reputation he's acquired amongst the new thought movement is not at all what it seems on the contrary his true narrative is one of failed businesses fraud and grossly exaggerated achievements Think and Grow Rich Echoes much of the new thought sentiment especially when it comes to the pursuit of riches highlighting how our thoughts and our desires can be transmuted into their financial equivalent Hill even goes as far as to use examples in which thoughts have been able to cure deafness including his own Sons this is a book that Napoleon claims he was tasked with creating after meeting one of the richest men in the world at the time Andrew Carnegie whereby Carnegie tasked him to interview some of the most successful men in business and learn these secrets to their success but go a little further down that rabbit hole and you'll realize Hill may not be the person he is so commonly portrayed as by his fans or his own Works in 1907 30 years before the release of Think and Grow Rich Hill co-founded the acree hill Lumber Company in Mobile Alabama only a year later the Pensacola Journal reported that the company was liable to bankruptcy proceedings and charges of mail fraud it turns out that Hill had bought lumber from outside of Mobile on credit before selling the lumber at a much lower price in cash eventually creditors and other businesses were catching wind of the fraud and in September of 1908 Hill was on the run from authorities it was around this time that Napoleon Hill claimed he spoke with Andrew Carnegie but according to Andrew Carnegie's biographer there was quote no evidence of any sort that Carnegie and Hill ever met in 1909 Hill initiated the automobile College of Washington a college that promised students to teach them how to build chauffeur and sell motor cars only it turns out this college was just a way of getting free labor for building cars and then selling them the Motorworld magazine in April 1912 called Hills College a scam and a quote joke to anyone of average intelligence listing the many insane claims that Hills College had been making along with its scheme of paying students three dollars ahead per any other the student they had recruited into the college much akin to a multi-level marketing scheme we might see today the college eventually folded in 1912. but Hill wasn't finished trying to make a name for himself and in 1915 he established a school called the George Washington Institute of advertising intending to teach the principles of success and self-confidence only three years later two warrants had been issued for the arrest of hill with charges of violating Blue Sky laws you see Hill established the college with a one hundred thousand dollar capitalization and attempted to sell the shares to investors primarily his own students despite the school's assets being worth at best twelve hundred dollars the school ended not long afterwards and this only scratches the surface of the other swindle's Hill had been involved in of course I understand what the common rebuke here would be Napoleon Hill's book actually has value and I myself have taken value from that book why should I care if the man himself had a fraudulent past but that's the point isn't it if you were a grifter then for the grift to work you must be able to provide some crumb of Truth the strategy is simple yet so effective gain the trust of your victim by preaching some level of truth then subtly attach more extreme ideas to that truth until the victim can no longer recognize the difference new thought does this constantly positive thinking is no longer just a tool solely for better day-to-day well-being it becomes a powerful force that can literally manifest material results health and disease according to new thoughts can be cured simply through the power of our minds consider this how many people have read and engrossed themselves in the teachings of Napoleon Hill hundreds if not millions of individuals but how many of them truly managed to achieve the financial success that they initially visualized on being tasked to do so when reading the book most I'd wager have likely not why is that because financial success can't possibly be reduce down to your thinking or your ability to visualize wealth even taking action which Hill admittedly does promote in his book is no guarantee for financial success action increases probabilities but for this to be a law it must work every time and yet new thoughts is fundamentally unfalsifiable we can't measure thoughts and feelings nor the supposed vibrations thoughts and feelings have and that's just the thing see the best grift is the one that leaves the grifter blameless anyone right now can write a book or sell a program on the Law of Attraction they can run ads targeting vulnerable consumers and best of all if their teachings don't work the blame never falls on them it's always your fault you didn't believe enough you weren't thinking positive enough you had resistance you weren't patient enough now the price of a book doesn't seem daunting if you only spend a few dollars and glean some value from it then it seems rather harmless and past possibly worth the money but how would you feel if the price of said book was a figure much higher than just a few dollars how would you feel about someone promoting a secret or guarantee of success for much larger amounts of money Napoleon Hill's book has been an inspiration to many as the new thought movement continues to grow inspiring much of the self-help industry we're consumed by today two of which went by the names of Jerry and Esther Hicks we'd like to ask Abraham to come and speak to us okay it just takes a few seconds I don't move much it is nice to have an opportunity to visit Esther Hicks claims that she can Channel an entity or rather a group of entities known as Abraham Hicks charging hundreds of dollars for their seminars and workshops good morning members of the audience are invited forward to pose a question to Esther or more specifically the Abraham entity she is supposedly channeling it's nice to see you again thank you again and thank you to Esther while Jerry sits at the side somewhere taking notes perhaps for their next book we want to say that in this book that is coming there are 33 examples of all kinds of things that might happen in someone's life and Esther and Jerry have authored countless books promoting the teachings of this Abraham entity which are structured like a conversation between Jerry and Abraham with the latter giving answers to Life's most asked questions Esther goes as far as claiming on her site that this is the original Source material for the current law of attraction in fact many in the Law of Attraction Community suggest that Rhonda Byrne's film The Secret was just a watered-down version of hicks's teachings and it's precisely because of Esther's reputation as the most authentic one out of the two that I think it's worth discussing her because upon closer inspection we see that much of hicks's teachings are exactly what we've come to understand from new thought I don't actually have to know whether or not Esther really is channeling an entity for me to be extremely skeptical of her work the contradictions and problematic teachings speak far more to her legitimacy C than any claims of channeling in Esther's book The Law of Attraction one such problematic teaching centers around the idea that a victim of a robbery is a co-creator of the violence inflicted upon them Jerry States I can understand robbers being attracted to those they're robbing but it's difficult to see innocent victims attracting the robbery or the person being discriminated against attracting the Prejudice Hicks responds they are just the same the assaulted and the assaulter are co-creators of the event if you think hicks's response here is a one-off you'd be mistaken she she emphasizes this point numerous times take a moment to truly consider the level of victim blaming and lack of accountability that such a position would lead to or instead of a robbery imagine a child born into poverty who starves to death before the age of five according to hicks's teachings these children were co-creators of their fate and this isn't a belief shared just by Hicks alone this is a fundamental premise in all of new Thoughts by this logic we can say that the perpetrators of countless crimes shouldn't be held accountable after all they are just the product of their victims of vibrational frequency any rational person can see the danger of this thinking but as we've come to learn for the preacher of such ideas this logic is perfect because all who complain that they haven't been able to manifest health wealth abundance or whatever dream we've sold them on we can tell these people that it isn't the fault of our belief system that they didn't get what they wanted it is in fact their fault and as we pedal more of our workshops write more of our books we have an excuse each and every time someone attempts to challenge our ideas so what we notice as we look into the medical profession today we see doctors and scientists literally scaring people to death with their pronouncements of diseases that are incurable when we know that there is not any disease that is incurable you can get to where you want to be from wherever you are if you will point in the direction that you want to go and continue to move in that direction Esther Hicks as we've already discovered with others in the new thought movement makes the claim that our thoughts and feelings or our vibrational frequencies can cure us of any disease it seems odd then or rather hypocritical that her husband Jerry himself passed away from cancer in 2011.

but this hypocrisy is something we'll see more of as we continue now you might ask why bother adding all the metaphysical and pseudoscientific ideas in the first place if Esther and Jerry were truly trying to con people or just make a ton of money wouldn't it have appealed to a bigger Market if she simply passed herself off as a life coach rather than turning potential customers off of her works by claiming that she could Channel another entity I however disagree it's my opinion that the addition of spirituality and channeling is actually an incredibly clever marketing device because now life advice turns into the teachings of Abraham and if one wants to hear the teachings of Abraham they must go to the source they must go to the person who is claiming to channel this Divine entity this creates scarcity around hicks's business of answering Humanity's burning questions and the scarce of the product the more valuable it becomes so when you're given an eye-watering price tag no one bats an eyelid it is my opinion that new thoughts use of spirituality and pseudoscience serves this exact purpose allowing your teachings to seem more valuable in the marketplace it is my opinion that the use of an Abraham entity is more of a marketing device than anything else conceived from the foundation of Jerry hicks's past career as a high-level distributor for the multi-level marketing company Amway a company that preached ideas like the Law of Attraction and books like Napoleon Hills Think and Grow Rich because they recognize that in order to keep members inside the MLM scheme they had to blame themselves if they didn't achieve the goals the MLM promised either way none of this stopped Oprah from inviting Esther for an interview years later just as she had done with Rhonda Byrne that for over 20 years Esther Hicks and her husband Jerry have been spreading the word of that so-called secret it didn't stop the Abraham Hicks money-making machine from running as usual the secret just like Esther and Jerry's Works were repackaged ideas from the same route new thought it was perfect to promise you health wealth love and abundance all in one go package it all under an umbrella of spirituality that you discover the secret that you can immediately start creating the life you want whether it's getting out of debt whether it's finding a more fulfilling job even falling in love Rhonda's film earned her millions and it gave an incredible boost to the careers of the supposed teachers it featured allowing them to Branch away from the franchise to run their own coaching businesses and cash in on spiritual Retreats but I remind you new thoughts is a belief system perfectly designed for grifters who don't care for the desperately ill poor and helpless who line their pockets leading them to push incredibly dangerous ideas onto their victims so I thought what if I just visualize checks coming in the mail so I'll just visualize a bunch of checks coming in tomorrow within just one month things started to change and it's amazing today I just get checks in the mouth I get a few builds but I'll get more checks than builds but now serious questions have been raised about his business dealings in this exclusive investigation Ben Fordham has found investors left high and dry and demanding Justice a former student of shermers who spent thirty thousand dollars to learn about the stock market part of the the funds we're supposed to be put into a trading fund and David would then trade those funds on this on the Futures stock market what happened to that fund well we don't know it's their money if they paid you the tuition fees it's not them and you told them that you would take five thousand dollars out of each person's tuition and trade it on the market and they would receive 50 of the profits they never received any profits where's the money that money and come back to the original question is the money please answer the question the money and as I someone asked me recently the same question is the money David please answer the question where is the money where is the money you tell me most people look at their current state of affairs and they say this is who I am that's not who you are that's who you were and so you must continually invest in yourself you've got to grow in every single way your money is nothing more then the amount of energy paper energy that you have in your pocket or purse here what's the problem two people heart breathing truth no pulse yes police are focusing their investigation on James Arthur Ray the motivational speaker and self-help Guru who ran the five-day Retreat over 60 people were in the sweat lodge for two hours as the culmination of Rey's spiritual Warrior Retreat it was Pitch Black inside and extremely hot when it was over two people were dead ended while she was trying to improve it that's when she found self-help Guru James Arthur Ray and I can help you I really can the motivational speaker had already built a multi-million dollar business launched by the popular movie The Secret she reached one of the highest level workshops a retreat which costs her her life savings ten thousand dollars do you find the defendant James Arthur Ray on the offense of negligent homicide as a result of the death of Kirby Brown as follows guilty on November 23rd I was diagnosed with breast cancer I truly believed in my heart with my strong faith that I was already healed I saw myself as if cancer was never in my body from the time I was diagnosed which was November 23rd to the time I was healed totally was approximately three months and that's without radiation and chemotherapy [Music] foreign [Music] you will attract everything that you require if it's money you need your attract if it's people you need your attract if it's a certain book you need your attractor Bob Proctor is a preacher of the Law of Attraction appearing numerous times during Rhonda Byrne's film but perhaps you may not know Bob Proctor had also been a big promoter of the multi-level marketing company FEMA a company that specifically targeted universities aiming to find teenagers and young adults who are filled with dreams of wealth and fame here you create your own income you can be 16 to make as much money as you want you can be 85 make as much money as you are why would you let somebody else tell you how much money you're worth that doesn't make sense to me Bob Proctor means several appearances at their events as his books were promoted amongst vemma's young distributors in fact I introduced my own wife to the company and she earns tens of thousands of dollars now now I recommended that she joined a company called them and I recommended it because I know the man that owns the company and there's a company I'm working with Vemma and I'm working with their people worldwide because I'm going to tell you this is one of the best opportunities for time and money freedom that you're ever going to find the opportunity that you're looking at here with Vemma will give you that and Charles is going to explain an idea about Vemma about what a phenomenal product it is but what a phenomenal Compensation Plan now I've got a reputation that is worldwide I wouldn't do anything to stain or do hurt my reputation in 2015 the company was shut down for essentially being a pyramid scheme Alex Morton one of the figureheads for Vemma later went on to promoting a similar multi-level marketing scheme my name is Alex Al executive advice I markets live attending and speaking at their conferences [Music] [Applause] well they joined the I am Academy there's such a phenomenal opportunity here but of course this is no issue to Bob Proctor as he can continue promoting these schemes whilst charging for his own self-help courses and programs you are all and I am God's highest form of creation [Applause] [Music] [Music] engine for all of you wondering the simplest way to sum up the Law of Attraction get rich using the Law of Attraction on the 17 second manifestation you expand your awareness favorite Law of Attraction and manifesting happens so it's just one payment of 3. 99 or three installments of 149.