The Queen of the "New Agers" - Louise Hay

I've often wondered what started all the anti scientific, anti intellectual attitudes that prevail in this country. I've also wondered why people get sucked into the schemes of people like Sylvia Browne et al. Well, the Sunday New York Times ran a feature yesterday that goes some way to explaining the late 20th Century phenomenon of crystals, 'affirmations' and the like.

The author of "You Can Heal Your Life" and publisher of other edgy nonsense is none other than an octogenarian from San Diego, Louise Hay.

Read about her and her money making empire here.

Last year her publishing company made an 8% profit on sales of $100 million. Not small potatoes by any means for selling snake oil.

like using herb and minerals to cure illnesses - like they used centuries ago to actually "cure" and heal illness? Unlike the pharmaceuticals of today - which are REALLY good for you?

And purveyors of "The Secret"

The kind of nonsense that make people waste money on what is essentially worthless crap.

Yeah, that kind of "new agey" that is as pernicious in its anti intellectualism as the ID/Creationist movement and its present main apologist, Ben Stein.

Yet I have seen wonders far greater than those that they claim.

Spirituality, like any field, has its share of scam artists. (Hey, even science isn't immune--remember that scientist from Korea who claimed to have cloned a dog?) What I've found is that if something is real, it comes to you with no charge, no strings attached.

Yeah, the mercury treatment is lightyears more advanced than that dumb penicillin.

finding placebos as effective as some medication, thereby giving credence to the argument that our minds ARE powerful and CAN affect our health?

Like that?

"New age now seems to mean what they want it to mean, not what it really means."

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Occult Republicon Astrologer

or other body mind spirit connecting affirmations?

:shrug:

I'm hearing your opinion, but I'm not hearing any scientific facts.

She and her publishing house are just a big money making machine, cynically soaking "seekers".

She and others of her ilk annoy me.

Business exist in order to sell a product and make a profit. Most of us work for one or own our own. What's your beef?

And your claim that Hay is "cynically soaking seekers" is naught but your projection and opinion. Provide evidence that she's cynical.

Your annoyance proves nothing except that you're easily disturbed by other people's success.

I put her in the category of "potentially harmless." If reading a daily affirmation card makes you feel better, what's so terrible about that?

I have more important things to worry about than people making money off mild efforts to make other people feel better.

Disclosure: I work for a publishing company that publishes similar material. We are frivolous, but harmless.

have heard, personally experienced and have been a conduit for healing "miracles".

The most recent, the other day when my son's girlfriend got a severe burn on her hand while cooking. Blisters starting to erupt. I applied lavender oil and some healing energy. The next morning not a trace.

I've told family and friends to use lavender on burns, and they just wrinkle their faces at me.

Whenever I get a sunburn, I apply aloe and lavender - and the next day it's gone.

:hi:

the burn extended from the tips of my fingers to my elbow. hit it with ice first, then used a combination of vit e, aloe, and pau d'arco. within a week, it was healed. never blistered, or scarred (and I scar very easily)

used the lavender when I got a severe rash--that, and yucca oil. gone within two days.

and Louise Hay.

Louise Hay has helped people by encouraging them to think more positively through affirmations, especially in these times with so much collective fear hovering.

Sylvia Browne has been all about self promotion for a long time.

There are very simply, charlatans in every field.

Louise Hay recommends a healthy lifestyle-not just the affirmation thing, but encourages people to eat well, to exercise, and so on. She only this month retired from writing her monthly column for the Detroit area publication The Phenoma News.


I've seen New Age people, good and bad. Some are hucksters, some started out with a good message and allowed it to be perverted, and some are honest and good. I'm a Unity member, so I am somewhat of a New Ager, myself, although I consider myself a very liberal christian.

Sylvia Browne is a huckster, I won't name my example of who I consider to be a teacher who started out with a good message and perverted it to meet her own needs because I don't want an argument, and Louise Hay is one of the good and honest ones.

family - my parents and brother and sister.

I couldn't sleep for my anger at the injustice of it.

A Louise Hay tape that encouraged you to picture the person who hurt you up on a stage, getting applause and love from you and others, and also asked you to think of this person as a small child, who needed love, helped me a great deal.

Both of these exercises helped me get past the pain and on to being a much stronger person who didn't look to my birth family for constant approval.

When I would awake in the night, I would listen to those exercises, and soon fall back to sleep.

I am grateful to Louise Hay for that, and don't begrudge her the cost of that cassette tape at all.

for an excellent critique of how both the left and right are suckered by spiritual charlatans.
There is very little difference between fondling crystals and handling snakes.

and both can be done to powerful effect. So ... yer right.

LOL! I have no desire to ram either my belief structure or experience down your throat. Nor have I any intention of dismissing my experiences simply because they do not fit in with your paradigm. Peace, then, my friend ... but perhaps you might want to ease up on the urge to pass judgment. Just a suggestion.

and shoes made from crystals are nowhere near as comfortable as ones made from snake :)

I'm a little too phobic about snakes to actually be comfortable wearing their skins.

you can call it snake oil all you want, but it works for many people out there.

I feel blessed that someone recommended them to me. My life turned around for the good once I followed her "nonsense."

If you don't want to believe, fine. :hi:

i do not begrudge Louise one silver dime's worth of the money she's made.

there are many of us out here who appreciate and bless Louise for all she has done to help us and others.

She has some very helpful suggestions for living more positively.

:hi:

And all of it is NONSENSE. There is no scientific basis for homeopathy, for crystals and any herbal cure out there. They can make all the claims they want to but the FDA does not require that items marketed as herbal supplements actually do what they say or that they even include what is on the lable.

Gary Null, Kevin Trudeau are just scam artists like the folks who used to sell patent medicine. It is ALL shit. And too many otherwise intelligent Americans fall for it because they are scientifically illiterate. Listen to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (a podcast) or Skepticality (another podcast) where they will give the unvarnished truth for all those flim-flam artists, including a lot of good info on so-called alternative medicine. Or check out the Science-based medicine blog.

:rofl:

which is what you might have been trying to say, but one could easily read you as, "There is no scientific basis for ... any herbal cure out there."

I always try to differentiate between herbal cures, which can in principle contain the right active ingredient, and homeopathic cures, which by definition contain no active ingredient.

They sell books, dvds, audiocasettes, affirmation cards, and other printed/recorded materials.

Your criticism in this thread is based on an irrelevant bias.

Many herbs contain compounds that are medically useful. Aspirin? Originally derived from willow-bark. Penicillin? From mold(not an herb, but you get my point). Marinol? Cannabis. And there's an example where users claim that the whole herb is much more effective than the single compound contained in the pharmaceutical. Herbs are humanities original medications. You can't paint all herbs with one brush and claim that there is no scientific basis for any herbal cure out there. It's simply not true. Do a little research.

As for crystals, homeopathy and all that, I think they work in the same way that a placebo does. Which, although not nearly as effective as actual medication, is nothing to sneeze at. Why do you think drugs are tested against placebo rather than just comparing those taking the drug to those taking nothing? It's because our minds do have some control over our health. Science, in its use of placebo, acknowledges that.

(edited to add: Alarimer, that man in your avatar sure thinks highly of a certain herbal medication.)

there have been many, many studies done on herbal supplements that show their efficacy. Try a simple internet search.

And the "skeptics" podcasts? Hardly unvarnished - more accurate to say extremely biased.

don't believe in. I will swear by my natural healing herbs, rather than the pharmaceuticals which nearly killed me.

There's another culprit that involves a lot more individuals and has a much longer history.

When they have the required ad nauseum list of possible side affects, one of them is lymphoma!!!

This medication has been approved by the FDA.

i missed reading the Times yesterday, so i appreciate your sharing the link!

i LOVE Louise Hay. her books and tapes have made a huge difference in my life, and in the lives of many others.

and as for you, GoneOffShore, i bless you with love and i release you.

(fans of Louise will get the message :D)

"Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as the beginning of their movement. On that date, Kate and Margaret Fox, of Hydesville, New York, reported that they had made contact with the spirit of a murdered peddler. What made this an extraordinary event was that the spirit communicated through rapping noises, audible to onlookers. The evidence of the senses appealed to practically minded Americans, and the Fox sisters became a sensation.<2><3>

"Amy and Isaac Post, Hicksite Quakers from Rochester, New York, had long been acquainted with the Fox family, and took the two girls into their home in the late spring of 1848. Immediately convinced of the genuineness of the sisters' communications, they became early converts and introduced the young mediums to their circle of radical Quaker friends.

"It therefore came about that many of the early participants in Spiritualism were radical Quakers and others involved in the reforming movement of the mid-nineteenth century. These reformers were uncomfortable with established churches, because they did little to fight slavery and even less to advance the cause of women's rights.<3>

"Women were particularly attracted to the movement, because it gave them important roles as mediums and trance lecturers. In fact, Spiritualism provided one of the first forums in which U.S. women could address mixed public audiences.<3>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritualism

Sad.



- Carl Sagan, from The Demon-Haunted World

then it follows that ALL religion (see exception of Buddhism) is fairy tales too. Can't have one without the other.

So why is going to church and praying to the Christian God considered to be real by millions of people, but New Age beliefs, which are generally far less harmful, thought to be ridiculous?


Buddhism is atheistic; it does not mention god and no god is worshipped. Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, is NOT worshiped. He is a role model of an enlightened person.


I'm just arguing for strict science here, if no one is supposed to have any non-provable beliefs. :shrug:

The left hates science because it also steps on this crap. Both groups are cut from the same cloth - anti-intellectual, anti-science, desperately wanting to believe they understand and have control of the universe.

thought there was a curse on his family, but then he was probably a New Age nut too. Einstein said intuition was the best asset for being a scientist, another new ager I guess.

But he himself thought it was a curse. That was his opinion about his own life and his relatives. Also I think 2 of his relatives died in fires and he thought this was significant too.

It helps to open one's eyes to the multifactorial causes of disease.

it is quite obvious that natural things work in some situations, take quinine and the origins of aspirin from tree bark. But some things border on, if not jump right into the absurd. "Crystals", at least to me are absurd...so are some of the sillier aspects of "curativer powers" often found on the pages of numerous magazines and flyers.

Investigate what is being claimed, never take anything for granted...as for "snake-oil", most likely the "power" derivied from them had a lot more to do with a healthy dose of alcohol and opium, than of anything else...;)