Ari Died. That we know.

Did Esther Hicks and her late husband Jerry Hicks or their hired hands influence her suicide after years of struggle?

Ari, an artist, turned to the Abraham-Hicks controlled Abe Forum for advice and support. For years, she’d struggled with depression, problems with work and money. Here is the story, pieced together from information offered by friends outraged over her death was censored on the Abe Forum.

If Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks or the tightly controlled members on their team were responsible, at least for neglect in not alerting mental health authorities, will criminal or civil charges be pursued or, as so often happens, avoided until a more visible tragedy takes place?

Background: Jerry, Esther, Abraham Hicks, and the Abe Forum

For reasons only Esther Hicks can explain, she and Jerry Hicks controlled the content of the Abe Forum through a paid intermediary, David Gordon. The Forum itself is best understood as a marketing device for Abraham-Hicks products and workshops, sessions where Esther claims to channel a group of one-hundred ‘nonphysical entities,’ all speaking in a single voice.

The main intent of Abe Forum is to promote Abraham-Hicks products based on the “teachings of Abraham,” which Esther Hicks has preached extemporaneously for decades to live audiences and marketed heavily through books, recordings, and other media.

Jesus, Esther has claimed, maybe hoping to keep Christians in her fold, is a member of the Abraham cluster and, now, so is her dead husband, revealed as a merry commentator at live events.

The so-called teachings are based on the “Law of Attraction,” a concept invented nearly a hundred years ago in the New Thought Movement, although Esther and Jerry Hicks have long claimed to be originators.

An important component in their attracting audiences is Esther Hicks claim that she receives those blocks of thought from Abraham who are in direct contact with “Source,” her neutral term for God, and have access to all wisdom existing in the universe. In other words, these are the words of God’s own messengers and only wrong when “limited humans” fail to understand them.

Something new: Jerry and Esther Hicks Spiritual Money Tree, Stories Behind the Abraham-Hicks’ Teachings and the Law of Attraction

Ari Joins The Abe Forum

Ari was an artist, struggling to sell enough paintings to pay rent and buy food. She was a cancer survivor whose chemotherapy was so intense she wore a wig years later because her hair would never grow back.

In her first post on the Abe Forum, Ari responded to a platitude-filled blast of verbiage from “Super Moderator” Jody with this:

“… I think I listened to Abraham for at least 2 hours a day for two years and I so would expect myself to understand what you mean. But I don’t. I feel like I was doing such a great job with being honest with myself and with seeking alignment. I know it’s not supposed to help to talk about your past, BUT…I’ve had just about everything that can happen to someone happen…abuse, death of a child, cancer, poverty and aloneness. Yet I am one of those people with a strong spirit who keeps reaching for beauty, love and all the good stuff.”

This and other similar posts about struggling are answered with comments and suggestions from other members of the forum which, while well-intended, convey a message that her unhappiness and lifelong battles with depression are her own fault. She isn’t thinking the right thoughts, and more important, she fails to apply the “teachings of Abraham” correctly.

She needs to learn to float “downstream,” instead of “upstream,” she is told. The analogies are common Abraham-Hicks speak. They are intended to help followers understand that “trying” and “struggling” are mistakes. Abundance, happiness, etc. are easy if you will only “let go of the oars” and let the good times flow.

While her demons never seemed far away and each burst of happiness was followed by another round of depression, Ari seemed puzzled and frustrated that the teachings of Abraham, repeatedly reinforced on the Abe Forum, weren’t working.

Her online comments were answered on the forum with suggestions about how she could improve her practices.

A brave woman determined to overcome repeated bouts of depression, Ari diligently tried to follow the advice, even as it seemed contradictory.

She tried the Abraham-Hicks inspired “focus wheels” and going up the ‘Emotional Guidance Scale’ (EGS) to find “relief.” These practices failed, as they usually do, and because she’d been told that she was 100% responsible for all the good or bad things in her life, her inability to get better reinforced her sense that she failed.

No one in all the transcripts I read ever recommended counseling or other professional help, only practices suggested in the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.

Is The Abraham-Hicks Forum A Lure For The Needy and Depressed?

It’s a hard conclusion to avoid. When you read the transcripts taken from the Ari’s threads on the forum, its striking how frequently those reacting to her are fighting depression themselves. They describe their own struggles and what they’ve done to achieve periods of escape from the disease.

Taken in total, these read like the ramblings of cult followers who don’t seem able to think or express themselves freely.

No one seems to have found a permanent cure from depression through the guidance of Abraham-Hicks. Some report screaming in pain at the teachings before the release of anger led them back to the conclusion that it was all their own fault. This gave them the illusion of control and helped them feel better.

Abraham-Hicks, Suicide And The Death Of Ari

A year and a half after joining and participating in forum discussions, frequently talking about her own illness, but also sweetly encouraging others, Ari wrote this:

“The first time I heard Abraham was their intro cd and I sat in my car and cried. Up until then, I honestly believed I was not supposed to be here…not alive in this world. I was suicidal for most of my life and that is a very painful way to live. I simply could not reconcile all that had happened to me and the belief there was any such thing as a merciful God. I turned to other religions and I still felt like nothing I could do or be was enough to have good things come to me.

‘When I started to understand that I created what had happened, (even though at the time that seemed a harsh explanation), it gave me such unbelievable relief.’

Five months later, unable to defeat her demons through all the exercises encouraged by Abraham-Hicks, after listening to hundreds of hours of Esther Hicks supposedly translating the eternal wisdom of Abraham from “blocks of thought,’ and being reinforced about her failures while she “created what had happened,” Ari killed herself.

The response from the Abraham-Hicks forum was instructive.

But before that happened, determined to keep trying and to support others suffering severe depression, Ari addressed a friend on the forum who was in pain this way:

“Dearest beautiful Jacqueline,
I’ve written many posts on depression and many of them while I was in the deepest darkest holes of despair.

My only way out has been to embrace the depression. I would do only what I had to do and at times it got scary. I couldn’t even listen to Abe then and usually would fight whatever advice I got. And that was because I had lost myself.

So soon…I’d get pissed. Like my IB* would say…ok I’m here and we are going to rise again! And I’d get angry at EVERYTHING.

Soon, I’d feel stronger and soon I’d find myself laughing at some sick joke or playing with my dog.
Then I’d get back on the forum and soon I’d figure out that some stupid old belief was really nagging at me. Like I’d never seen it this clearly. And I’d release it!

It seemed that every time (since knowing Abe) I’d come out of the depressions much further DOWNSTREAM! They have been like one Aber put it…very bumpy shortcuts to where I want to go…thru the ghetto, glass on the streets, muddy ruts and finally… OZ.”

*IB = Inner Being

Two weeks later, Ari was dead.

How Responsible Was Abraham-Hicks For Ari’s Death?

For over a year and a half, Ari had participated in many discussions. She was among the Abe Forum’s most active members, but shortly after learning of her suicide, paid Abraham-Hicks moderators reduced her identity to “a guest,” as if she’d never registered or been an active a member.

What this did was erase her from name searches, obliterate her “lovely” icon (taken from one of her own paintings) and erase both the date of her joining the forum as well as the number of her posts on the forum.

Okay, so, you can understand why a deceased person may no longer be considered active, privacy concerns and all that, but there may have been an uglier motive.

A post alerting forum members, many of whom knew and had interacted frequently with her, of Ari’s death was deleted by moderators almost immediately. Moreover, a forum member was told by ‘Super Moderator’ Jody Baron that any discussion involving Ari’s death would be “inappropriate,” even a simple notification.

After months and thousands of words on the forum, Ari was left dangling like a ghost on the threads. What might have been a teaching moment was sacrificed to protect the teachings of Abraham-Hicks from a discussion of how they might’ve, intentionally or not, been a catalyst or facilitator in a suicide.

Two years later, these same teachings would fail Jerry Hicks as he aged and died from leukemia, another event Abraham-Hicks, led by his own widow, Esther, scrambled to obscure.

The Teachings Of Abraham-Hicks On Death

Draw whatever conclusions you like about whether Ari was totally responsible for her depression, poverty, bad luck in romance and her eventual suicide. Or was she assisted, aided along the way by reinforcement on the Abraham-Hicks Forum that she was a failure?

Maybe the following “teachings of Abraham,” certainly familiar to Ari as a longtime listener to the Abraham-Hicks tapes and CD’s, helped her along the way:

“We promise you, the timing of your death is always chosen by you.”
Chicago, 2002

“Because we know that life is eternal, and we know that there is no ending to that which you are about, if one of you is killed in an earthquake or crashes your plane, or any number of other very creative ways you have found to make your exit into the Non-Physical, because we know the whole picture, we grieve not a moment for any of you.”
El Paso, 2001

“The death experience is always suicide. Always. Every time. Because every death experience is created by Self, no matter how it plays out. Every single one of them is created by Self.”
The Teachings of Abraham.

The above was spoken as part of a mocking response about a mother who questioned Abraham-Hicks role in the suicide of her son, but the worst is this one:

”…death’ is a matter of closing one’s eyes in this dimension and literally opening one’s eyes in the other dimension. And that, truly, is how all death is, no matter how it looks, up to that point.. The re-emergence into Source Energy is always a delightful thing.’

This was said by Esther Hicks, posing as Abraham, in Buffalo, New York, two weeks to the day after terrorist attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives on September 11th, 2001.

Not to worry. Pregnant women crushed by collapsing towers or jumping to avoid being burned alive, others on jetliners with babies in their laps, men with dependent families waiting for them to come home, telemarketers slugging away another day on the phone–no matter, they killed themselves, fully aware and instantly without a regret, according to Esther Hicks. “The death experience is always suicide.” Also, it “is always a delightful thing.”

Did Abraham-Hicks teachings, to which Ari was apparently addicted, contribute to her suicide? Will the mainstream media continue to ignore dangers to the needy and vulnerable posed by cults? And what about Abraham-Hicks, booster, Oprah Winfrey, who multiple times gave them a public platform to lure more followers?

Will anyone speak up for Ari and others or will Esther Hicks and Abraham be allowed to continue without restraint?