You’ve heard of them. Esther and Jerry Hicks, the couple who made the fabulous claim that they invented ‘the law of attraction,’ assisted by a channeled entity, Abraham. It wasn’t true, and you should be wary of other claims for cures and well-being.

The Abraham-Hicks severe depression cure? People suffering depression look to the “teachings of Abraham,” as presented by Esther Hicks all the time. And no wonder, it’s the ultimate simple, self-initiating cure.

But does it work? And at least as important, is it dangerous?

Abraham Hicks and Severe Depression

Let’s be clear. Real depression, the emotionally painful experience that sends millions running to doctors for help, is severe by definition.

Although the solution would be similar, we’re not talking about being “down in the dumps’ temporarily. All of us have those days. We’re talking about a dark cloud that never seems to go away.

Conventional professional wisdom now leans toward the idea that depression and other disabling mental conditions are chemically based. Some that may have a genetic basis, although more research needs to be done. In short, if you’re depressed, your brain chemistry is causing it, and the best answer is medication.

Others, advocates of talk therapy especially, believe depression is deeply rooted in experience. Unresolved issues lurk in your subconscious, undermining your happiness. Talking it through, rooting your demons out by identifying them and taking positive actions, will lift the anguished empty feelings.

For Abraham-Hicks, severe depression is more like the latter than the former. Your thoughts are the problem.

“Change your thoughts, change your life,” as Wayne Dyer puts it. And this puts you in control, for good or ill. Your current thoughts establish and reinforce your depression and you can get out of by taking simple steps for relief.

Abraham Hicks’ severe depression guidance does not discourage other treatments. In fact, starting or continuing prescribed medication may help, but changing your thoughts, using the what is called “The Emotional Guidance Scale” is what really brings a full, long term cessation of depression.

So, what is Abraham Hicks, Anyway?

Over a thirty year career of lectures and writings (with her late husband, Jerry Hicks), Esther Hicks has claimed that, initially without asking for it on her part, Abraham–a collection of roughly one-hundred nonphysical entities have been sending her “blocks of thought” that she interprets while in trance. Their pathway is opened by her relaxing into a meditative state in which the collective comes out.

This may sound kooky to you, but it does not to thousands of followers around the world. Even her claim that Jesus is part of the group of beings or that she speaks for, not just Jesus, but Buddha and other spiritual masters, has shaken their beliefs. It’s a whole other story, but neither has a well-documented series of errors and mistakes.

Much of the veneer wore off when, in 2011, Jerry Hicks fell ill with leukemia. It wasn’t so much that he got sick, what flabbergasted followers was that he instantly, according to his own story, eschewed the teachings of Abraham and followed his common sense into conventional chemotherapy. Followers who’d risked their lives in trying to change their “vibration” to get better, as Esther Hicks advised, were further disenchanted by the couple’s refusal to explain. Again, another collection of stories.

Abraham Hicks Severe Depression Cure

Numerous online discussions and article describe the Abraham Hicks method for relieving severe depression, and the steps are akin to the cures suggested for curing just about anything else.

Change your vibration, whatever that is. How do you change what Esther Hicks calls “your vibrational countenance?” It’s simple. You change your thoughts.

For any disease, and she emphasizes any disease, you can cure it by focusing on good feeling thoughts, especially those of your body in robust health. This can work, according to Esther, in “less than an afternoon.”

And you thought channeling “blocks of thought” from nonphysical beings was kooky?

You’d think a pronouncement like that alone would be enough to drive away any remaining rational followers, but no, belief is a curious phenomenon.

But can it be dangerous? I think so, and I’ll follow with a case study. But first, let’s consider the cure, as recommended by Esther Hicks through, she says, Abraham.

Let’s let Esther explain her philosophy life first:

 

Steps for the Severe Depression Cure or Healing

In their book, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, Jerry and Esther Hicks offer a step by step process for feeling better, anchored to the Emotional Guidance Scale:

The Emotional Guidance Scale

1.	Joy/Appreciation/Empowered/Freedom/Love
2.	Passion
3.	Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4.	Positive Expectation/Belief
5.	Optimism
6.	Hopefulness
7.	Contentment
8.	Boredom
9.	Pessimism
10.	Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11.	Overwhelment
12.	Disappointment
13.	Doubt
14.	Worry
15.	Blame
16.	Discouragement
17.	Anger
18.	Revenge
19.	Hatred/Rage
20.	Jealousy
21.	Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22.	Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness

As you can see, severe depression is at the bottom of the sinkhole Abraham Hicks hopes to help followers crawl out of.

And their advice is really common sensical, nothing rash and, truth be told, nothing original.

What they advise is this. Whatever you are feeling along the scale, “reach for the next best feeling thought.? If you suffer severe depression, Abraham Hicks says that, although feelings of insecurity are terrible too, they are a step in the right direction.

Abraham Hicks advises and incremental approach, noting that it’s too radical to try to go to the top instantly. Ease yourself into feeling better. Let your thoughts heal your life.

It’s all tied into the “law of attraction.” You get what you think about, whether you want it or not, and therein lies a key element.

Thinking about depression, not chemistry or emotional injuries in your past, is what makes you seek. More specifically, your belief in depression and the rationales you devise to justify being stuck there.

And suppose this cure does not work for you? Well, don’t blame the system. Esther Hicks points straight at the “the art of allowing.” If well-being is not yours, it’s simple: “You’re not letting it in.”

The Law of Attraction, according to Esther Hicks/Abraham, is the most powerful in the universe. The universe, she says, instantly responds to your request. It it isn’t happening, it’s a flaw in your allowing, nothing more. Your health, wealth, satisfying love life, whatever you’ve asked for, waits in what she calls ‘the vortex of attraction” for you to get with it and let it in.

 

Is Abraham Hicks Severe Depression Guidance Dangerous?

While many followers will tell you Esther Hicks prescription worked for them, attesting to it in online discussions and thoughtfully assuring others that it can help, there is ample evidence that it can also be dangerous. It’s unlikely that Esther Hicks or Abraham ever directly hurt anyone, but when the most vulnerable fall under her thrall, the results may be tragic.

I have other examples, but let’s stick with one that’s revealing. Let’s talk about Karen Shelton. You can read the full version by going to Did Abraham Hicks Kill Ari? But here’s the story in brief.

As a follower of Abraham Hicks, Karen came to the Abraham Hicks Forum when she was near the end of her rope. Here is one of her earliest comments:

“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.”

Later, using her son Ari’s name as her own, she wrote:

“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.’

Through the next year and a half, she was a frequent, avid participant in the forum, giving advice herself, but also getting a lot of it from what, upon reading, sounds like a massive treadmill of people in the forum who arrived there to get relief from depression.

But the heartbreaking truth is that, moving up the Emotional Guidance Scale and trying techniques like focus wheels, as advised by Esther Hicks, could not help Karen Shelton evade life itself.

An accomplished artist, she struggled with poverty, avoiding eviction and difficult clients. More important, in attending the wedding of her beloved son, she had to come face to face with the past in the form of her own husband.

Her last post on the forum was shortly before the wedding, because not long after it, Karen Shelton’s severe depression won. She killed herself.

What we know about her and what happened is the result of diligent digging by friends who saw her instantly vanish from the forum, and not just in the present. Learning of the suicide, the Abe Forum reacted fast. The erased Karen as a member.

All that remained was her ghostly participation forum discussions over the past two years, and that could be found only by doing a search for “Ari.” When her comments came up, they were strangely nude. A beautiful icon she’d used to represent herself had been scraped too.

In case you think it’s possible no cover up was intended, hoping to obscure any culpability or inference of failure, you should also know that the forum’s moderators refused to allow any discussion Ari’s death or even mention of it on any of the threads.

Karen Shelton died after years of what might be fairly called addiction to the teachings of Abraham and Esther Hicks. She listened to Esther’s recordings for at least two hours a day for years. She died anyway.

Despite her efforts, Karen Shelton was not “letting it in.”

Conclusion About Abraham Hicks Severe Depression Cure

I’m no more a mental health expert than Esther Hicks is, but I know that I’d advise seeking professional guidance before taking the vibrational cures described by Esther Hicks.

Severe depression is an insidious illness that changes how you think, feel and relate to a world full of others. It poisons everything. Oversimplifying it as a matter of having bad thoughts is an exercise in blaming the victim.

There are vulnerable individuals that cannot get clear enough to help themselves. It’s true that Esther Hicks guidance through Abraham may help, but is it worth the risk? And what’s your fall back, if it fails?

As we saw with Karen Shelton, by then, the dye may be cast, the end in sight, and no one waiting to step in, least of all your friends on the forum, controlled by Esther and Jerry Hicks.

What do you think? Is Esther Hicks guilty of ‘practicing without a license’ as she’s been accused? Should there be guidelines about dispensing free advice as their is about promoting alternative foods and health quick fixes? Should we be protecting vulnerable folks like Karen Shelton or just let nature take its course?

David Stone

You can find all of my books on my Amazon Author Page.