Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari? The question buzzed, following her suicide when the Abe Forum wiped her identity out of the website.
By David Stone
Did Abraham-Hicks or their "teachings" cause the death of Ari, an artist who turned to the Abe Forum for support?
We pieced our story together from the accounts of friends outraged over Ari's suicide and cold-blooded efforts to hide the tragedy.
Jerry Hicks, Esther Hicks, the Abe Forum and Ari's Death
Esther and Jerry Hicks controlled the content of the Abe Forum from its inception through an intermediary, David Gordon.
(Full disclosure: David Gordon banned me from the Abe Forum, without explanation, although it was probably because I asked the wrong questions and am well-known as a skeptic. Opinions contrary to the standard gospel of Esther Hicks (posing as Abraham) are taboo as are, of course, open discussions. )
The Abe Forum hosts controlled discussions and promotes sales of Abraham-Hicks products. Esther Hicks preaches the "teachings of Abraham," and she has for decades to live audiences. The Forum gives followers a place to go and share experiences with like-minded friends.
It isn’t really a forum or a place for open discussion. Using moderators like Gordon and other true believers, it controls the content. They permit only comments reinforcing Abraham-Hicks's beliefs. Other topics, like sporting events and music? Banned unless determined to have “Abe-ish” themes.
How the Abe Forum Sets Conditions
Abraham is a gathering of about one hundred “nonphysical entities" who send unified “blocks of thought” to Esther, they claim. And she interprets. She also says they controlled of her hands at a typewriter to create book manuscripts.
The teachings are based on the “Law of Attraction,” a concept invented a hundred years ago in the New Thought Movement.
Esther's insistence that she receives those blocks of thought from Abraham who are in direct contact with “Source” is critical.
Abraham has, she tells audiences, access to all wisdom. These are the words of God’s own emissaries. They're wrong only when “limited humans” fail to get the right perspective.
Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari? Joining the Abe Forum
Ari (not her real name) was a visual artist, struggling to sell enough paintings to pay rent, food and other necessities. She was a cancer survivor, her chemotherapy so intense her hair could never go back.
In her first post on the Abe Forum, Ari responded to a platitude-filled blast from “Super Moderator” Jody with this:
“Thanks Jody. 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.”
--Ari on the Abe Forum
They answer her posts about struggling with suggestions from other members, and they share a conviction that her unhappiness and lifelong battles with depression are her fault. She isn’t thinking the right thoughts, and she fails to apply the “teachings of Abraham” correctly.
Ari "floating downstream?"
She must learn to float “downstream,” instead of “upstream,” they write.
That's Abraham-Hicks speak.
"Trying” and “struggling” are mistakes. Abundance, happiness, etc. are easy if you will only “let go of the oars."
While her demons were never far away and each burst of happiness foreshadowed another round of depression, the teachings of Abraham lead, repeatedly reinforced on the Abe Forum, didn't work for her.
A brave woman determined to overcome depression, Ari tried to follow the advice, even as that seemed contradictory.
Focus wheels and failure
She tried “focus wheels” and going up the "Emotional Guidance System" (EGS) to find “relief.”
These practices failed, and because Abraham-Hicks taught that she was 100% responsible for her life, all the good or bad things in it, not getting better reinforced her sense of failure.
No one in all the transcripts I read ever recommended counseling or other professional help, only practices consistent with the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.
But did Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari?
Is The Abraham-Hicks Forum A Lure For The Needy and Depressed?
It’s a hard conclusion to avoid.
Read transcripts from Ari’s threads on the forum, and it’s striking how often those reacting to her battle depression themselves. They describe their own struggles and what they have done to escape the disease.
They read like the repetitious ramblings of cult followers who aren't able to think or express themselves freely.
Some report screaming in pain at the teachings before reaching 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, talking about her own illness and 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.
"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."
Ari on the Abe Forum
Five months later, unable to defeat her demons through all the exercises encouraged by Abraham-Hicks and its paid staff, listening to hundreds of hours of Esther Hicks translating the wisdom of Abraham from “blocks of thought, reinforced about her failures while she “created what had happened,” Ari killed herself.
The response from the Abe forum was instructive.
Possible Evidence: Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari?
But before ending her own life, still supporting others suffering from depression, Ari addressed a friend on the forum:
“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 everytime (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.”
Two weeks later, Ari was dead.
Did Abraham-Hicks Kill Ari...?
How Responsible Was Abraham-Hicks For Ari’s Death?
On the forum, action to erase Ari was swift.
For over a year and a half, she initiated or joined in discussions. She was among the forum’s most active members, but shortly after learning of her suicide, Forum moderators reduced her status. Now, she was a “guest,” as if she’d never registered as a member.
This erased her from name searches, obliterated her “lovely” icon (taken from one of her own paintings) and deleted both the date of her joining the forum and the number of her posts.
Okay, a deceased person may no longer be "active," privacy concerns and all that, but other actions suggested a more sinister motive.
Aggressive erasures
A moderator deleted a post alerting forum members, many of whom knew and interacted with her, of her death, almost immediately.
"Super Moderator" Jody told one member 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 skepticism.
Two years later, these same teachings failed Jerry Hicks as he aged and died from leukemia, another death Abraham-Hicks, led by Esther, scrambled to cover up.
The Teachings Of Abraham On Death
Draw whatever conclusions fit your beliefs about whether Ari was totally responsible for her depression, poverty, bad luck in romance and her eventual suicide.
But was she assisted, aided along the way, by reinforcement on the Abe Forum that she was a failure?
Maybe the “teachings of Abraham,” familiar to Ari as a longtime listener to the Abraham-Hicks tapes and CD’s, helped along the way:
“We promise you, the timing of your death is always chosen by you.” - Esther Hicks
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.” - Esther Hicks
El Paso, 2001
Death is always suicide...
“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.” - Esther Hicks
This was dished out as a mocking response about a mother who complained about Abraham-Hicks's 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." - Esther Hicks
This came from Esther at an Abraham-Hicks Workshop, in Buffalo, New York, two weeks to the day after the disastrous terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001.
Not to worry, Ari: “The death experience is always suicide.”
And, it “is always a delightful thing.”
Did Abraham's "teachings," to which Ari was apparently emotionally addicted, contribute to her suicide?
You decide.
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