Commenter: I will get cancer because I criticised Louise Hay (Fear as a marketing tool)
February 13, 2019I will highlight yet another comment from a Louise Hay fan. It’s short, but revealing.
On my post titled Speaking ill of a dead cancer quack, Twila writes:
Yak-whatever.
As I mentioned previously, Yakaru is my spiritual name. I don’t know why this person feels compelled to mock it. I imagine they must be very angry with me.
Nevertheless, Twila has some advice for me:
You would benefit from anger management study.
Of course — it’s me who’s angry, not her.
So let me clear a few things up. I have indeed written plenty of angry words on this website, but I have always done it consciously, or deliberately, and for a specific purpose.
When people have developed an unhealthy loyalty to a spiritual teacher it shocks and angers them, to see someone undermine the elevated status they have granted to that teacher. And, often, it frightens them too. I’ve noticed clearly in personal interactions over many decades with followers of various sects and cults and teachings. They think it’s all love and light and outsiders just don’t understand, but they don’t see any connection between the feelings they feel when a (supposed) outsider criticises the boss, and the teachings of that boss. No no, those teachings are all nice and positive.
In fact, and this will come out clearly below, Louise Hay’s teachings are based on fear every bit as much as they talk of love and light. Above all, Hay was a fanatical Christian. She just switched from threatening people with hell for their misdeeds, to threatening them with cancer. Think a negative thought (about Louise Hay, for example) and you will get cancer.
This is what Louise Hay triggers in her followers: fear.
And this fear drives their anger when they see her being criticised.
It is people like you who are full of misdirected anger that get cancer.
Twila is angry enough with me to ridicule my name — a pointless personal attack that has nothing to do with the issue — and angry enough to tell me I will get cancer because of my misdeeds (I would bet she has never suffered from it herself nor had anyone close die of it)….
…..but somehow she has decided that it is only my anger that is negative. Her anger must be positive. She is defending poor dear Louise, so her anger is well-directed and won’t cause cancer. This is what Louise Hay does to her customers: criticise Ms Hay and you get cancer; defend Ms Hay’s product and you’re safe. It’s a form of psychological colonisation.
Louise Hay died from old age. She was a sweet and dedicated woman who believed in peace, love and light.
And customer loyalty.
Loyal customers who have all learned to repeat the same lines of defense when the product (the teachings) is being criticised. This is why I could already write my comment policy specifically asking Louise Hay followers not to leave their stereotypical defenses. It means I can just copy and paste instead of typing the same thing each time one of them shows up here.
From the comment policy:
…Also, before commenting about your “positive experiences” with a particular teacher, please ask yourself if it really in fact addresses my criticism. Unless I have explicitly argued that no one has ever had any positive experiences with a teacher, then your comment is likely to be irrelevant.
I also ask people please not to–
Attempt to analyze my motives rather than addressing my criticism
Judge me for being “judgmental”
Leave negative comments about me being “negative”
Criticize me for being critical
Assume that I am ignorant of- or feel threatened by spirituality and then criticize me for that
In other words, please don’t leave exactly the same comment that all the other angry Louise Hay fans have already left.
Twila continues:
My message is for anyone reading this who thinks…
And maybe I should add another one to that list, because they’ve pulled that one before here too.
Do not use the space I provide for your comment to talk over my shoulder in order to lecture those reading here. It is impolite. Comments are to respond to my article how ever you see fit, or to answer other commenters directly (as long as its on topic). It is not a platform for you to promote the product I was criticising.
My message is for anyone reading this who thinks you “have a handle” on life and living, because I feel strongly that you definitely do not.
I did not give out any such advice in that article. Rather I handed out a long list of substantial criticisms, and Twila ignored every single one of them. But still felt entitled to comment anyway.
Just guessing, but you probably have no sense of fairness either so if you delete my message it won’t bother me, but hopefully will bother you because you’ve read it.
Twila, you have used the comment space on my blog to mock my name, tell me I will get cancer, tell me about character deficiencies you think I have and assume you know how to fix them, talk over my shoulder to readers, and then lecture me about fairness.
Where exactly do you get this feeling of entitlement and superiority? Why do you think it is that you have just left the same comment that several dozen Louise Hay fans have also written?
Do you think it might be because you have all been taught to by someone, whose teachings are all directed at evading criticism and recruiting customers to promote the product to others? –And promote it so unconsciously that you all come out with the same sales pitch to defend it.
You are welcome to comment further, Twila, but I will give two conditions:
1. read the comment and fairness policy (side bar top right under Website: Comment & Fairness Policy)
2. respond to the criticisms of Louise Hay from the article this time.
…
Posted by Yakaru
Spirituality is No Excuse 
Dollars to donuts Twila is a physically healthy person. Emotionally,not so much. Hoping her post “bothers you” isn’t very
Cancer patients like myself know that it’s not so cut and dried.
Healthy people like to think cancer could never happen to them because they think “the right way”.
Meanwhile as you pointed out, the only person with “misdirected anger” that I can perceive here is Twila. Who appointed her to analyze your mental state? Not to mention, you come across to me as remarkably even tempered).
It’s wishful thinking, no more, no less.
Is habitual anger good for anyone in the long run? No. Does it feel better to be peaceful inside? Yes, yes it does, but neither does anger cause cancer and it’s absence does not cure it, either.
Healthy people can be really arrogant..and I for one don’t appreciate the implication that I’m sick because I didn’t have a good enough outlook, or didn’t handle my anger properly.
I read Louise Hay decades before I ever got sick, and tried her beliefs on for size for quite a long time, even though I found holes in the reasoning from the get go. I figured it never hurts and might help to have a few more tools in the box. I’ve also been meditating for 24 years.
Surprise..cancer!!
No one is a bigger fan of “peace love and light” than myself, but here I am with one tit. Go figure.
I think I’ve said this before Yakaru, but I love it when you break down the comments of those who think they’re more enlightened (for want of a better word) than the rest of us. I hope they realize it demonstrates just how clear-thinking you are, which is usually the opposite of how they come across.
I’m a very positive person, but I think there’s a fairly high chance I could get cancer. Why? About 50% of my relatives on both sides of my family have died of it. In my case my genes are going to have a lot more to say than my attitude. Let me be clear here though: I don’t believe negative thoughts cause cancer and vice versa.
Excellent analysis from Yakuru on the entitled attitude of those who take Louise Hay’s ‘teachings’ in the manner of what I believe can be termed ‘received information’ that is, wisdom above criticism.
Excellent comments from others.
It is because I think that this form of brainwashing is so dangerous
– not through envy or malice -that I have been hoping that something about the corrupt organisation Hay House will come out hat will shake these persons’ faith in the nonsense that the late Louise Hay and her followers use to make millions out of those willing, for whatever reason, to be duped. Sadly, that is, like some forms of transport, a long time coming. …
Valerie–
“Dollars to donuts Twila is a physically healthy person”
My impression too — the way show so gleefully tells me I’ll get cancer suggests to me that she’s never seen it up close.
Heather–
Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I should have done this more often in the past, but I didn’t want commenters to feel I was being unfair. But it is a way of highlighting what is behind this dreadful mentality. I’ve had a lot to do with spiritual folk over the years, and was one myself (and maybe still am in some ways).
‘New Age’ spirituality was good in the ways it opposed some aspects of Christianity, like the authoritarian priesthood and sick-headed teachings about sexuality and hateful parenting, but this “think positive or die, sucker” mentality really makes me puke.
Lucinda–
I see this whole industry as a kind of free-form cult. They don’t do the heavy social isolation stuff like Scientology — instead they convince people to just cut “negative influences” out of their lives. They don’t send people around to knock on doors like the Mormons, (which is aimed as much at deepening the convictions of Mormons as proselytising), but they do get people to respond angrily (i.e. fearfully) to critics.
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Administrative note–
“anonymous” comments keep turning up the “recent comments” sidebar. These are not comments but rather a WordPress glitch: it keeps spamming me with “pingbacks” (incoming links) which are in fact just the links I posted in the article above. I keep deleting them, and they keep reappearing.
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