Quote
Recovering MLM
In the mid 70's to mid 80's, Jerry Hicks was an Amway distributor; some diamond level, based in Fresno CA. He's from Arkansas. His wife at the time was Trish. A darling chaming southern hospitality type couple. During his presentations of the Amway business plan to groups of people at hotel and restaurant meeitng rooms, Jerry would start off with a sort of metaphysical babble about becoming who you think yourself to be, etc. etc. That you are here now doing this because it is what you always wanted to do, etc. etc. Kind of mind numbing stuff, but everyone was in awe of him - very charasmatic and handsome. Turns out that this is the stuff Esther now 'channels' and they call it "Abraham." I guess that sells better than Mohamed, or Shiva.
One of the couples (Amway was very big on married couples) that Jerry recruited into his organization about 1978, was Esther and her then husband Richard Geer, from Fresno. After a couple of years of working "closely together", Jerry and Esther left their spouses and moved in together, later marrying after the divorce dust settled. About this time their Amway groups had begun declining, but Jerry and Esther had already started switching their revenue sources to selling tapes and seminars to their Amway down-line organization, and new followers. Jerry was doing generic 'Think and Grow Rich' seminars and that kind of thing. Jerry learned from Amway that there is always a large and financially viable number of people that need to feel involved in a warm and fuzzy clique that holds out the hope of an exclusive path to happiness, a path that is always within sight of the goal but not quite there - so you have to buy some more tapes or attend another seminar. You gotta hand to these two, they figured out a pretty nifty way to travel, live a luxury life, and not work too hard - problem is - it's all b.s.
A while ago, Recovering MLM posted a message on this forum, but didn’t bother to cite any of his sources, making his post more of a conspiracy theory than anything else. Having done an extensive amount of research on the Hickses since reading that post, I have returned to verify what I can. The rest, I will leave it up for you to determine the validity of. He left two in a row, I think intending to be more and less specific about certain details. I will walk you through them.
Message 1:
Recovering MLM
Date Added: 10/15/2006
In the mid 70's to mid 80's, Jerry Hicks was an Amway distributor; some diamond level, based in Fresno CA.*This is true. Neither Jerry nor Esther deny his work with Amway. This can be found in their interview with The Independent here: [
www.independent.co.uk]
He's from Arkansas.*Cannot verify this.
His wife at the time was Trish.*I can verify this through an Amway listing of their diamond level distributors in this publication: [
www.docstoc.com]
Also they are listed on Amwaywiki here: [
www.amwaywiki.com]
A darling chaming southern hospitality type couple. *Opinion, but Jerry is kinda like that now, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
During his presentations of the Amway business plan to groups of people at hotel and restaurant meeting rooms, Jerry would start off with a sort of metaphysical babble about becoming who you think yourself to be, etc. etc. That you are here now doing this because it is what you always wanted to do, etc. etc. Kind of mind numbing stuff, but everyone was in awe of him - very charasmatic and handsome.*In Abraham Hicks’ introductory CD on their website: [
www.abraham-hicks.com]
Jerry discusses how he found the book Think and Grow Rich and goes on to say “It worked so well for me that in a very brief time I was able to build a multinational business, touching meaningfully the lives of many thousands I even began teaching the principles that I was learning from the book.” He neglects to tell us that his multinational business is Amway. I include a Dateline expose in a later part of this where you will see that this motivational teaching is actually a major part of Amway distributors income.
In the Secret Behind the Secret interview with Peter Beamish, Esther says that she met Jerry at one of his ‘business presentations’. She said she had been invited by a friend and went on to say, “Well he’d been studying think and grow rich so he was all full of enthusiasm.”
Turns out that this is the stuff Esther now 'channels' and they call it "Abraham."*There’s no secret about it. Yes, a lot of their work bares great similarities to Think and Grow Rich, as well as other authors, particularly William Atkinson’s books on The Law of Attraction.
This is how they word their transition from Think and Grow Rich to Abraham on their website under A Message from Jerry & Esther: Oct/Nov/Dec 1997.
“And then Abraham appeared. And as Abraham began to respond so wisely and unconditionally lovingly to my questions, we wanted to immediately teach what we were now learning to our business associates...but questions soon began to flow from outside of that circle of our business partners...which then drew us outside of that relatively small arena to others who in turn told others who taught others who told others...to whoever told you about us.”
So basically, before they were teaching Think and Grow Rich to their business associates/recruits. Then they switched to Abraham. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me.
I guess that sells better than Mohamed, or Shiva.*His opinion. He has a right to it.
One of the couples (Amway was very big on married couples) that Jerry recruited into his organization about 1978, was Esther and her then husband Richard Geer, from Fresno.*Amway has always been big on married couples. I have nothing to substantiate that he recruited them into his organization, but Esther says in the interview with The Independent and The Secret Behind the Secret that she met Jerry in 1976 (not 1978). You can verify that she was married to a man named Richard Geer till they divorced August 25th 1980 on Proquest Ancestry Library Edition or even Ancestry.com. She is listed as Esther W Geer. I have included a copy of the divorce index on my blog at [
abrahamhicksfraud.blogspot.com]
After a couple of years of working "closely together", Jerry and Esther left their spouses and moved in together, later marrying after the divorce dust settled.*I don’t know about dust settling. You can look up Esther’s divorce with her then husband Richard, which occurred on August 25th 1980, and look up her marriage to Jerry Spencer Hicks on September 3rd 1980. They were obviously in a relationship before they were married and hitched shortly after. You can verify all this information on Proquest Ancestry Library Edition (at a local library or university) or on ancestry.com (though you have to pay or do a trial membership there).
About this time their Amway groups had begun declining, but Jerry and Esther had already started switching their revenue sources to selling tapes and seminars to their Amway down-line organization, and new followers.*It’s common knowledge that there is this down-line organization that sells motivational tapes to recruits. Dateline did a wonderful expose on Quixtar, one of the latest incarnations of Amway, revealing that this is where the real money is. It is in two parts. The second one goes into more detail about the motivational side:
Part 1: [
www.youtube.com]
Part 2: [
www.youtube.com]
Jerry was doing generic 'Think and Grow Rich' seminars and that kind of thing. *As I said earlier, this is sort of common knowledge that he was going around telling people about it, giving presentations, etc. These are popular motivational presentations that Amway has been doing for a long time. It’s in the Dateline expose as well. And if you think the new version of Amway was bad, can you imagine what it was like before the FTC investigation in 1979? (which is when Jerry was a crown level distributor)
Jerry learned from Amway that there is always a large and financially viable number of people that need to feel involved in a warm and fuzzy clique that holds out the hope of an exclusive path to happiness, a path that is always within sight of the goal but not quite there - so you have to buy some more tapes or attend another seminar. You gotta hand to these two, they figured out a pretty nifty way to travel, live a luxury life, and not work too hard - problem is - it's all b.s.*Opinion, so you decide.
That was the end of the first message. Then Recovering MLM wrote a second.
Message 2:
Recovering MLM
Date Added: 10/15/2006
In the mid 70's to mid 80's, Jerry Hicks was an Amway distributor; some diamond level, based in Fresno CA. He's from Arkansas…*See first one. Verified.
…and said he was an "entertainer" - whatever that means.
*Jerry talks about being an acrobat and such in interviews and with Abraham and Esther, so nothing new here. But for skeptical folks, it is included in The Independent interview: [
www.independent.co.uk]
His wife at the time was a charming older lady from the South, maybe Texas. They presented themselves as darling chaming southern hospitality type couple. I think she had the money that set up the successful and elegant lifestyle they used to attract new recruits to their Amway organization - always selling the dream of riches. During his presentations of the Amway business plan to groups of people at hotel and restaurant meeitng rooms, Jerry would start off with a sort of metaphysical babble about becoming who you think yourself to be, etc. etc. That you are here now doing this because it is what you always wanted to do, etc. etc. Kind of mind numbing stuff, but everyone was in awe of him - very charasmatic and handsome - so they listened and some people bought into it and the Amway groups took on a new meta-physical dimension. *Trish was his wife. He is charming, and this is usual for Amway business. It is likely with him giving Think and Grow Rich seminars that this occurred. That is metaphysical babble to some people.
Turns out that this is the beginnings of the stuff that Esther now channels' and they call it "Abraham."*You can see my quote from Abraham Hicks site about how they began teaching their business associates about Abraham’s principles in the last one. Clearly they ended up doing just what Recovering MLM is saying.
I guess that sells better than Mohamed, or Shiva.*Opinion, but cute.
One of the couples (Amway was very big on married couples) that Jerry recruited into his organization about 1978, was Esther and her then husband "R", from Fresno. After a couple of years of working "closely together", Jerry and Esther left their spouses and moved in together, later marrying after the divorce dust settled.*It was nice of him to try and let Esther’s ex off the hook by just referring to him as R, but he spilled the beans, and I’ve already covered it. Again, it’s interesting that he says they waited for the divorce dust to settle. Esther divorced Richard and then married Jerry maybe 10 days later in Vegas (did I mention that in the first one? Yes they were married in Clark County, NV. See their marriage index on Proquest for more info.) That isn’t exactly a lot of time for settling.
About this time their Amway groups had begun declining, but Jerry and Esther had already started switching their revenue sources to selling tapes and seminars to their Amway down-line organization, and new followers. Jerry was doing generic 'Think and Grow Rich' seminars and that kind of thing. *Again, it is common knowledge that this motivational down line exists within the Amway system. The Dateline expose clearly shows that. But according to Esther and Jerry, there was no switch to the Think and Grow Rich seminars. They had always been doing that.
Jerry learned from Amway that there is always a large and financially viable number of people that need to feel involved in a warm and fuzzy clique, an 'inner circle' of people who know the truth and promote a way of thinking that holds out the hope of prosperity and happiness, but never quite gets there, so you have to buy some more tapes or attend another seminar. You gotta hand to these two, they figured out a pretty nifty way to travel, live a luxury life, and not work too hard - problem is - it's all b.s. IMHO*This is all his opinion, agree with it or not.