Scott Carney’s exposé “Why Did the Supreme Court Legalize Wellness Scams?” is a brutal but necessary dissection of the wellness industry’s underbelly. Explaining how the I am movement of the 1930’s and the supreme court, enabled the current wellness and pseudoscience industry to thrive. All you have to do is really believe and what your selling is not a scam.
This isn’t theory for me. It’s personal.
Because I watched my ex-wife fall into this system, step by step.
And in the end, it convinced her to walk away from her family—not because she stopped loving us, but because she believed we were holding her back from a “better life” the universe was trying to give her.
It started with a film: What the Bleep Do We Know!?
And it ended in divorce, disconnection, and a spiritual echo chamber that dressed up selfishness as self-actualisation.
🌀 Her Descent Into the Wellness Funnel
This wasn’t a sudden change. It was a slow, incremental identity shift—groomed by a perfect storm of online content, influencers, and “wellness” thought leaders. It wasn’t just the law of attraction. It became an entire lifestyle philosophy.
🧘♀️ Wellness as Performance
She began curating a life based on influencer aesthetics and vibrational living:
- Swapping pharmaceuticals for natural remedies.
- Using Reiki, Ayurveda, and crystals as healing modalities.
- Following Dr. Joe Mercola, wellness bloggers, natural products influencers.
- Buying endless supplements, cleanses, weight loss programs, and detox rituals.
- Subscribing to a happiness coach, after she left me. Marci Shimmoff, circle complete with her having appeared in What The Bleep Do We Know.
- Subscribing to tarot readings and energy forecasts.
- Trying MLM-style essential oils and protein shakes—each promising abundance.
This wasn’t health. It was ideology. A worldview built around the idea that everything mainstream is toxic and every discomfort is a signal of misalignment or trauma.
🧠 Enter the Mindset Gurus
And when the lifestyle still didn’t deliver abundance or purpose?
Enter Joe Dispenza, NLP, Neuro-Semantics, and Integral Leadership.
Here, she was told:
“The reason the wealth hasn’t shown up is because you haven’t stepped into your higher self yet.”
She was handed the final, lethal idea:
Your life is your belief system made manifest. If you’re still struggling, the block is you—or someone around you.
I was that someone.
She had done the work (so she believed):
Affirmations, meditations, journaling, coaching, courses, biohacking, even the high-frequency foods.
The only thing that hadn’t shifted?
Me. Her stay-at-home husband. The one who held the fort while she went searching for alignment. The one who helped raise the kids and supported every failed business venture and wellness pivot.
🧬 The Ideological Ancestry of It All
This isn’t some new phenomenon. It’s a slick, updated version of a 200-year-old belief system dressed in modern branding. Let’s trace the lineage:
🔹 1800s – Phineas Quimby:
All illness is mental error. Thoughts create physical outcomes. Mind over matter.
🔹 1879 – Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy):
Spiritual healing through thought. Doctors not needed—your beliefs are your medicine.
🔹 1930s – I AM Movement:
New Age magical thinking. Ascended Masters. Words and decrees change reality.
🔹 1937 – Napoleon Hill:
Think and Grow Rich. Visualisation = wealth. Thoughts = causality.
🔹 1970s–1990s – New Age boom:
Crystals, tarot, channeling, energy healing, yoga as religion.
🔹 1980s–2000s – Oprah’s spiritual buffet:
She platformed Tolle, Dyer, Hicks, and Byrne (The Secret), spreading belief-based personal transformation to the masses.
🔹 2004 – What the Bleep Do We Know!?:
Quantum woo as spiritual documentary. Gave pseudoscience an academic accent.
🔹 2000s–present – Coaching and NLP:
“Language creates reality.” “You are not your story.” “Everything is a frame.”
Or in plain terms: If life sucks, it’s your fault for not reframing it.
😶 And Here’s the Real Kicker…
None of this has accountability.
No regulatory body. No scientific rigor. No ethical oversight.
And when it fails?
It’s never the ideology. It’s you.
“Didn’t manifest wealth? You weren’t truly aligned.”
“Relationship broke down? They weren’t a vibrational match.”
“You feel awful? That’s just the trauma leaving your body.”
Meanwhile the gurus get rich, the coaches sell retreats, and families fall apart—one Instagram quote at a time.
💔 What the Belief System Doesn’t Tell You
It doesn’t tell you that your partner might become a stranger.
That your kids might watch their home unravel in silence.
That belief in “vibrations” could justify betrayal.
That the grift works because it wraps itself in self-love and freedom.
It also doesn’t tell you that being “high-vibe” often just means being emotionally avoidant with good lighting.
🧨 The Real Cost of Magical Thinking
You can’t criticise them without being told you’re “not ready” or “projecting.” But that’s the game. A closed loop. A self-defending fortress of ideas that sell empowerment—and deliver delusion.
My ex wasn’t weak. She wasn’t stupid. She was sold a lifestyle that masqueraded as healing and growth.
And like so many others, she paid the price in relationships.
And left others to clean up the mess.
👊 This Isn’t Empowerment. It’s Escape.
So no, Joe Dispenza isn’t a prophet.
Joe Mercola’s supplements are expensive pee. Spiritualism is an expensive commodity sold as belief.
Louise Hay built an empire on similar lines, curing her own cancer, but with out any proof, just a story. Her empire grows even in her death, as belief is easily turned from thoughts to cash.
Wayne Dyers daughters now selling the same grift of new age spirituality.
Deeprak Chopra finds a new niche to keep selling his message, now as an AI expert in spirituality. After all, why shouldn’t AI be spiritual too.
Tony Robbins just keeps being Tony Robbins, selling Utopia to hopefuls who keep going back year after year in the hope his message on this day, this time, will be the one to change their lives. He has even reconciled with Richard Bandler it seems and suggesting with others in the pseudoscience world like Bruce Lipton on his youtube channel.
How can we forget the Jay Shetty. Even though he was caught out in lies and plagiarism, the fact he has managed to keep high profile celebrities onside has allowed him to keep spreading his message, well other peoples. Or those deep and meaningful pieces to camera. Spiritual.
Enter Mel Robbins. Let Them Theory, podcast. An instant expert on all things. Reminds me of another article I wrote about how we outsource our thinking now. We Don’t Grow Anymore. We Outsource Ourselves
And NLP coaches aren’t enlightened guides.
They’re the latest in a long line of belief merchants—selling you a better reality, if you just believe hard enough. And if it doesn’t work, keep coming back, keep spending on your dream, keep filling their coffers, they still win.
What started with Quimby ended in coaching rooms, yoga studios, and affiliate links for mushroom powder.
And somewhere in between, I lost my wife to it. She Changed Indeed: Journey of Transformation