Joe Dispenza is a chiropractor and self-help author. He has become popular for his books, seminars, and talks on curing illnesses with thoughts and meditation.
Contents
Joe Dispenza’s Main Theory
Joe Dispenza’s main theory is that your mind has the power to heal your body, and you can unlock that self-healing process by interrupting negative thought patterns and replacing them with positive ones. Dispenza sells seminars and guided meditations to help through this process.
Across three Dispenza’s books that I’ve read, some common themes include:
- Law of attraction: By entering the quantum field of “unlimited possibilities,” you can manifest the future you want
- Thoughts are absorbed at a cellular level: Dispenza says that by repeating the same thought pattern over and over again, people absorb it at a cellular level.
- Past negative thoughts crystallize: recurrent thoughts with feelings create states of being, and negative thought patterns create a negative states of being. With repetetition the negative state of being is conditioned, and we adopt negative states of being from past events that keep haunting us
- You change negative states of interrupting negative patterns and installing new ones: Become self-aware: to first change of your negative loops, create new alternatives with better thoughts, and emotionalize your thoughts
- Meditations help you remove negative patterns and install better thoughts: Dispenza offers seminars to help in this process
Dispenza’s Main Sources
Dispenza draws from previous popular self-help concepts and systems such as ‘law of attraction’, ‘positive thinking’ and NLP, mixed with some more scientifically sounder principles from cognitive behavioral therapy.
Similar to Dispenza are:
- The Secret, for the ‘law of attraction’,
- You Can Heal Yourself, with Dispenza’s exact same theory
For more on the power of thinking, Dispenza’s concepts are included in:
- The Power of Positive Thinking
- Think and Grow Rich
Joe Dispenza Critical Analysis
For this review, we have read three Dispenza’s books: ‘Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself’ (2012), “Becoming Supernatural” (2013), and You Are The Placebo (2014).
We also watched several of his popular YouTube appearances with several different interviewers.
Lack of Scientific Evidence
Joe Dispenza claims scientific backing, but science either disproves or provides no evidence for his claims.
In ‘Breaking the Habits of Being Yourself‘ Joe Dispenza presents quantum physics as the scientific explanation for his methodology.
He says that thoughts are energy, and that energy and matterare one and the same.
Because they are the same, then it means that your mind (energy) can change the body (matter).
Dispenza says you can use your thoughts to change the matter of your body by entering what the “quantum field where all opportunities exist”.
I am not aware of any evidence to back up such claims.
Example: Big Claims Lacking Evidence
In ‘You Are the Placebo‘, a book that is largely a collection of how powerful the placebo effect is, Dispenza tells the story of a woman who could see with her eyes closed.
She would wave back at the author with her eyes closed and eventually also be able to see behind her, at 360 degrees, with her eyes closed.
Unfortunately, the author didn’t record it and/or offer any proof for it. That only raised my suspicion and, if someone were to take the claims for true, the only feeling I can think of is anger and disappointment. If the author was truly able to deliver such results, it would be his moral duty to share evidence and methodology so that more people can get that kind of help.
Suspicious Reasons for Avoiding Academic Rigor
In ‘Becoming Supernatural‘, Joe Dispenza says that what he writes is a risk for him and his reputation.
He says that “certain people”, including people in the scientific community, might call his work pseudoscience.
Dispenza says he used to care about what those people thought, and he tried to have them approve of his work. Then, eventually, he realized that his work was changing lives and that he could never win the approval of the scientific community. So he simply stopped caring.
It’s fair for Joe Dispenza to pursue his own path without trying to appease anyone.
On the other hand, such a stance can also be an easy cop-out.
It could be an excuse for embracing and selling concepts that may not work, or at least theories that cannot be tested or proven.
It may also be a psychological tactic to increase support.
Point fingers against an out-group to stoke the support of the in-group of followers (ingroup-outgroup dynamics, see how Tai Lopez uses it).
Suspicious ‘Science-Sounding Appeals’: Pseudoscience?
In several videos and in ‘Breaking the Habit of Changing Yourself‘, Dispenza anchors his claims in quantum physics.
He claims that quantum physics underpins his concept of genetic changes through meditation.
And he talks about thoughts as ‘energy’.
He presents little evidence or sources for these claims.
I want to be clear that no scientific backing doesn’t necessarily mean that someone’s work is ineffective or doesn’t help people.
It simply means that it’s not scientific.
However, it’s suspicious to try to claim scientific rigor without proper empirical evidence.
This may as well be the definition of pseudoscience. If anything, some attempts at scientific evidence feel so clumsy that it may even barely qualify as pseudoscience.
The fact that such claims may help sell expensive seminars may also add extra suspicion about someone’s motives.
Suspicious Claims of Scientific Evidence
Lucio: These claims of prayers ‘working in the past’ seem nonsense to me
The worst red flags for me were trying to claim scientific evidence where I didn’t see any.
Two examples from ‘Breaking the Habits of Being Yourself‘:
Example 1: The Prayer Impact on The Past
The scientific “proof” that thoughts and prayers can impact reality both in the present, future, and past was this article inquiring whether ‘retroactive prayers’ work.
Dispenza claims that prayers in the present affected outcomes in the past. But, the researchers used ‘retroactive prayer’ as tongue-in-cheek.
To a critical mind looking for evidence, Dispenza’s claim may sound ludicrous.
Think about it this way: I could “pray” today for a meteorite to hit the Earth, then I show you the evidence that a meteorite hit the earth millions of years ago and I tell you “see, my papers worked (in the past)”.
If one believes in this kind of ‘evidence’, he may even believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
Example 2: Thoughts Change DNA?
In ‘Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself’ Dispenza quotes a study called “Modulation of DNA by Coherent Heart Frequencies”.
This is an extremely interesting study showing that the heartbeat of people was able to alter the structure of DNA in terms of denature (unwind) or renature (wind).
You can read a review of the same study on this paper, where it says that heartbeats can also be detected by other people within 5 feet and cause physiologically relevant changes.
However, it’s the heartbeats, which emit a light electromagnetic field, that changed the DNA samples.
Not the thoughts directly.
Joe Dispenza takes it to mean that thoughts can change the DNA, which is much different.
Dispenza then makes another big jump by stating that positive thoughts can change the expression of genes. And I haven’t seen any science backing this up.
Merit of Dispenza’s Methods
There is plenty of useful advice that Dispenza mixes with the more dubious ones, and none of them is any novelty in the self-help literature.
For example, it seems perfectly reasonable that our thoughts indeed impact our moods, that moods lead to action and reaction from the world around us, and that some people can indeed get stuck in negative thoughts.
For these people, the advice of interrupting negative thought patterns and focusing on more empowering alternatives is a valid approach that can genuinely help.
Some of Dispenza’s advice, like the usefulness of ‘knowing yourself to better change yourself’ is also a truism that holds true, no matter how obvious it may sound.
Meditation is also a well-studied phenomenon with plenty of evidence to backup its positive effects. (That doesn’t mean Dispenza’s claims may not still be overblown though; check this beautiful piece on the matter by David Gorski, Ph.D., for example).
Finally, when it comes to real-life outcomes, the placebo effect is a proven mechanism. So even simply believing that something may help can truly have a positive effect on someone’s mood and even health.
Takeaway: Not Recommended
Dispenza’s public claims and books raise several red flags that undermine trustworthiness and authority, including false-sounding claims of scientific evidence, and some overblown claims of meditation’s outcomes without evidence.
Pitching expensive seminars based on already shaky claims also adds extra suspicion about bias and motives.
Unfortunately, people who approach self-healing teachers can be in a position of need that makes them easy prey for confident marketers.
I personally enjoyed reading Dispenza’s books, including ‘Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself‘, and there is plenty of good advice from the author that could genuinely benefit many.
If one could consume Dispenza’s work and books with a strong critical mind, it’s possible he could benefit from it.
However, some equally valid authors and books share the same wisdom, without as many red flags or ‘upsell risks’.
So, all in all, we’d rather redirect our readers towards different sources.
