Hay to Lepers: Get a Grip
In 1977 or 1978 — she can’t remember which — [Louise] Hay found out she had cervical cancer, and she concluded that its cause was her unwillingness to let go of resentment over her childhood abuse and rape. She refused medical treatment, she says, and with a regimen of forgiveness, therapy, nutrition, reflexology and occasional enemas, she claims she rid herself of cancer. There is, she says, no doctor left who can confirm this improbable story — “It was years ago!” — but she swears it is true.
In 1976, Hay wrote a small pamphlet, which soon came to be called “Heal Your Body.” It included what became her famous list: a chart of different ailments and their “probable” metaphysical causes. For example, Hay would claim, a probable cause of Alzheimer’s disease is “a desire to leave the planet. The inability to face life as it is.” A probable cause of “anorectal bleeding” is “anger and frustration.” A probable cause of leprosy is “inability to handle life at all.” By 1984, Hay had included her “Heal Your Body” list in her book “You Can Heal Your Life,” which also contained such affirmations as “it is essential that we stop worrying about money and stop resenting our bills.”
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