A “holistic master coach” recently claimed on Instagram that she could help visually impaired people stop wearing glasses through “self-healing” techniques. She was selling an $11 masterclass to teach her methods. A consumer rights advocate (shoutout to @this.is.mallory) audited the class, exposed the misinformation, and the story went viral with over 2 million views on TikTok. The coach deleted her post, but the playbook had already been exposed.
This is how wellness grifts work. And people like Joe Dispenza and Deepak Chopra have built empires on it.
A quick word on Joe Dispenza, et al.
Anytime I discuss wellness grifters, someone asks what I think of “Dr.” Joe Dispenza. I used to dance around this because I know people in my community have found value in his work, but I’m done hedging:
Joe Dispenza is a wellness grifter who takes advantage of chronically ill and vulnerable people who’ve been failed by our broken healthcare system.
I’ve been quietly working on a full exposé of the Dispenza grift for over two years. The reception has shifted dramatically. Where I used to get pushback, I now get confirmation—people sharing their own troubling stories about his events, his claims, his methods.
As someone who advocates for consumer rights, I take a hard stance against medical misinformation. It’s irresponsible, unethical, and in some cases illegal to mess with people’s lives. I’m counting on the day Dispenza receives the same backlash as Anthony William (the “Medical Medium”), whose close disciple died of cancer after following his dogma.
Until then, here’s the wellness grift playbook and the red flags to watch for.
Understanding Pseudoscience
Wellness grifters rely on pseudoscientific claims to mislead people. Even intelligent, educated people (myself included) can fall for it. These gurus are excellent marketers who’ve mastered emotional storytelling and persuasive sales tactics. But with some critical thinking, you can spot their red flags.
Pseudoscience is a term for claims that masquerade as science but lack empirical evidence.1
For a claim to be empirical, it needs three things:
1. It follows the scientific method
The scientific method is a six-step framework that guides experiments. Importantly, science seeks to disprove rather than prove theories. This ensures claims are falsifiable—meaning there has to be a way to prove they’re wrong.
For example: “leprechauns exist” is not falsifiable because you can’t prove the non-existence of something. Just because someone believes leprechauns exist doesn’t make it true. This distinction matters when separating scientific claims from opinions or personal beliefs.
2. It’s transparent and reproducible
Research methods and procedures must be fully transparent so results can be reproduced. Repeated experiments using the same procedures should yield the same results. This avoids experimenter bias and chance errors.
Even in controlled conditions, confounding variables occur. This is why science doesn’t conflate correlation with causation.
Example: “holistic therapies improve eye health and eliminate the need for glasses” (causation) versus “holistic therapies can mitigate stress, which may indirectly improve eye health over time” (correlation). The former assumes a direct relationship. The latter accounts for other factors.
3. It’s peer-reviewed
The findings have undergone investigation by qualified experts in the field. This is quality assurance—a system of checks and balances to ensure research meets standards of accountability, credibility, and ethics.
Example: “Dr.” Joe Dispenza claims to be a neuroscientist despite holding a chiropractic degree from an unaccredited institution (Life University). His research is published by the HeartMath Institute—a nonprofit with its own journal edited by its own scientific advisors. Clear conflicts of interest here.
Pseudoscience misses these conditions because it doesn’t follow standard procedures, lacks transparency, rejects peer review, and often invents terms not recognized by the scientific community.
5 Red Flags for Pseudoscience
Here are 5 red flags to help you identify pseudoscientific claims made by wellness grifters:
Miracle Cures of Quick Fix Solutions: Beware of those offering simplistic solutions to complex problems. Physical and mental illness is incredibly complex. There are often a multitude of biological, psychological, and environmental factors to dis-ease which can also vary from person to person. Wellness grifters tend to oversimplify issues and promise sweeping, miraculous results that don’t take into account individual differences.
Defensiveness and Avoidance of Critique: The scientific method is built on skepticism and critical inquiry. Real scientists welcome critique and aim to improve their work, hence the rigorous peer-review process. Wellness grifters get defensive or ignore criticism, relying on published books, blogs, social media platforms, or privately owned websites to disseminate their ideas (e.g. Joe Dispenza’s HeartMath Institute). They are more concerned about convincing you of their worldview rather than contributing to peer-reviewed research.
Lack of Recognition: Wellness grifters are typically ignored or not taken seriously by experts in their field because they lack the advanced degrees or relevant qualifications in fields like physics, biology, or medicine. In the scientific community, recognition is earned through years of education, research, and contribution to one’s field. Established scientists receive academic titles, tenures, research grants, awards, and conference invitations. Their work is peer-reviewed and they collaborate with other experts.
Profit-Driven Motives: True scientists are motivated by curiosity and the desire to expand knowledge. Scientific work is laborious and often unrewarding. They are rarely, if ever, acknowledged for their contributions. Wellness grifters prioritize profit. They rely on sensationalist claims that contradict already established scientific principles. There is a strong commercialized approach to their pseudoscientific claims. In other words, their entire career hinges on the revenue they generate from their products and services. Real scientists have jobs in the real world; their careers extend beyond promoting privatized products and services.
Testimonials over data: Anecdotal testimonials and personal stories have their place, but they should never be mistaken for scientific proof. While personal narratives can be inspiring, they’re highly subjective and lack the rigor and objectivity of real research. Personal stories are heavily influenced by individual perceptions, biases, and unique circumstances. Wellness grifters use personal narratives to appeal to emotions and create strong connections with their claims. This hinders critical thinking.
4 Deceptive Marketing Tactics
In the context of wellness grifts, pseudoscience goes hand in hand with deceptive trade practices. Here are 4 major ones to flag:
Ambiguous Language: Wellness grifters use vague statements that rely on buzzwords to make claims appear profound without conveying specific information.
Example 1 : “Unlock your hidden potential with our revolutionary technique"
In this statement, "hidden potential" and "revolutionary technique" are not defined. The language suggests something extraordinary but lacks specifics about what is being offered.
Example 2: "Harness the power of the universe to manifest your desires."
"Harness the power of the universe" is a vague and grandiose claim. It doesn't provide any concrete information about how this ‘harnessing’ occurs or what "manifesting desires" entails.
Example 3: "Achieve ultimate balance and wellness through holistic practices."
"Ultimate balance" and "holistic practices" are broad terms that can mean different things to different people, at different times. The statement doesn't specify which practices or how they lead to ‘balance and wellness.’
Cherry-picking Atypical Results: They spotlight atypical or unusual outcomes that don’t represent normal results. Relatedly, they use isolated facts or anecdotes as proof to create the illusion that their methods are highly effective.
Example 1: "Meet Sarah, who overcame a rare, incurable disease using our herbal remedy."
This statement spotlights a single case of success while neglecting to mention the many others who did not experience similar results.
Example 2: "John became a millionaire overnight by following our financial advice."
By highlighting an extraordinary outcome, this claim implies that anyone who follows their financial advice will achieve overnight success.
Example 3: "Terry lost 50 pounds in a week with our weight loss program."
While this result may be accurate for one individual, it ignores the typical and healthy rate of weight loss, creating unrealistic expectations.
Unsubstantiated Claims: They present concepts, laws, or theories as factual without any shred of scientific evidence to back up their claims. Even worse, they will often distort, misrepresent, or manipulate scientific data, which is not only a form of information control (a cult tactic), but it exploits and abuses others’ hard work. By positioning their ideas as “facts” and “laws,” they convey authority and credibility that makes claims appear persuasive to people unfamiliar with scientific principles.
Example 1: The "Law of Attraction" is real
This new-age concept suggests that positive thoughts attract positive outcomes, while negative thoughts attract negative outcomes. Despite its popularity and widespread acceptance, the "Law of Attraction" has not undergone rigorous scientific testing to qualify as a ‘law.’ In order for something to qualify as a “law,” it needs to produce the same outcomes in repeated experiments.
Example 2: Detox diets remove toxins
Detox diets often promise to remove "toxins" from the body or “balance your hormones,” leading to various health benefits. This is not only a gross oversimplification of the body’s detoxification and endocrine process, but the effectiveness of detox diets in removing specific toxins or balancing hormones is scarce.
Example 3: Aromatherapy heals physical ailments
While essential oils can reduce stress, claiming they cure conditions like cancer is misleading and dangerous. To date, there is not enough research to determine the effectiveness of essential oils on human health.
Exaggerated outcomes: They take a grain of truth or minor finding and blow it out of proportion to create a compelling but distorted narrative. Again, the intent is to make a certain claim seem more miraculous or sensational than it actually is.
Example 1: Celery juice is a miracle cure-all
Yes, celery juice is a good source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants (a grain of truth). No, it doesn’t have life-saving properties that cure all diseases (an exaggerated claim made by Anthony William, the Medical Medium).
Example 2: Thoughts are vibrations that manifest reality
Yes, thoughts emit electrical frequencies in the brain (grain of truth). No, this frequency is not large enough to directly affect events in the material world (exaggeration by Joe Dispenza and Law of Attraction advocates).
Example 3: Meditation can rewire your DNA through epigenetics
Yes, meditation may influence gene expression over time through physiological factors like stress (grain of truth). No, we don’t know enough about epigenetics to confidently assert that meditation directly impacts gene expression (exaggerations by Deepak Chopra and Bruce Lipton).
Hey reader! If you made it this far, thank you for reading! What follows is the Wellness Grift Playbook—the exact tactics used to exploit vulnerable people. This is the kind of breakdown most writers put behind a paywall. I'm keeping it free because consumer protection is a public service. If you find this guide valuable, consider buying me a coffee or becoming a paid subscriber. Every bit helps sustain me as an independent writer and keeps this content accessible to everyone who needs it.
The Wellness Grift Playbook
Now that you know what to look for, here’s how the grift actually operates:
Target a vulnerable populations. Wellness grifters identify desperate people—often those with chronic illness—and create products that cater to their needs, fears, and anxieties. This is a predatory application of a marketing technique called segmentation. They study their consumers' journey to target them at specific vulnerable moments. People get caught in the grift when they're most desperate. This is not an accident—it's by design.
Make sensationalist/exaggerated claims based on pseudoscience. They position their claims as groundbreaking discoveries using scientific jargon and cherry-picked data (or made-up statistics) to falsely legitimize themselves. Examples:
“Dissolve your trauma in 7 days using our revolutionary quantum healing technique!”
“Heal your gut using our cutting-edge biohacking technology!”
Sow panic/paranoia through fear-mongering. They create or exploit pre-existing health anxieties within vulnerable populations. This manipulation tactic undermines critical thinking, triggers survival instincts, and increases the likelihood of emotional decisions and impulse purchases. Examples:
“Your shampoo has hidden cancer-causing ingredients!”
“The bread you’re eating is made of toxic chemicals found in yoga mats!”
“The Epstein-Barr virus is the root of all disease.”
Reinforce distrust in the medical establishment. Wellness grifters promote an "us versus them" worldview (a cult dynamic) by vilifying doctors and scientists. Critical thinking means holding multiple realities at once: Yes, the pharmaceutical industry is profit-driven AND modern interventions like antibiotics and vaccines save lives. Prescription drugs have side effects AND holistic therapies aren't necessarily safer. Doctors work with Big Pharma AND individual doctors aren't conspiring to hide cures from you.
Gaslight victims/survivors under the guise of ‘self-empowerment’. They promote the idea that you can “self-heal” any health issue through holistic means. While this sounds empowering, it undermines the complexity of illness and invalidates factors outside your control (environment, genetics). This is subtle gaslighting that places blame on individuals—suggesting if you’re not getting better, you’re not motivated enough. Guilt and inadequacy make people more vulnerable to developing dependency on holistic methods and products that promise miraculous results. Self-healing is not synonymous with "holistic." Self-healing means valuing your wellbeing and using a variety of tools available—including both holistic and medical interventions.
Self-promote through savvy marketing. The success of a wellness grifter’s career hinges on amassing a large, cult-like following. They craft personal brands as gurus and experts, leveraging marketing strategies to project success, health, and happiness. They share personal stories of overcoming struggles to seem relatable, creating connection and trust. Grifters reference their own qualifications—even if dubious or irrelevant (like having a chiropractic degree and calling yourself a “neuroscientist”). Or they center their credentials to establish authority while simultaneously undermining the medical establishment (I’m looking at you, Deepak Chopra). Discrediting modern medicine isolates people from conventional treatments while reinforcing the idea that the grifter’s methods are trustworthy.
Bottom line
Here's what's comical about wellness grifters: they repackage common sense ideas about healthy living that are already well-established in medicine and present them as groundbreaking “secrets” the medical establishment is hiding from you. They hype up the mind-body connection as if they’ve just discovered something modern medicine hasn’t caught onto yet.
But telling people they can support their health through balanced lifestyle choices is not new, controversial, or revolutionary. The medical sciences have made significant progress understanding the mind-body connection. If your doctor is ignorant or dismissive of it, find a different doctor. Most medical practitioners who’ve graduated from accredited institutions in the last 30 years understand how mental and emotional states impact physical health.
Actual healthcare experts recognize that illness rarely has one “root cause.” They don’t oversimplify the healing process, and they don’t present any treatment as the ultimate cure-all. Legitimate medical practitioners rarely make grandiose, sensationalist claims. They rely on evidence-based practices and a comprehensive understanding of wellness to provide responsible care.
Are there bad doctors and scientists out there? Of course. But they’re not the ones making millions from book deals, masterclasses, coaching programs, and corporate sponsorships. Wellness grifters are.
These tactics aren’t new—they’re just repackaged and amplified through social media. The grift works because it exploits real gaps in our healthcare system. But the solution isn’t pseudoscience. It’s critical thinking and accountability.
Be discerning. Question everything. And when someone promises a miracle cure, run.
Thanks again for reading. If you believe in holding wellness grifters accountable and making critical thinking resources accessible, supporting this newsletter is one way to keep it going. You can buy me a coffee or better yet, become a paid subscriber—any amount helps sustain this work and keeps it free for everyone who needs it.
For the record, I’m not opposed to holistic healing modalities. Many come from legitimate cultural and traditional lineages and can complement modern medicine. What I’m opposed to is wellness grifters appropriating ancient practices, slapping pseudoscience on them, and selling them as miracle cures for profit. There’s a big difference between saying “lifestyle factors like stress can affect your vision” versus “you don’t need glasses.” The former is balanced and nuanced. The latter is an unsubstantiated claim.
Modern medicine is the greatest grifter pseudo science gimmick..The truth is no one can heal us but us ourselves. Everything is pretty much placebo effect. Modern medicine and what u call science (scientism to be more precise) has killed more people than all the self proclaimed gurus. When we become our own authority and connect to the divine spark inside of us, thats when true healing takes place. So lets not make big claims about anyone. We can surely share our experiences, opinions and perspectives humbly, and let people decide what resonates with them.
Did you publish the Dispenza piece? I know some people that have been harmed at his retreats and then been left high and dry. He introduces some meditation techniques that can truly destabilize folks and upend their lives.