In this episode, Hannah and Victoria discuss the recent changes happening at Mercola.com and the strange influencer influencing Dr. Mercola.
Show notes:
Carnivore update - Paul Saladino eats some plants now
Dr. Mercola
1.7 M followers on FB, 512K on IG, 417K followers on X
Osteopath, DO
Stopped treating patients in 2009 to focus on his brand. Net worth in 2017 over 100 million
In the past 10 yeras, he’s been covered by multiple outlets as either a quack or walking a fine line between holistic and kooky: 2012 article in Chicago Magazine - https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2012/Dr-Joseph-Mercola-Visionary-or-Quack/, BRYAN SMITH
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mercola, his company, and social media site were warned again by the FDA in 2020–2021 for falsely advertising the efficacy of high doses of vitamin C, vitamin D3, quercetin, and pterostilbene products to "mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure" COVID-19 disease.[8
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24053-4 - study on vitamin D supplementation and covid
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1131103/full - vitamin D supplementation meta and systematic review
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-21513-9 - vitamin D status and risk of severe covid
Banned from YouTube - videos taken down and
In 2023, executives of his company Mercola Market complained that JP Morgan closed their bank accounts. The financial institution indicated those accounts were terminated when they became aware of "multiple occasions of regulatory scrutiny, raising concerns about a pattern of deceptive business practices." Source: Wikipedia
https://myfloridacfo.com/docs-sf/cfo-news-libraries/news-documents/2023/chase-letter.pdf?sfvrsn=25b03a95_2 - letter from Jimmy Patronis, CFO of the state of FL, to JP Morgan
From the Chicago Mag article by Smith: “Steven Salzberg, a prominent biologist, professor, and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls Mercola “the 21st-century equivalent of a snake-oil salesman.”
“Mercola says that his critics are wrong on all counts. Far from dispensing dangerous misinformation or trading in conspiracy theories, as some allege, he is a champion of “taking charge of our own health,” the doctor insists—a truth teller alerting Americans to what he calls the abuses, hoaxes, and myths perpetrated by the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.”
Even Dr. Oz called him controversial.
According to traffic-tracking firm Quantcast, Mercola.com draws about 1.9 million unique visitors per month, each of whom returns an average of nearly ten times a month.
That remarkable “stickiness” puts the site’s total visits on a par with those to the National Institutes of Health’s website. (Mercola claims his is “the world’s No. 1 natural health website,” citing figures from Alexa.com.) Mercola’s 200,000-plus “likes” on Facebook are more than double the number for WebMD. And two of his eight books—2003’s The No-Grain Diet and 2006’s The Great Bird Flu Hoax—have landed on the New York Times bestseller list.
>> Mercola says he recently donated $1 million to several alternative medicine groups, including the National Vaccine Information Center, which describes itself as a “vaccine watch dog.” Part of the money, according to the group’s website, was used to pay for an ad called “Vaccines: Know the Risk,” which was shown hourly on the CBS Jumbotron in Times Square for several weeks last spring.
Newsletter from National Vaccine Information Center that outlines the issue, June 2024: https://www.nvic.org/newsletter/may-2024/defending-freedom-of-religion
Mrs. Barbara Loe-Fisher
I was proud to work side by side in a trusted partnership with him and thankful for the generous average of $300,000 per year over a span of 15 years he donated through his foundation to NVIC, which we counted on in our annual budget to help our small staff operate four websites and implement nationwide vaccine choice advocacy programs and services.12
On March 25, 2024, NVIC received an email from someone identifying herself as the new CEO of Mercola.com informing us that donations from Dr. Mercola’s Natural Health Products Research Foundation were immediately discontinued.
The only verifiable information I had about what had happened were two articles published in Natural Products Insider on Feb. 1317 and Mar. 1, 202418 informing readers that the Mercola.com company was under new management and that Dr. Mercola was now being influenced by and taking direction from a person, who refers to himself as “the Kai” and claims to be a “psychic” channeling the voice of an “ancient and wise high-vibration entity from the causal plane” called Bahlon.19 20 21
The media articles published in February and March detailed the fact that this self- identified psychic who Dr. Mercola is now consulting with had convinced him that he, Dr. Mercola, is “a god” and “the new Jesus.”22 The articles contained references to videos and descriptions of what had taken place at the Mercola.com company in early February when Dr. Mercola without warning fired top executives, including his own sister, who helped him establish and has worked at his company for 40 years.
More in a 2001 NYT article by Arthur Allen: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/magazine/questions-for-barbara-loe-fisher-on-the-costs-of-vaccination.html
Barbara Loe-Fisher sued Paul Offit over a piece that was published in Wired magazine in 2009. “As the Complaint puts it, "Offit disagrees adamantly with the . . . positions taken by Plaintiff Arthur and advocated by her and by NVIC." In response to those positions, Defendant Offit is quoted in the article as saying that "`Kaflooey theories' make him crazy" and that Plaintiff "makes him particularly nuts as in `You just want to scream'" because "She lies." He goes on to say that Plaintiff "inflames people against me. And wrongly. I'm in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think that Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?" In her Complaint, Plaintiff contends that, Defendant Offit's statement "she lies," is defamatory and that he and the Magazine Defendants have published a false statement of fact and have committed defamation per se, causing her to appear "odious, infamous, and ridiculous." Arthur v. Offit, Civil Action No. 01:09-cv-1398, 6 (E.D. Va. Mar. 10, 2010)
From Natural Products Insider, March 2024: https://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/supplements/dr-mercola-allegedly-plans-to-introduce-psychic-advisor-to-followers-
“In the article, Mercola described his consultations with “a collective source energy aimed at bringing self-awareness to Earth,” whom he referred to as “Bahlon.”
Mercola fired CEO Steve Rye; Chief Business Officer Ryan Boland; and Chief Editor Janet Selvig, Mercola’s sister, Feb. 7, as detailed in a Natural Products Insider exclusive Feb 13.
The Bahlon “entity” is claimed to be channeled by a man identifying himself as Kai Clay and who also appears to present himself as Christopher Johnson. LinkedIn profiles under both names feature photos of the same man. Hours of video of Clay consulting with Mercola as Bahlon have been shared with Natural Products Insider.”
Kai Clay/Bahlon
I can find absolutely nothing on him prior to 2020/2021. One article mentioned that he used to be a high-profile business executive, but there is nothing on this.
He claims he has been channeling Bahlon for decades.
Bahlon is trademarked. So is Spiritual Mind, Kai Clay’s business listed on his LinkedIn.
Brings his 8 y/o daughter Sera Clay into his events/readings/channelings - she’s part of his podcast, True Future Podcast
In this video podcast preview you can hear Kai “channeling” Bahlon, speaking the “language of light”, and Sera “translating.”
Kai Clay published a book, sold on Amazon in Nov 2023 about trance channeling, now out of print. “Channeled Insight for Manifestation: Guidance for Spiritual Conscious from Bahlon (Channeled Insight from Bahlon)”
https://bahlon.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bahlonkaiclay/ - 27k followers - not a huge following on X, hasn’t posted since 2023
You can also join his Light Circle Membership: One month $99, one year for $1000
How I Became A Trance Channel (Kai Clay’s account):
People reporting experiences of mediumship have higher dissociation symptom scores than non-mediums, but below thresholds for pathological dissociation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5782403/
A Yale team enlisted help from mediums to help them better understand why those with psychosis hear voices: https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/psychics-help-psychiatrists-understand-voices-psychosis
Varieties of Voice-Hearing: Psychics and the Psychosis Continuum
“We found the hallucinatory experiences of psychic voice-hearers to be very similar to those of patients who were diagnosed. We employed techniques from forensic psychiatry to conclude that the psychics were not malingering. Critically, we found that this sample of non-help-seeking voice hearers were able to control the onset and offset of their voices, that they were less distressed by their voice-hearing experiences and that, the first time they admitted to voice-hearing, the reception by others was much more likely to be positive.” https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/43/1/84/2511864?login=false
Anomalous information reception by mediums: A meta-analysis of the scientific evidence
“ Conclusions The results of this meta-analysis support the hypothesis that some mediums can retrieve information about deceased persons through unknown means.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32660815/
Anomalous information reception by research mediums demonstrated using a novel triple-blind protocol (Randomized Controlled Trial): This study design is pretty complicated, it was making my brain hurt while reading. The mediums in this study were communicating with deceased relatives.
The results suggest that certain mediums can
anomalously receive accurate information about deceased individuals. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17234565/
Takeaways:
Who’s influencing the influencers?
How far can people go before their followers think it’s too far?
How can someone who’s not a medical professional separate the good stuff from the crap?
Episode #5: The mysterious case of Dr. Mercola & the causal plane medium