Gaia Inc.

Gaia Inc., formerly Gaiam, is a video streaming platform which specializes in all nature of woo and bullshit, ranging from psychic crystal powers to cryptozoology and fluoride conspiracies, as well as offering yoga videos. Essentially, they are a streaming platform for "digital new age nonsense". [2] Their YouTube account has in excess of 526,000 subscribers, as of January 2020[3] while their Facebook page has over 3,000,000 followers[4].

Dolphins and money
New Age
Cosmic concepts
Spiritual selections
v - t - e
“”If you look at NASA basically it’s infiltrated by three powerful secret societies that are the freemasons, the Nazis and what I call magicians who are basically followers of [unintelligible] Aleister Crowley of JPL.
—Gaia[1]

History

Jirka Rysavy founded Gaia (then known as Gaiam) in 1988. Originally focused on ecologically sustainable products such as recycled material and eco-friendly cleaners, in 1998 Gaiam bought two business dedicated to yoga and other "healing arts" videos. At this point, Gaiam begin focusing on the yoga market, developing not just yoga videos but yoga apparel and equipment. [5] In 2011, Gaiam launched a streaming service, called "Gaiam TV", dedicated to "Lifestyles of Health And Sustainability" and "Conscious Media" markets. [6] In 2015, Gaiam spun off this streaming service in order for Gaiam to focus on the yoga market. This streaming service was renamed "Gaia".[7]

General Bullshit

Gaia seems to take pride in the amount of bullshit they can spew on every conceivable topic. Thankfully for the wallets of those people who don't want to spend money in the company of suckers, Gaia has curated the most potent bullshit into a playlist of short segments, available on their YouTube channel.

This playlist includes gems such as a video which asserts that the placebo effect is magic and that the reason that placebos aren't a valid form of medicine in and of themselves is because it would be bad for Big Pharma's profit margins.[8] Also included is some past lives crap, which not only asserts that past lives are real and can be remembered, but that reincarnation is a topic being seriously researched by scientists of any pedigree.[9] [note 1] Other topics mentioned are "animal guardians"[10], the concept of "starseeds"[11], and an appalling video on quantum consciousness, (of course, featuring the wonderful words of Ervin Laszlo) which flat-out claims that there is no evidence for consciousness being the product of naturalistic processes[12]

Even the CEO of Gaia himself directed an obnoxious piece of quackery called "Secret of Water" in 2015 that investigated, among other nonsense, "whether the form of water crystals indicates their health and happiness by playing classical music for water and recording how the crystals change shape."[13] Basically, this is a riff off the kind of water woo promoted by the late Masaru Emoto and other kinds of bunk, such as water memory.

In addition to Youtube videos and their premium subscription streaming services, Gaia's website has articles that continue along the same bullshit path. A month's selection of articles published by the site contains articles promoting audio woo[14][15], near death experience woo[16], color woo[17], 5G woo[18], Freemason woo[19], ancient astronauts woo[20], crystal woo[21], UFO woo[22][23][24], prophecy woo[25], telepathy woo[26], cryptozoology woo[27], feng shui woo[28], psychedelic drug woo[29], and, of course, general anti-government conspiracy woo.[30]. Gaia appears to be aiming to be the definitive resource on the Internet for those who like their yoga and meditation mixed with unhealthy doses of anti-institutional paranoia and the most "far out" New Age mysticism bullshit you can think of.

To no great surprise, there are links between some of Gaia's programming and other pseudoscience programs or personnel, such as Ancient Aliens or David Wilcock.[31] [32]

On the flip side, Alfred Webre believes that if one purchases Gaia products, their homestead will be subject to "DEW directed energy weapons" from "malevolent corporate or nation state actor[s]", causing them "severe trauma and health damage."[33]. Buyer beware!

Cryptozoologic Bullshit

As mentioned before, Gaia also talks about cryptozoologic bullshit, including the idea that as yet undiscovered cryptids shift themselves along the scale of electromagnetic radiation, and that's why we have yet to discover Bigfoot.[note 2][34] Aliens are also a common topic, with two separate videos in one playlist about UFOs as they relate to aliens.[35][36]

In a nutshell
<iframe src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ttSaDl7obwM?' width='640' height='360' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen='true'></iframe>
gollark: You mean this national law, which the PotatOS Privacy Policy™ supersedes in all circumstances.
gollark: Interesting, but irrelevant. Using ideatic transducers, we converted you to a country, making this a matter of national law, which the policy affects.
gollark: You would be right, except you're wrong.
gollark: GTech™ norms are totally in favour of this, so it is.
gollark: Irrelevant.

References
  1. Deep Space — Ancient Space Programm At 10:30
  2. "The Gaia Deception: Digital New Age Nonsense" by Duane Paul Murphy, Thehumanist.com, 2018 Sept 25
  3. Gaia's YouTube homepage (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  4. Gaia's Facebook page (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  5. Gaia corporate profile, Fundinguniverse.com, retrieved on 2020 Jan 20
  6. GAIAM, INC. Annual Report on Form 10-K For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2011
  7. Quarterly report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d): Spin-off of Gaiam TV
  8. How the Placebo Effect Really Works (May 25, 2018)
  9. Remembering Past Lives
  10. Synchronicity or Animal Guardians? (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  11. Are You A Starseed? (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  12. Consciousness: Breaking Scientific Limitations (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  13. "Secret of Water Might Be a Great Film If You're High" by Diana Clarke, Village Voice, 2015 Mar 18
  14. "Healing Frequencies of the Ancient Solfeggio Scale", Gaia Staff, Gaia.com, 2020 January 17
  15. "Isochronic Tones: The Young Cousin of Binaural Beats", Paul Wagner, 20 December 2019
  16. "Parallel Lives in Comas and NDEs: Is This Proof of The Afterlife?", Gaia Staff, Gaia.com, 2020 January 16
  17. "Color Your World: How Colors Heal", Lisa Trank, Gaia.com, 2020 January 16
  18. "How to Protect Yourself from 5G and EMF Radiation", Paul Wagner, Gaia.com, 2020 January 9
  19. "Freemason Secrets: Ancient Masonic Rites, Rituals, and Myths", Paul Wagner, Gaia.com, 2020 January 20
  20. "Are These Out of Place Artifacts Evidence of Ancient Alien Technology?", Gaia staff, Gaia.com, 2020 January 17
  21. "How to Clear and Program Crystals", Gaia.com, 2020 January 15
  22. "The Shag Harbour Incident; A Precedent for Underwater UFOs", Lisa Trank, Gaia.com, 2020 January 13
  23. "The Mantell UFO Incident; Chasing Venus Or an Alien Spacecraft?", Tasha Shayne, Gaia.com, 2020 January 7
  24. "The Travis Walton UFO Incident; A Famous, Contentious Abduction", Gaia staff, Gaia.com, 20 December 2020
  25. "This Hindu Prophecy is Eerily Similar to Nostradamus’ Predictions", Gaia staff, Gaia.com, 2020 January 6
  26. "Loren McIntyre Telepathically Communicated with This Amazon Tribe", Paul Wagner, Gaia.com, 2020 January 7
  27. "The Ningen; Japanese Mermaid or Arctic Cryptid?", Gaia staff, Gaia.com, 2020 January 2
  28. "Feng Shui Space Clearing and Salt Water Cure", Andye Murphy, Gaia.com, 2020 January 2
  29. "Scientists Find DMT Produces a Waking Dream State", Tasha Shayne, Gaia.com, 2019 December 17
  30. "HAARP; A U.S. Conspiracy Theory Magnet", Gaia staff, Gaia.com, 2019 December 11
  31. "Billionaires, UFOs, and Satan: And to Think, It Used to Be Weird to Link Them" by Jason Colavito, 2017 May 31
  32. "David Wilcock Issues Apology to Gaia TV, Claims Conspiracy by "Dark Alliance" to Destroy Conspiracy Media", Jason Colavito, 2019 Feb 06
  33. "Directed Energy Weapons Causing Blindness and Paralysis", Alfred Lambremont Webre, NewsInsideOut, 2018 Jan 09 (archived at Biblioteca Pleyades)
  34. A Unified Theory of the Paranormal (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  35. UFOS: The Evidence No One is Talking About (Accessed January 18, 2020)
  36. The Origins of the Modern UFO (Accessed January 18, 2020)

Notes
  1. The most notable person who has investigated reincarnation, and believed it to be an actual postulate worthy of considering, is Ian Stevenson -- whose conclusions have been highly criticized. Generally speaking, the scientific consensus more aligns with the viewpoint of other researchers, such as philosopher Paul Edwards, that reincarnation is an irrational belief that is best approached via religious-oriented sociology, not as an actual scientific explanation for anything.
  2. Yes, this is seriously something believed by people. I wish I was joking.
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