Is the Wim Hof Method a Cult?

I wanted to clarify my position on this subject lest anyone get the wrong idea.

In the broader culture, "Cult"" carries some pejorative, or even sinister, connotations--for instance, Jim Jones's People's Church and Heaven's Gate which both ended in a mass-suicides, or the Manson Family which committed mass murder. Other cults in this vein would be David Koresh's movement in Waco, or the sex-scandal beset group NVIXM. As I mentioned in my video "The Rise and Fall of the Wim Hof Empire" as well as in the story I posted here, I do NOT believe that The Wim Hof Method or Innerfire are anywhere near as extreme.

When I have used the term "cult" in relation to the WHM, I'm drawing from an anthropological perspective whose definition is much more modest. In this framing, it's a "misplaced or excessive admiration of a particular person." In my opinion, this in undeniably true. There is a cult of personality around Wim Hof that limits critical thinking around the actions I have documented. He frequently speaks in scientific nonsense vocabulary, and endorses conspiracy theories. Hof's most ardent followers are beset by an unhealthy level of Group-Think and uncritically endorse Hof and his teachings. In my conversations with Hof, he has compared himself to Jesus, and conducted "baptisms" on his followers. This feels like the beginnings of a small religious order against the mainstream, which is yet another definition of cult that anthropologists use.

It does not appear that Wim Hof or his organization exert excessive control over the majority of its followers as I've documented with other religious groups, though there is a strange hierarchy among the various levels of WHM instructors that I believe could transform into something coercive. In my experience with the WHM it does appear that they favor certain members who show loyalty to the organization and cast out others that they see as potential rivals. This is concerning behavior. But they're also not at the level of total control that you would have seen at the other organizations I wrote about in the introduction to this post. I thought this would be good to clarify for anyone who is confused about how I use the terminology in my writings, videos and elsewhere. Here is a link to Google's definition for more clarity.

Frozen Out

A few days ago I put out a YouTube video titled "How Wim Hof Lost His Method" that started an important conversation about the business practices of all things Wim Hof.  Within hours of the video going online, Wim Hof's son Enahm Hof started issuing copyright take down and privacy violation notices through YouTube's legal complaint system. Right now about half of my YouTube channel is offline, but the video has been mirrored in a few places including on my Instagram account and on the Internet Archive.  Enahm is systematically attempting to remove my presence from the internet, has issued me threatening letters, is impersonating his father and (I think) his sister in online forums, and is generally not being a nice guy. 

Journalism is a protected category of speech in the United States and (most of) Europe. Innerfire's misuse of YouTube's the content moderation system is explicitly against the site's terms of service. I am in consultation with my legal team for how to best respond.

Understandably, Wim is in a difficult spot. The day after it came out he said that the video was instigating necessary change within the organization--with plans that would reform payment practices, ownership of the company and other things. He urged me forward. This is an on-the-record recording of our conversation.  

Since then, however, his tone has changed a little bit. Now he's saying that I am a journalist "on a vendetta" against Enahm. His language closely mirror's his son's. I expect they talk frequently.  In my first video he said that day-to-day operations overwhelm him and he doesn't want to be involved in his social media presence or the business itself.  Wim is isolated and wants a way out. I have suggested several ways that we could de-escalate the situation, but Wim says he doesn't want to be part of it, and  that I should speak directly to Enahm. Unfortunately I am having no luck with productive conversations with Enahm.

This has put me in a bit of a pickle. 

I do worry, however, that escalating from here could result in the removal of the official Wim Hof YouTube channel. This is not my goal. But there might not be another choice.  I would like to see the problems within the WHM organization corrected, while still being able to continue my journalism career without further harassment.  Ideally we could get to a place where Innerfire acknowledges that my reporting alerted them to problems in the organization and everyone could have a cooling-off period before doing actual damage to a method that I have practiced for ten years.  

I do not know where any of this is going to go in the future. I pray that we are able to come up with an amicable solution and get back to our regular duties of ice baths and breathwork. 

Why Am I Releasing The Enlightenment Trap Now?

Some people have suggested that the timing of my video on the Wim Hof Method was suspiciously close to the re-launch of my book The Enlightenment Trap.  Perhaps they think that this was all an attention-grabbing ploy to sell millions of books at the expense of Wim's business. I want to tell you officially that there is in fact a relationship between between the book release and my video, but it's more complicated than it appears.

Let me explain.

 I originally met Wim in February 2013.  I had just written an article in Playboy about how a charismatic Buddhist teacher's meditation program led to the death of Ian Thorson in the Arizona desert. His death closely mirrored the death of my student Emily O'Connor at a meditation retreat in India several years earlier.  Both Emily and Ian believed they were on the cusp of enlightenment and could achieve superpowers. I expected Wim would be a similar-sort of questionable guru and I planned to debunk him--thus beginning a career as someone who takes down charlatans professionally.  It just so happened that Wim messed up my plans because his methods actually worked. My story in Playboy ended up launching his career. A few months later he appeared in a VICE documentary, and from there an appearance on Joe Rogan. I was really happy about the attention he was getting, and knew I would one day write a book, but I couldn't do it right away. 

I first had to fulfill my book contract for A Death on Diamond Mountain on the dark side of meditation. So I spent a few more years working on that project while also practicing the WHM daily. The book came out in 2015 to great reviews. Unfortunately it didn't sell particularly well. I managed to acquire back the rights to from Penguin, but the audiobook rights were locked up by another publisher until last year. 

In 2017, What Doesn't Kill Us became a NYT bestseller, but I always felt that it didn't quite made sense unless people also understood my earlier project. They're connected at a very deep level. 

In August 2022 I decided that I would finally re-record the audiobook for The Enlightenment Trap and I spent several weeks in a recording studio when a strange thing happened. See, I hadn't actually re-read it in seven years. There were parallels between the protective cult-like practices at Diamond Mountain University and what I was seeing in the leadership of the Wim Hof community. Something wasn't sitting with me right, but I didn't dwell on it too much. I set a release date for  January 15th, 2023 and went back to work.

Then, when I put a video out about how practicing the Wim Hof Method for (almost) ten years had changed my life that included two very mild criticism of Innerfire, I started to get aggressive and threatening messages from Enahm Hof.  His tone echoed the voices I'd just recorded in the sound studio just a month earlier.  I started talking to WHM instructors and I saw what I worried that was history repeating itself. The more I investigated, the more I knew I had to put out a new video.  As I mentioned in the video they took down, I don't think Innerfire is a cult. I don't think Wim Hof is a guru proclaiming enlightenment.  But the mechanisms of control that Enahm uses are, in my opinion, similar. 

Maybe I was being naïve, but I didn't really expect the video "How Wim Hof Lost His Method" would be such a flash point for the community. I hoped that it would spark some change, but I didn't expect a full-scale onslaught on my professional reputation.  If I had, I would have delayed the video's release until afterwards so that I could focus on launching The Enlightenment Trap properly.  

A few people in the Wim Hof community (mostly Enahm, but others as well) are saying that "I'm just in this for the money." I need to respond to this directly.

 I do of course recognize that there is crossover between the two projects.  It's also true that I am an author and I make my living selling books. I absolutely want you to buy my book. Indeed, I want attention on all of my projects.  

But the reason I tell these stories doesn't stem from purely financial motives. You might be surprised that I only earn $4-$7 on any book I sell. Being an author isn't an especially lucrative career. I  write because I deeply care about the subjects. I think they help improve the world.  There are themes that connect them. More than money, I want people to talk about the things I write about and let my research inform their view of the world.   I don't care if you get my books from a library or borrow them from a friend. I don't get too upset if you pirate them, either.  The payoff for me are the letters that I get from my readers about on my work has changed their lives. Thank you for being part of that journey.

 The Enlightenment Trap: Obsession Madness and Death on Diamond Mountain comes out on January 15, 2023. The audiobook and kindle edition are available now for pre-order.

What 12 Years Doing the Wim Hof Method Taught Me

It's hard to believe that I began my journey with Wim Hof 12 years ago next month. I had no idea that my attempt to debunk an eccentric ice-guru in the mountains of Poland would so profoundly change my life. That week at his dilapidated training center ultimately spawned 2 books, stopped me from getting canker sores ever again and gave me tools to tackle depression and anxiety. More than that, it opened me up to a really great community of fellow ice seekers. 

But after 12 years of (nearly) daily practice I also have a few thoughts about the overall direction of InnerFire and the official Wim Hof Brand as well as some observations about how some effects of the method seem to trail off after extended practice.  So I put together an off-the-cuff video where I only drop a few bombshells.  

This is a picture of my very first time dunking in ice water. For those of you who thought that I am the ultimate picture of human composure in the face of extreme cold: think again. Fortunately, I got a lot better with practice

Finding a Wedge for Anxiety in the Time of Social Distancing

Many of us are struggling to find our bearings in a world that feels out of control. While we can't change the events of the moment, we DO have a measure of control over how our bodies deal with the stress.

These are scary times and it's completely normal to feel anxious and upset. I spent pretty much all of yesterday staring at the endless feed of bad news. It made me feel worse, not better. While we don’t have any power to alter politics, economics or public health precautions. We do have control over how we let that stress affect our bodies.

The nervous system we inherited from our ancestors isn’t well adapted to dealing with dangers that aren’t right in front of us. No homoerectus contemplated quarantine. Instead they saw a dangerous animal on the horizon and their bodies responded by pumping adrenaline and cortisol into their blood streams to give them the energy boost that might save their lives. Our ancestors' problems required physical responses. While we denizens of the modern world have remarkably similar bodies as our greatest grandparents the threats are different. When we contemplate social distancing our bodies still respond with the same hormonal cocktails that we did hundreds of thousands of years ago. Without an outlet for that energy, the havoc turns inwards, makes us feel anxious, and compromises our immune systems. 

The solution to this conundrum isn’t to surf the internet and bombard ourselves with more stressful inputs that we can’t solve. Instead, we need to find physical outlets that make use of those stress cocktails and which will bring our internal chaos under control. 

Right now is the time to double down on a physical practice that you can do on your own. There are tons of free and cheap yoga classes online. You can still go cycling or running outdoors. And you can work out in your front yard. If you know anything about my own journey over the last decade, then you know that I am a huge advocate of the Wim Hof method.  The breathing method just takes a few minutes to learn. And it’s an extremely quick way to bring your stress hormones under control. 

We also need to do everything we can to keep our immune systems healthy. We know that COVID-19 affects elderly and immunocompromised people much more than the general population. The Wim Hof method can’t do anything about transmission--you still need to keep up social distancing, washing your hands, and follow all the public health protocols in place. However, clinical trials in Holland back in 2014 showed that Wim Hof breathing can help suppress out of control immune responses. Since the worst damage from COVID-19 comes from an out of control immune reaction to the virus (not the virus itself) it at least stands to reason that it should help you if you get infected. I did a video about this about a week ago (see below). 

I dig into all of this a lot more in The Wedge. I offer up ten techniques that have worked for me to help control my autonomic nervous system in the face of all sorts of different stresses.  Some of those things are probably not going to be practical in the era of social distancing (sorry, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to head down to Peru to try shamanic plant medicine in the next few months). However at least half the book includes techniques you can adopt right now.  More importantly, it should help you adapt and get more out of just about any practice that you’re already doing.

I really wish I had the ability to release the book right now, but I’m stuck with an April 13, 2020 release date. However, I do have a few books on hand that I can sign and send to people in the United States through the post (assuming the post office remains open).  This is a link for how to get one. 

More important than that, please stay healthy. Wash your hands. And keep breathing. We might not be able to change the world right now, but we can help how we respond to it.