Worried about a possibly naive aspie

Post Reply New Topic

I have a long time aspie friend I met up with over the weekend. He has been down for a while and he is really into new-age, occult stuff and often sees it to help him, he often pays lots of money for psychic readings, he signs up to websites and then gets junk mail asking him to buy magic rocks and stuff, and he answers them all and tries to buy the things.

Anyway he is currently mad on "the secret" and keeps talking about it and his positive frame of mind. He managed to get a job he enjoyed using his positive thinking, unfortunately he had aspie problems and got moved to another position he didn't enjoy so much and wants to improve his life again. Which is good, but he told me yesterday, he has put all his hope into winning the lottery and has become obsessed with using "positive thinking manifesting" to win the lottery. He also told me that he is spending £20 a week on lottery tickets. And he had a "funny turn" in a bookshop yesterday and was rude to the assistants when they didn't have a "secret" book he wanted called "think and grow rich".

I'm not sure what anyone can do for him. He does listen to advice, but always goes back to his old ways. I told him, in my opinion, it's ok to use positive thinking to win the lottery, but if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen so he should only buy 1 or 2 tickets and not 10. Whether he got the message I don't know.

Give him a copy of this book.

I don't think he'd read it or take it seriously. He comes from a really superstitious family and community. His parents are hindus and are both really into reiki and religion, new age stuff. Half the people who live on his street are reiki healers or fortune tellers. You never know though. He always has skeptic phases and says he doesn't trust psychics anymore, then goes back to it. Once when I was with him he impulsively paid a "gypsy" old lady loads of money to give him a reading. He kept giving her £10 notes to make it last longer.

Maybe you can help him understand and deal with the root cause of his unhappiness, and then his dependence on magic rocks might go away.

I often do impulsive or compulsive things when I'm stressed.

Other than that, there's not much you can do beyond voicing your concerns, really. If he does listen, then maybe he just needs to be prompted more often. Little and often, maybe he can get out of the habit.

If he is surrounded by new age stuff, it probably has less to do with naivety and more to do with his family culture. Honestly, there are so many people from all walks of life that believe in these things. If he thinks he receives some benefit and he's not harming himself in these beliefs, what can you really do?

One persons hocus pocus is anothers religion. And there will always be someone ready will and able to make a buck off of both.