Gaiam was founded in Boulder, Colorado in 1988 by Jirka Rysavy. His vision was to serve the "conscious consumer", a group subsequently named the "Cultural Creatives" by sociologist Paul Ray in 1996: educated consumers who make purchasing decisions based on their values. The company states that its name was the result of fusing "Gaia", a mother earth deity, with the phrase "I am", for the "interconnectivity of all things". In 2001, it merged with the Californian company Real Goods Solar. In 2005, Gaiam acquired the media assets of GoodTimes Entertainment and Jetlag Productions. In 2003, the company bought a 50.1% share in its UK distributor Leisure Systems International. In 2007, Gaiam acquired both Lime.com and Zaadz.com for a greater community presence.
Recent history
In 2011, the company launched Gaiam TV, a streaming service for videos on yoga, meditation and pseudoscience. renamed to Gaia in 2015. In 2012, Gaiam acquired a DVD distributor from Universal Music Group Distribution, a subsidiary of Vivendi, merging it with its home entertainment division to form Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment. In 2019, USA Today ranked Gaia, Inc as the world's fastest growing retailer, spending up to 120% of revenue on advertising. In June 2019, Gaia started live streaming events from a new event center at its Louisville campus. Events are live streamed in 185 countries with simultaneous translation, and feature speakers such as Gregg Braden, Caroline Myss, Bruce Lipton, and Graham Hancock.
From September 30 to October 5, 2017, Lynne McTaggart hosted an American Peace Intention Experiment, broadcast on Gaia TV. The experiment involved large numbers of people participating in group meditation specifically directed at decreasing violent crime in Fairground, an area around the Natural Bridge Avenue in Northern St. Louis, Missouri, which was rated the most dangerous streetin America. For six months after the experiment. Jessica Utts, a University of California professor of statistics, analyzed four sets of crime data in St. Louis from September 2014 to March 2018 to determine what affect the Experiment had on crime. From October 2017 to March 2018, property crime increased in Fairground, but violent crime decreased. McTaggart reported that she did not know if the change in crime levels was caused by the Experiment or not, but that she continued to have hope.
Programming
Gaia provides four primary channels - Seeking Truth, Transformation, Alternative Healing, and Yoga - to subscribers in 185 countries, streaming more than 8,000 films. Gaia surpassed 500,000 paid subscribers on September 13, 2018. Topic range from mainstream to highly fringe :
Pseudo-archaeology, fringe theories on ongoing archaeological debates that are far from the mainstream. Gaia's programming ranges from discussion of Turkey’s Gobekli Tepe archeological site, through to theories on how aliens built the pyramids.
Alchemy, an ancient practice of attempting to transmute matter and create elixiers of everlasting life. It is promoted as a current pseudoscience via Gaia’s alchemy-focused programs hosted by Theresa Bullard.
Mysticism, topics such as the classification of mystical experiences, and their nature in different religions and mystical traditions. Mystics differ from culture to culture. Programs on Gaia address primarily New Age and eastern mysticism.
Kundalini, a primal force or energy thought, believed in by some Hindu practices, and proposed to be controllable by yoga, meditation, or chanting. Gaia has beginner and moderate Kundalini yoga videos.
Nutrition, the diet and nutrients necessary to maintain life and health. Some of Gaia's content promotes balanced diets and some was created in a partnership with Mayo Clinic. However it also promotes some unhealthy or fad practices such as detox, superfoods or Paleolithic diet.
Meditation, the mental practice of focus on a particular object, thought or activity to improve one's mind, shown to be valuable for relaxation and stress reduction. Gaia offers different meditation series that range from established relaxation meditation to highly fringe attempts to control reality or cross into parallel universes.
A show hosted by George Noory, covers several pseudoscientific topics such as psychic vampires, Hollow Earth theory, and mummified aliens. This content has been criticized as misleading or falsified. Criticism by a filmmaker formerly employed by Gaia, Patty Greer, ended with a public apology to Gaia by Greer after he accused them of "promoting Luciferianism and using directed-energy weapons against critics."
