Mindvalley is a global personal growth and education company founded by Vishen Lakhiani in 2003. Instead of traditional academic learning, Mindvalley promotes transformational education – teaching skills for life improvement, self-development, and human potential. It offers online courses, live events, and digital programs focused on topics like mindfulness, productivity, leadership, health, relationships, and spirituality. Its courses feature well-known authors, entrepreneurs, and experts.
Vishen Lakhiani recently wrote a post to their million plus subscribers, following a visit to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. But how he abused her memory beggars belief.
Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died in a Nazi concentration camp. Yet her words outlived her body. Words scribbled in a diary from a secret attic in Amsterdam became one of the world’s most powerful mirrors.
And this got me thinking.
If Anne Frank were alive today, what would she say about America? About Israel & Gaza?
What I’m about to share may feel uncomfortable – but Anne’s words demand we face discomfort.
—
Anne also wrote:
“We are chained to one spot, without rights, a thousand obligations… waiting for the inevitable end.”
That could be the voice of Gaza today. Entire families locked in. Starved. Bombed. Denied freedom of movement. Children asking, “Why must we suffer simply because of who we are?”
—
Anne’s diary teaches us to look at cruelty honestly, no matter where it comes from. And one thing history proves: atrocities don’t start with bullets. They start with words.
Dehumanizing language always comes first.
So let’s talk about Gaza, as uncomfortable as this may seem.
Consider the echoes:
- Nazi leadership (1943): Heinrich Himmler at Posen: “I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people….”
- Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (2023): On the Palestinian town of Huwara: “[Huwara] should be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”
- Hitler, Mein Kampf: Jews as “the typical parasite, a sponger who, like an infectious bacillus, keeps spreading.” Nazi propaganda routinely cast Jews as vermin.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (2023): Announcing a siege of Gaza: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
- Nazi propaganda (Goebbels echoing Hitler): Jews blamed collectively for war, threatened with “extermination.”
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog (2023): “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible….” — words widely criticized as endorsing collective punishment.
- Nazi euphemisms: “Evacuation” as code for extermination.
- Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (2023): Suggesting a nuclear strike on Gaza was “one of the options.”
Different contexts. Different scales. But the same pattern.
Dehumanize → Justify → Destroy.
Anne Frank’s words remind us: when we hear this language, it is never “just rhetoric.” It is the runway to cruelty.
Co-opting Anne Frank’s words to bludgeon Israel is bad enough. But to do so when it comes to our response to the worst atrocity to behold the Jewish people since the Holocaust is next level.
Not only that, but Lakhiani cherry-picks certain statements by Israeli politicians, which do not represent government policy. And he takes them out of context, even twisting at least one of them.
For instance, regarding Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement that “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible….” :
Herzog had said at that briefing that “[Gazans are] an entire nation out there that is responsible… This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved [in the October 7 onslaught] — it’s absolutely not true.”
However, he qualified those statements in the same speech by stressing that “Israel abides by international law, operates by international law. Every operation is secured and covered and reviewed legally.” He also said: “There is no excuse to murdering innocent civilians in any way in any context. And believe me, Israel will operate and always operate according to the international rules. And we do the same in this battle, too.”
“I was here, in this very hall, a few days after the terrible massacre, when I was asked by the world’s media about the situation in Gaza. I replied that the widespread civilian support in Gaza for the crimes and atrocities of October 7 could not be ignored, and that Hamas operates from the heart of the civilian population everywhere, from children’s bedrooms in homes, from schools, from mosques, and hospitals,” Herzog said Sunday.
“But I added and emphasized that for the State of Israel, and of course for me personally, innocent civilians are not considered targets in any way whatsoever,” he said. “There are also innocent Palestinians in Gaza. I am deeply sorry for the tragedy they are going through. From the first day of the war right until today, I have called and worked for humanitarian aid for them — and only for them. This is part of our values as a country.
“But the reality cannot be ignored, a reality which we all saw with our own eyes as published by Hamas on that cursed day, and that was the involvement of many residents of Gaza in the slaughter, in the looting, and in the riots of October 7. How the crowds in Gaza cheered at the sight of Israelis being slaughtered and their bodies mutilated. At the sight of hostages — God knows what they did to them — wounded and bleeding being dragged through the streets. In view of such terrible crimes, it is appropriate that the honorable court investigate them in depth, and not casually in passing.”
Lakhiani could find way more statements by Hamas – representing actual Hamas beliefs and policy – that are way worse than the ones he cited and need not be twisted or taken out of context to rival those of the Nazis. Yet he does not even mention Hamas, let alone quote them.
Is this moral depravity, lack of critical thinking, and intellectual dishonesty indicative of the Mindvalley teaching philosophy?
Is this antisemitic, historical inversion really going to help “1+ million people become better at living up to their full potential?”
No, it is going to help brainwash even more people to be on the wrong side of history.
At the end of the day, weaponizing the memory of Anne Frank to smear the Jewish state is not “transformational education.” It’s moral corruption dressed up as enlightenment. Lakhiani’s distortion of history does nothing to honor Anne Frank, nor does it advance peace or justice. It simply fuels the very dehumanization he pretends to condemn.
If Mindvalley truly wants to help people “live up to their full potential,” it should start by teaching intellectual honesty, moral clarity, and respect for historical truth – not by recycling antisemitic tropes under the guise of compassion. Because when education becomes indoctrination, it ceases to uplift humanity and instead drags it down the darkest paths of history.
