Law Of Attraction - A Different Perspective
October 21, 2007
Photo by Chuckumentary
I hope this post won’t get me into trouble with ardent fans of Law Of Attraction. 
The movie ‘The Secret‘ has garnered a lot of attention via word of mouth. It was also through my friend that I was introduced to this movie, and to the Law of Attraction. Since watching this movie, I got really interested and listened to the audio book of ‘Ask And It Is Given‘, by Esther Hicks and Abraham. The movie and the book teaches the Law Of Attraction, and using this law to achieve happiness and success in our life.
Unlike most personal development philosophies, the Law of Attraction presents a uniquely inviting concept; it advocates that through proper channeling of positive thoughts and emotions, it is possible to attract anything from the universe, all the things that we can ever want or wish for. It states that we are the creator of our reality and that the only thing stopping us from achieving happiness is our own limiting beliefs.
‘The Secret’ even presented a fairy-tale-come-true version of Aladdin’s Lamp, stating that there are forces in the universe like the genie in Aladdin’s Lamp, justing waiting to fulfill every of our desires. Most people will find this a very inviting concept, as can be proven by the amount of success the movie has enjoyed and the large following of the Law of Attraction.
WHAT IS LAW OF ATTRACTION For the uninitiated, the Law of Attraction is a very simple concept; it states that “Like attracts like.” It also states that:
- Whatever we place our attention on, whatever we think about, imagine, believe and feel strongly about, we attract more of into our experiences.
- What we think about, what we hold in our minds and put our attention and energy into, we draw into our lives.
- Whatever we put our attention and energy into, we bring into form.
- Whoever we believe we are, we become.
Hence, if you focus on having a loving relationship, then the universe will make it happen to you. If you focus on being rich, then the universe will also give it to you. It doesn’t say how it will happen, you don’t have to worry about that, the universe will just give it to you.
So doesn’t this mean that all of us should be happy and rich, as the universe is like a fairy godmother who will grant our every wish?
No, because the Law of Attraction does not filter out our thoughts based on whether they are positive or negative. If our thoughts are predominantly negative, then we will attract negative things and these will manifest as realities in our lives.
So if you constantly worry about lack of money, then you will have lack of money. If you are stressed about your health, then your health will suffer. If you are angry about conflicts, then you will have more conflicts.
As you can see, it is a simple yet very smart concept. The underlying message is that we have ultimate, 100% responsibility for our lives. The law says that we are responsible for the state that we are currently in, whether good or bad. It is a very empowering concept; the Law of Attraction states that we are the creator of our reality through our predominant thoughts, whether we design it deliberately or not.
3 Step Process
The Law of Attraction goes further to define a 3-step formula for deliberate attraction.
- Step 1: Ask as you desire.
- Step 2: Give your desire attention.
- Step 3: Allow It
The Law of Attraction will manifest our desires in the exact proportion to how much we are allowing it. Step 3 is the most important step in the process. Now what is allowing? Allowing is the absence of doubt. Doubt is a negative vibration, desire is a positive vibration. Only by having the positive vibration which are aligned with our desires, then we allow the desire to manifest.
So if we ask (step 1), and give it attention (step 2), but we do not have the faith to allow it to happen to us, then it will not happen to us.
Again, the responsibility falls back to us to have the positive thoughts and faith to manifest a positive reality. If we are in a less than ideal situation, it is because of our limiting beliefs that is stopping us from having all that the universe is willing to give.
If you are interested to learn more about Law of Attraction, you can refer to these references:
LAWS OF ATTRACTION EXPLAINED - A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE
Law of Attraction is already receiving a lot attention and enjoys a large following; largely due to the principles it advocates. However, for the same reasons, there are a lot of controversies surrounding the Law of Attraction. There are as many skeptics and opponents of this law as there are proponents. You can find examples here, here, here, and here.
Personally, the idea of an all giving universe that magically fulfills all our desires just don’t sit too well with me. My belief is that Law of Attraction works, but not in the way as it is presented. I see the Law of Attraction as a very cleverly thought out plot, based on time-proven personal development principles which does lead to happiness, and success, if correctly applied.
Law of Attraction subtly leverages on human nature and traits, to get us to indirectly apply success principles, thereby achieving success. Let me explain using the examples below:
Deliberate Creation As the Law of Attraction states that what we put your energy into, what we think about and focus upon grows, therefore it would be smart to deliberately choose what thoughts and feelings we give our attention to.
The key to harnessing the Law of Attraction is personal responsibility. You must accept personal responsibility for everything in your life, and I do mean everything. If you perceive it, you’ve manifested it. Whatever you give your attention to will expand.
It is the same as The 1st Habit, ‘Be Proactive’, coined by Stephen R. Covey in his bestseller ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People‘. Covey states that the first step to effectiveness is a mindset of taking personal responsibility of our life, our thoughts, our reactions and actions.
The lack of personal responsibility is the reason why those who constantly whines and complains seldom achieve much in their life. A whiner mentality is that of being victimized, and that whatever unhappy state they are in is a result of their circumstances, not through their efforts (or lack of it); they perceive themselves as the pitiful, innocent victim of circumstances.
Think about it, with such a mentality, how will they ever set themselves up for any impacting endeavors to change their life?
In this regard, the Law of Attraction places the same personal responsibilities back onto ourselves. As much as we cannot control everything, it is through the design of this law that we control our thoughts to be positive and aligned with our desires. Awareness of and acknowledging such a personal responsibility then sets the stage for fulfillment of goals and desires.
Your Emotions As Indicators The Law of Attraction states that our emotions are direct results of our thoughts. If you feel doubts, guilt, stress, anger, it is because you have those related negative thoughts. Combine this principle with ‘like attract like’, then it only make sense for us to focus on positive thoughts and emotions so that we don’t attract the negative things into our life.
I think this is a very clever way of achieving self-motivation. Let me explain.
In his book ‘Think and Grow Rich’, Napoleon Hill states that
DESIRE is the starting point of all achievement (the first step to riches).
According to Napoleon Hill, a burning desire is the key motivator to achieving wealth, because it drives and sustains the actions required to achieve your goals. In ‘How To Set Goals That Motivate You, I demonstrated that goals which are based on logic alone tends to feel flat; they fail to kindle any desire or motivation. As such, such goals seldom sticks around long enough for success.
Plain, unemotional words do not influence the subconscious mind. You will get no appreciable results until you learn to reach your subconscious mind with thoughts or spoken words that have been well emotionalized with belief.
- Napoleon Hill
You see, as much as we like to think that we are objective creatures, the fact remains that majority of our decisions are largely influenced by our emotions. Success in any endeavors requires actions in a focused, decisive manner driven by strong motivations and a burning desire.
In so doing, by asking us to focus on positive emotions to attract the desired results, proponents of Law of Attraction actually creates a state of mind which is highly motivated and conducive to actions and success.
Law of Allowing In order to receive the gifts from the universe, Law of Attraction requires us to be open to what comes our way and receive our desires and our good; it calls for us to be grateful; be joyful. The larger our goals are, the longer it will take manifest. Meanwhile, we are to maintain a state of allowing while the gift from the universe is manifesting.
In personal development, fundamental principles to success include meaningful goal setting, taking focused action and persevering until results are achieved. It depends on our ability to to stay on course for a sustained period through our will power. Napoleon Hill calls this faith and persistence.
All thoughts which have been emotionalized and mixed with FAITH begin immediately to translate themselves into their physical equivalent or counterpart.
…lack of PERSISTENCE is one of the major causes of failure…experience with thousands of people has proved that lack of PERSISTENCE is a weakness common to the majority of people…. the ease with which lack of PERSISTENCE may be conquered will depend entirely upon the intensity of one’s desire.
The designer of Law of Attraction seems to understand the same principles as Napoleon Hill did; and therefore intended to help us to develop faith and persistence indirectly through the Law of Allowing. Such indirect approach makes it easier for us to accept and act upon by focusing not on actions or logic, but on maintaining positive emotions. It is indeed a very clever design; for if one can maintain a positive state of emotions, then faith and persistence naturally occurs.
Law of Attraction and Serendipity
Through my research, many proponents and even skeptics of Law of Attraction are amazed by the coincidences that they have “attracted” into their lives through Law of Attraction. Aaron Potts and Shaun Boyd provides their testimonies of such serendipities in their blogs.
Taking Shaun’s testimony as an example, he wanted and deliberately asked to watch full 90 minutes of ‘The Secret’ without having to buy the DVD. In doing so, Shaun makes an impression with his mind and his subconscious to ‘look out’ for opportunities to fulfill this desire. True enough, when he later stumbled upon this video at StumbleUpon, it’s like the amazing Law of Attraction at work.
My counter argument will be this; if he had not decided and willed this desire into his mind and subconscious, he would have stumbled upon the same video and pass over it totally!
The same can be said for Jack Canfield’s serendipity in his meeting with a journalist which later led to ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’, or to any other opportunities that open up when one makes up his/her mind to pursue a goal.
The amazing results of attraction, I attribute these to the psychological effect akin to self fulfilling prophecies. Your mind shows you things that you have impressed yourself upon. However, you must first decide and be committed to the goal for the serendipity to occur.
GAP IN THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
One gap that I observed about the Law of Attraction is a lack of emphasis on taking actions; which is necessary to bring about the desired results. It states that once your emotions are in tuned and aligned with your desires, the universe will start delivering them to you; almost in a magical fashion (as depicted in ‘The Secret’ movie)
Such a gap is in fact the basis of many contentions and controversies surrounding Law of Attraction. Does it mean that if I sit at home, meditate and focus positive emotions on money, then money will fall from the sky? Surely, any sane person will not bet his dollar on such an approach to success.
It appears that the designers of Law of Attraction have deliberately left this gap open. Perhaps they feel that if proponents can achieve the positive state of emotion as taught by Law of Attraction, then relevant and deliberate actions will naturally follow without having to be direct about it. Perhaps such an approach in the teachings will demystify the magic of Law of Attraction and cause it to lose its mass appeal that it enjoys now.
I have only assumptions on this point; nonetheless, I know for sure that money don’t fall from the sky
PROPONENT OR OPPONENT OF LAW OF ATTRACTION Earlier I agreed that Law of Attraction does work. Indeed, a search on the web will show you many testimonies of its wonders. My only contention is in the way the principles are delivered and the strong marketing skew to achieve a mass appeal.
Even then, I cannot prove or totally deny the fact that there may be greater forces at work; forces like quantum physics, a new science domain in its infancy, which is beyond our current ability to completely comprehend.
Whether it is a cleverly designed scheme or it is indeed greater forces at work, that is really secondary. What does matter is that Law of Attraction has many commonalities to time-proven success principles, and that practicing it does bring us to the fulfillment and success that we desire.
Laws and principles are neutral in themselves, it is in their application that makes the difference in the end results. As far as I am concern, I see no harm in maintaining a positive state of mind, and well-being; as long as we don’t take the extreme hedonistic view of expecting wealth, happiness just through daydreaming alone.
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What you view as a “gap” in the Law of Attraction is, more nearly correctly, a gap in your understanding of it, not in the Law of Attraction itself. Your bias is quite understandable: it does not make sense to infer that simply by asking the Universe for something, that it would “drop in your lap” without any effort upon your part. The Law of Attraction, however, operates outside the realm of what we human beings perceive as logical and rational. (That is not to say that it is “supernatural”, outside the laws of the natural world, but only that they are outside the natural laws that we human beings, with our limited intellect and sensorium, can directly perceive.)
The Law of Attraction does not require any exertion or effort upon the part of the recipient. In fact, something other than human agency (in the more widely understood sense) is employed when the Law of Attraction is invoked. Whether the forces involved are “divine”, “spiritual” or “demonic” is mere speculation on the part of observers, derived from their own belief systems. The mechanism by which such a Law operates is, I believe, unknown, although that may well be due to my own ignorance about such things. What I do know, from personal experience and observation, is that the Law of Attraction can work, in ways which may seem “miraculous,” in the sense that a “miracle” is an event that transcends understanding based upon a definition of reality as consisting of but four dimensions.
You cite as a “flaw” the account of a gentleman who sought to manifest a 90 minute version of “The Secret.” You say that, if his attention weren’t fixed upon that desire, he would’ve stumbled upon the 90 minute version of it without even noticing that it has happened. What you discount, however, is that that gentleman did not, through his own agency, “stumble” upon it. He clicked on a link that connected him with a random website. To say that the odds against such an event are staggering would be a discredit to the word, “staggering.”
Hi Jack,
thank you so much for your valuable take. It’s one of such comments that I’m looking forward to
I do agree there’s a possibility of greater forces at work, forces beyond our level of comprehension at this stage in human evolution. Having said that, can you share any personal testimony of such ‘miracle’?
As for Shaun’s experience; well, given that he’s a blogger (who does use StumbleUpon quite a bit) and also given the popularity of ‘The Secret’, I do believe there’s a good chance of this happening, but it’s my assumption. Maybe I will try stumbling a little bit to find out.
Shaun, if you are reading this, care to share your take on this?
To readers who are interested in Jack’s testimony of Law of Attraction, you can find it at this post
Absolutely agree with this article. I blogged similar thoughts in July:
http://workingonme.squarespace.com/journal/2007/7/16/whats-missing-from-the-secret.html
Ray
Hi Ray,
thanks for your contribution and your take. It does look like we share a common perspective about this issue.
Already bump into a lot of blogs about The Secret.
Now as if to me, it is no longer a secret.
Anyways, just wanna tell you that a blogger friend of mine had earned thousands by selling eBook of The Secret.
Thanks for your comment Broken, and good for your friend.
The secret movie…I had to downloaded it for our business associate. I watched it briefly and I think it’s not really my kind of movie.
Lawrence:
Just a quick note to thank you for including in this post a link to my article about what the Law of Attraction was NOT. I appreciate it! I hope your readers found it thought-provoking.
Stephen
You’re welcome Stephen.
Lawrence,
I appreciate the links back to my site, and also for your efforts at helping other people to understand the Law of Attraction from your unique perspective on it. Applied knowledge is power when combine with the proper courses of action!
Hi Lawrence,
Thanks for the comments. This is a wonderfully thought out post. I like how you examine both the aspects that make sense to you and invite discussion on the aspects that don’t make sense. I also believe that the law of attraction does work, but not in the way it is presented in The Secret.
The way I believe it to work is by focusing your attention to a specific goal, your mind will be subconsciously thinking about ways to achieve that goal. These ways may manifest themselves as opportunities that you never noticed before, because you weren’t on the look out for it.
This is often explained by Owen Cook by the “reticular activation system,” which is the part of your mind that keeps a lookout for things you are searching for. An example of the RAS at work is when you’re thinking about buying a new car and you want a new Honda Civic. The more you concentrate on the Honda Civic, the more you’ll notice them on the road. It seems as if these cars magically appeared, but the truth is you just didn’t pay attention to them before and now you do.
So by focusing in on the goal, your mind shows you the opportunities as them come, but as you said earlier, you still need to take action and walk through those doors as the come to you.
Hi DS,
sorry for the late reply on your comment - seems like I have missed this comment.
I really like your point about RAS. It reflects the my same views about LoA - that we naturally look out for events that relates to goals which we have set our mind on. It’s much like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Even more important point you’ve made is that we still need to take action and walk through the door.
Thanks for sharing. It’s great points!
While not discounting the “reticular activation system” as a phenomenon that people experience, there are other experiences which cannot be explained by so facile a mechanism. I have described elsewhere some of what may have appeared to be “miraculous” occurrences. Let me cite another of them here:
Susan, a friend of the family, had developed a dependency upon prescription drugs her doctor had given her and had become somewhat irrational. As there is no treatment facility on the island where I live, I bundled her onto a plane and took her to the nearest city that offered such services. I took her to a detox treatment center, but they told me they couldn’t help her. Not knowing what else to do, I took her to the emergency ward at a hospital.
I stayed with her while she waited to see a doctor. Various hospital personnel came in to see my friend, and then the doctor finally arrived. I was told that she would spend the night at the hospital, so I left and found a motel.
The next day, I went back to the hospital at around ten o’clock in the morning to check on my friend. I went to the reception area and said, “Hi. I’d like to see Susan C—-, please.”
Without even checking the register, the receptionist said, “There is no patient of that name here at the hospital.”
“What?” I asked. “I dropped her off here last night!”
“All I am able to tell you is that there is no patient of that name admitted here at this time.”
“Well, did she leave? Was she discharged?”
“I’m sorry, I can only tell you that Susan C—- is not a patient at this hospital at this time.”
I was quite concerned. Susan had been acting decidedly irrationally, and the thought of her wandering around on her own was disturbing. I got in my car and began driving to places I thought she might have gotten to: the ferry terminal, the bus terminal, various restaurants. I wasn’t frantic, but I was highly focused on finding Susan.
I was driving near the mall area when I saw a Barnes & Noble bookstore. “Oh! Maybe they’ll have books on ferro-cement building methods!” I pulled into the entrance, parked my car, and went into the bookstore. In short order, I was standing in front of a bookcase filled with books about construction techniques. On a trip to Jamaica, I had become mildly interested in buildings made of steel-reinforced concrete, but didn’t know much about the subject. Now I was picking through books, some more technical, some more centered on designs, all about ferro-cement building.
Suddenly, I sort of came to my senses. “Jack, what the hell are you doing?? Why are you looking at books about concrete when your friend is lost in a place where she doesn’t know anyone!” I put the books back in the bookcase. I was about to leave when I realized I had to go to the bathroom, so looked around for the men’s room. When I saw the sign for it, I struck off in that direction.
This Barnes & Noble store had a built-in coffee bar. It must’ve served very good coffee because there was a line of perhaps ten people standing there, waiting to place their orders. In order to get to the men’s room I had to cut through the line of people. As I did so, the woman I passed in front of said, “Oh, hello!”
I didn’t recognize her.
“I met you last night,” she said. “You were with Susan C—- at the hospital. I was the social worker assigned to her.”
“Oh, yes!” I responded. “I’m so worried about her. I went to the hospital and they told me she wasn’t there but wouldn’t tell me where she is. I’ve got to find her!”
“Well,” the woman said, “the HIPAA laws prevent the hospital from giving out any information about their patients. They could be sued.”
“But where is she?!!”
“She was taken to Maclean’s Treatment Facility. It’s an in-patient detox facility on the way to Boston. You can find her there.”
“Oh, thank you so much! Thank you!”
I made my visit to the men’s room, then went back to my car and drove off to check on my friend. (She spent three weeks there and was weaned off the tranquilizers that she had reacted so badly to.)
In order for me to have found my friend, a mechanism almost infinitely more powerful and more subtle than the “reticular activation system” must’ve been at work. The event could ~possibly~ be explained away as a sheer, if somewhat improbable, coincidence but for one thing. In the midst of my highly focused search for Susan, I had a sudden, overpowering urge to go find books about concrete! Obeying that urge—and then abandoning it—put me directly on a course that would intersect with the path of the one person in that city who knew of my connection to Susan, and who had the information I sought. I was in the bookstore for only a brief period, and the social worker was there for a brief period, too. Perhaps she, too, had felt a sudden, inexplicable urge for a latte—I didn’t ask her. But the point is, we were both “moving targets” on that day, and our paths crossed under unique and highly unlikely ways.
Such phenomena as these cannot be explained as artifacts of psychology, or as random events. The mathematics of probability simply wouldn’t support such an interpretation. As Shakespeare once famously wrote, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”