I have been experimenting with the theory you can manifest reality via your own thoughts / beliefs. Whilst trying to get to sleep, I recently thought ‘Mmmm, could do with another project to work on, haven’t heard from client A for a while’ and the following day, to my utter suprise, I received a new brief from them. This appeared more than mere coincidence. It’s almost as if you open a door in your mind to allow something to occur. It’s like a calm acceptance, frustration just seems to keep you locked experiencing the same situation without the possibility of change.
I particularly enjoyed listening to Steve Pavlina’s podcast. He seems to use the idea of a computer game to alter his perception of the nature of reality, imaging that he is the central character and that everyone else existing is of his own creation, as if they are a part of himself. They can appear or disappear as and when he requires them and he has infinite power to mould his environment. Kinda reminded me of the matrix…
Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
I have been attempting to attract more £s into my life, partly as an practical experiment. Not that I am particularly materialistic but would benefit from the freedom it brings. I have been attempting to believe / visualise a bout of money heading my way, maybe not tomorrow but at some point in the near future. Anyway, out of interest I have won the lottery 4 times over the past month or so. I only entered occasionally in the past but have never won before. Okay, it’s only 3 x £7 and 1 £44 but it encourages me to continue experimenting. Apparently, if you entertain doubts and sceptism, you hinder the process, sending out conflicting thoughts into the universe, giving you mixed results. Must be amazing to be able to remain focussed on your desires, without conflicting thoughts or doubt, to the extent that you can manifest reality in the universe. As the author says, ‘it’s definitely a challenge’ to alter your consciousness to that level.
“Well, in February 2000 I set a goal of being happily married by the end of the year (there were no obvious candidates in sight at that point) and I’m pleased to report that we did just manage to squeak the wedding in on December 29th! Six and a half years later we’re still happily married.
Do I attribute this to the Law of Attraction? Not really. As Steve Pavlina points out in his blog, to make the law of attraction work as a philosophical concept, you’ve either got to believe in reincarnation or in subjective reality:
a belief system in which (1) there is only one consciousness, (2) you are that singular consciousness, and (3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.
That’s the option Pavlina goes for. Well, you can’t disprove it. It’s one of those hypotheses that aren’t subject to testing by scientific experiment, since any conceivable results you could get might also be a projection of your thoughts.
But there’s no reason to believe it either. In order to believe in the Law of Attraction you have to forget the principle called Occam’s Razor:
Occam’s razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or “shaving off,” those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. In short, when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation.
Let’s look at why people believe in the ‘Law of Attraction’ in the first place. Assuming they’re not just believing it because they hope it’s true, they will have had some personal experiences which the Law of Attraction ‘explains’ – they’ve wished for something, thought about it, and believed that it will happen, and it’s happened.
The LOA is not the only possible explanation though. A simpler one, that is fully consistent with ‘common sense’ and the scientific worldview, is that of course things will happen for you sooner or later if you get clear about what you want and do the things that will make it happen.
When we add to this the idea that once you’ve got a clear image of what you want, your unconscious mind will be looking out for opportunities, people and resources that will bring it closer – plus the fact that your mind will amplify any evidence that supports your beliefs, and downplay or ignore anything that contradicts them – I don’t think we need to believe in reincarnation or subjective reality to explain the fact that things are more likely to happen for you when you have a clear idea of what you want, and you believe it’s possible.
Is it just me, or is that idea that everyone and everything is just a projection of you – essentially, that life is just like a dream, just a bit more solid – lonely and uninviting?
Graham English’s blog >> http://integral.grahamenglish.net/index.php?s=law+of+attraction has an intelligent commentary on the LOA from a Ken Wilber/ Integral perspective. He points out that the LOA reduces everything to the level of the ‘individual interior’ quadrant and to the level of ‘mind’, without taking into account the influence of external and collective reality.”
Andy Smith
http://www.manchesternlp.com
Hi – I’m a fellow Leeds blogger – came across you on the Britblog site. I was recently writing on my own blog about creating your own reality/law of attraction.
I think the trouble is that if you really want something then you’re liable to be sending out negative vibes about it as well as the positive ones (e.g. what if it doesn’t work or what if I lose it?) and they’re likely to get in the way of it happening. This will apply whether there’s something apparently supernatural/spiritual going on here or (as Andy suggests) it’s more down to common sense. This won’t be so much of a problem for positively-minded people, but they’re likely to get what they want in any case, whether they’ve heard of the law of attraction or not.
Personally, I feel that you have to develop spiritually in order to allow something like the law of attraction to happen. I hope that doesn’t sound pompous and off-putting – it’s not intended. But I think you have to start learning to live in the moment (as described in books such as Eckhart Tolle’s The Power Of Now) and becoming less attached to outcomes. You have to learn to be happy irrespective of how things are going in your life. Then, ironically, you won’t be sending out those negative vibes any longer and you can have whatever you want!
I wrote about this in a post on my blog called ‘How To have It All’. Do take a look and see what you think. I like your blog and we both seem to be speculating about the same sort of stuff, so I’d be more than happy to exchange links if you’d like to. Let me know what you think.
All the Best – Simon
The Secret Of Life
http://secretoflife.typepad.com
Hi from Nottingham.
I came across this blog by doing a search for one of my current obsessions, the LOA.
I watched The Secret a few months ago. A serendipitous moment; a friend of mine who is interested in alternative energy sent a link to watching The Secret online. Since then I have realised how my thoughts attract and also how my thinking has got me into trouble. Sounds obvious, I know, but when I watched The Secret, a lot of things fell into place. We really cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought.
I think it also ties into synchronicity/meaningful coincidence. We attract what we think about for sure but we also “filter” accordingly. If I just assume that wealth is mine, now, that act of assuredness will act like a magnet. The key is just acting like we already have what we want.
That’s the “rub”. Most people want they get…
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
Merry Christmas,
Ed.
“Well of course self help guru’s support the idea, it totally supports the ‘you can do anything you want to do’ guff that a lot of them espouse.
It’s based on an oversimplification of quantum physics in order to give people the impression that it’s something quite simple (it’s not, and anyone who tells you it is is pulling a fast one), and it doesn’t stand up to logic.
It’s no more than a combination of coincidence and pattern recognition dressed up with smoke and mirrors to give people something to believe in. ”
Lydia Bates
“I stil think this is one of those subjects that needs more mainstream research. I’ve been reading The Power of Intention by Dr Wayne Dyer (very good) and watched the film What the Bleep Do We Know. Unfortunately until Scientist start to understand Quantum Physics this will remain a Grey subject.
Lydia your comment… It’s no more than a combination of coincidence and pattern recognition dressed up with smoke and mirrors to give people something to believe in. So you’ve tried it extensively yourself and can prove this beyond reasonable doubt? Bring on the evidence.”
Michael Hulse
http://www.michaelcomputers.co.uk/
“It’s amazes me the lengths to which some people will go in order to avoid ………………… just doing it.
I would succeed in my business if I could unleash the secret and activate the law of attraction” claims Mr Third-Bankruptcy. The secret for him and other like him is to spend as much time working as he used to spend inventing ways to avoid working.
If you are in the UK and on income support you are already amongst the top 10% of richest people in the world, the remaining 90% see us as fat, greedy and idle.
THE SECRET – We were all born to do something, every day just do that because when you do everything else just falls neatly into place. Will you have a life without problems? No but you will have an over supply of solutions…
The problem is that for most the Law of Attraction, The Secret and good/bad karma are all embraced for entirely selfish reasons. Financial wealth will elude everyone who believes there are “cosmic” ways of obtaining it. I am not making any claims that a discerning universe won’t help I am merely following the logic to the conclusion which will send most into a rage of denial, the universe ain’t fond of selfish bastards and will offer no help at all. Christianity is embraced by a large percentage only because of the prosperity teaching – The more you give God (money) the more (money) God will give you. Not true.
So, let’s be clear; it’s “Prosperity of the heart” not the bank account and the Secret of the Law of Attraction is that it’s about giving not taking.”
Philip Banks
http://www.philipbanks.co.uk
“surely this is all really simple…
> ‘IF’ you want something bad enough..
> ‘IF’ you focus your time and energy and resources into it..
> ‘IF” you actually remain focussed on your goal..
> ‘IF’ you are consistant each day with making steps towards that goal..
‘THEN’ you are likely to bring that goal about.
surely…
(But that sounds a bit like hard work and wont sell many DVD’s)”
Chris Green
http://www.callowaygreen.com/
“This nicely sums up the law of attraction to me.
I think if people use it this way, they can gain benefit from it. I have no problem with extolling the virtues of ‘attracting’ things to you by your behaviour and mind set, provided they are based on a sound understanding of psychology and committed application, not some psuedo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Firstly it is not a ‘law’ (as it cannot be shown consistently and repeatedly to apply at all times).
Nor is it anything at all to do with quantum physics. Anyone who studies quantum mechanics will tell you that it only applies at a quantum level – the theory breaks down completely at a macro level. So the leap from energy and matter being linked to actually generating your reality is distinctly flawed.
A good analogy to me seems to be as follows:
Fact: Atoms are made up mostly of space
Fact: You are made of atoms
Fact: The wall is made of atoms
Pseudo-scientific misinterpretation: You can walk through walls”
Craig Marriott
http://www.mgifs.co.uk
“http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html
Take note there’s something from David Albert who was quoted in the film. He says:
I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film … Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.
There’s a lot to read there, be careful, you might learn something.
And can you bring on the evidence that it *does* work?
Unfortunately until Scientist start to understand Quantum Physics this will remain a Grey subject.
No it won’t. Scientists *do* understand quantum physics and they know it’s nothing to do with people thinking themselves richer.
Apparently, if you entertain doubts and scepticism, you hinder the process
And so goes another excuse for it not working for people. The trouble with this sort of mumbo-jumbo is that they have built-in fail-safes. Like the one above, if you’re a skeptic then it won’t work.
It’s the same in all investigations of pseudoscience. When tested, it turns out that it doesn’t work under test conditions. Wow, how about that?
Of course, it goes deeper. For example, I see the ‘The Secret’ as complete hogwash, the film ‘What the Bleep’ as an utter crock and I understand quantum physics enough to laugh heartily at anyone who tells me it’s to do with the laws of attraction. I diss it bad.
And however much I say these things, I’ve got more work on that I’ve ever had, ever. I should be on holiday now, but no, I’ve gotta work because it keeps on coming.
But there’s an answer for that too. Someone else must be wishing good things. Perhaps my wife is secretly watching the DVD. Maybe, just maybe my business partner has watched ‘What the Bleep’ and regularly channels Ramtha to get business advice.
Some of what you say is undoubtedly true. If you aim for you goals and take a positive attitude to life then good things will come. But it’s not the cosmos doing it. It’s you.
You don’t need films like ‘The Secret’ or ‘What the Bleep’, this isn’t the sort of stuff we should be educating people with. We should educate them with stuff like “work hard” and “be positive”. Not ‘listen to this woman, she’s channeling a 35 thousand year old warrior from atlantis to tell us about it”.
Tell me (honestly) do you *really* believe that in ‘What the Bleep’ someone was *actually* chanelling that warrior? Honestly now, was she?
This stuff is childish fantasy.”
Andy Calloway
If you are interested in the nature of reality, you might find this interesting:
http://www.realityseeds.com/blog/2006/12/29/the-nature-of-reality-and-its-interpretations/
Don’t want to get into another argument but just believe there are some things that cannot be 100% proved or tested under scientific conditions. Life is infinitly more complicated than we can ever comprehend IMHO. I don’t assume to know the absolute truth but if something has not being verified by science, it doesn’t stop me from retaining an open theoretical mind. Requiring absolute proof limits you to the possibilities offered by alternative modes of thinking. Science is just what we have concluded so far…..You may see all these films, books etc as just money-making scams, (okay some are a bit cheesy) but I often tend to initially give such materials the benefit of the doubt as being created by idealists who are trying to aid human evolution. I suppose you could argue that if this was the case, they’d give them away for free but everyone has to make a living, huh? They may choose to do this via creative means, writing about spiritual / new age ideas. Not all are genuine of course, depends on the underlying intention and overall message. But I guess that’s just me….
PS: I still recommend reading Conversations With God above everything else.
Reference material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_%28film%29
http://whatisthesecret.tv/
What the Bleep do we know? takes it a step further
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know
The Law of Attraction >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction_(New_Age)
“In a recent discussion about the Law of Attraction, these were the views of someone who knows about these things:
“The Law of Attraction states you’ll get anything with sustained attention to visualizing what you want to attract. Let’s be clear by asking:
(1) Do the parents of a 3-year-old who died of leukemia realize they didn’t visualize their son’s health correctly?
(2) Do the families of people slaughtered in Sierra Leone by Charles Taylor regret they didn’t effectively visualize the quick end to their civil war with Liberia?
(3) Can a person who has tested positive for H.I.V. sit in their room and visualize radiant health and a long life free of disease?
(4) Do the soldiers in Iraq need to get with the program and visualize themselves back home and safe with their families?
The Law of Attraction is for selfish inward-thinking people who have experienced very little conflict in their lives. It’s a way of pretending you have ultimate control over circumstance just by wishing really hard. This is self-delusion based on exalting one’s ego and has no bearing in collective reality. These Law of Attraction people haven’t lived in conditions where medical science has failed or where political systems have no regard for people. What could be of more pure intent than a Cambodian child begging Khmer Rouge soldiers to spare her father’s life only to see him shot to death? Most of us lead charmed lives. But there’s a whole world out there where children die of starvation and governments torture and execute random citizens just for the feeling of power this gives. Manipulation of powerful people and years of corruption have more to do with becoming obscenely wealthy than does Law of Attraction.
YOU adapt to life’s conditions. Life’s conditions do not adapt to you no matter how hard you concentrate. The Law of Attraction is no match for patience and perseverance in life.”
Not my words, but certainly my views. I shamelessly plagiarised them because I share her frustration with people who live in such an artificial, and superficial world.
Yes, it would be great to think that positive thinking, visualisation, focusing our attention on what we want, would solve all of our problems, and the world’s problems. But in this world, the real one, life is far more harsh and complex than that.”
Jane Hatton
“There is a profound human longing for “The Secret”. It appears in various guises, such as the three wishes, the Magic Formula, the Philosopher’s Stone, The Holy Grail, the Ring of Power etc.
I don’t know if such a thing exists, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be bought like a can of cola, or learned in a few minutes, like a pop tune.
And I suspect that the process of becoming privy to such a secret transforms a person, so that they may not even know that they know “the secret” and they probably aren’t interested in flogging it to other people. After all, what kind of secret is it that gets trumpeted from the rooftops?
A lot of the argie-bargie here is about the language that’s used (quantum etc.) and some too is about the whole attitude of “I know something special and I can teach you if…..”
Sadly also there a many people who, with the best will in the world and with the firmest determination to disregard the negative ad live the positive, are facing appalling illness, poverty, persecution etc. I guess those of us who are in a position to argue for/against thinking positive might be well advised to divert some of our thoughts to such people.”
Stuart Harris
“Yes the law of attraction works very well in a very positive way for those who believe and practice it (and works for those who don’t!)
Note this does *not* replace hard work, risk, challenges and everything else associated with life, but it certainly helps get you through to more achievements you wish to set yourself.
It’s interesting that the many people I have met who have seen it and/or practice the methodologies are very happy, positive people who are generally willing to help others achieve where they want to get to, you would be very surprised how many successful people *do* this stuff (I’d go as far as to say all do in some shape or form, and I don’t mean just having lots of money as the measure of success!) so whether you agree with it or not the overall principles are sound.
Those who doubt it are of course correct in their beliefs too
I know what works for me – you do get what you think about, good or bad. Sadly we are conditioned from an early age to expect not everything will work out etc. If you truly desire, believe and expect – and are prepared to pay the price to achieve – then goals and dreams certainly do come true.
Keep on practising and experimenting – this stuff does work but only when it starts to become second nature – and you allow yourself to believe and not let the folks who choose not to – let alone practise it – impose their views on you thus stop you from achieving what you want (note success to me includes creating the time and experiences with the people who mean the most to you while the money and other stuff flows).
No I’m not a “guru” or have “blind faith” on this subject – just a bloke who has studied and practised it for 12 years and is enjoying life.”
Glenn Watkins
http://www.ecademy.com
“I guess whatever anyone says here there are some folks who will choose to have their own beliefs and thus attractions and actions on this stuff, all I’d say is take a good look at every aspect of your life and if you are working so hard that you haven’t got the time to enjoy people and experiences then things could improve, and things only start to change / improve when you start to think and of course do things differently…..
I have no real evidence on how it all hangs together (quantum physics and mechanics is not my strong point!), however I don’t really understand most things in life (electricity, mobile phones, the brain / mind, a key on my key ring that I don’t know what it’s for!) but I know that I can embrace and use stuff that works without having to fully understanding as long as it causes no pain to anyone else and improves my life and those closest to me….
Yes it’s a very harsh world and one that everyone – regardless of what they think – experiences the unpleasantness and challenges, however waking up every morning with the belief and expectation of goodness instead of the belief and expectation that all is harsh and horrible puts one in a much stronger position.
I can speak from personal experiences and know many have more issues and challenges than others so it’s a lot tougher for some than others. But the “real world” is an abundant one as well as a harsh one, we all have the choice of where we start each day and how we create it as we go.”
Glenn Watkins
http://www.ecademy.com
“Curse my lack of willpower.
I see The Secret as another manifestation of what could be called the Stephen Hawking Effect.
I’d wager that many of you reading this (at least those old enough) will have a copy of his book A Brief History of Time. This was one of those quirks of the publishing world. A book that probably only a handful of people in the world could understand because it dealt with issues at the very edge of knowledge, back when it was published, of theoretical physics.
Yet people bought it in droves. Most had probably no knowledge of science after O-Level, if that. But that didn’t stop them marvelling at their new found intellect, and showing their understanding over nouvelle cuisine with their similarly newly-educated friends.
Yeah, right.
People are always impressed by what they don’t understand. Especially when they can get their information from bona-fide, Class 1, gold-plated, pucka scientists. Hell, the boffin could be talking utter bollocks but the listener is past caring, mesmerised by jargon.
I doubt whether more than a handful of Ecademists understand quantum physics, let alone its application. Sadly, my A-Level physics knowledge doesn’t help me to join this elite club. Thomas, I’m sure you are a bright chap.You too, Glen. But I’m sure you know as much about it as my two cats.
No doubt if Prof. Hawking endorsed the application of quantum physics to getting rich, The Secret would become the Holy Grail. Somehow, I don’t think he will.”
Gordon Robb
“The law of attraction whether it is positive focus, positive planning, positive action combined with a general joy and love of abundance and life seems to be working. Certainly is not doing any harm.
It seems strange to me that people have the definite answer to this. You know the “what I am saying is definetely correct syndrome.”
There has been such an explosion in new technology in almost every field, what was once impossible is now fact, and if history tells us anything this normal cycle of change will continue .
What if we started a poll pre Colombus “Who thinks the world is round ” LOL
I respect everyones opinion, they may be right, they may be wrong. Just like me.”
Gordon Smith
“Much as I felt after watching The Secret – yes, all through. I did so in the hope that it would not only repeat, over and over, the same groundless platitudes assuring us that there is a Law of Attraction and that it was scientific, but actually say how it was scientifically grounded. If the aim was to get the grounding not platitudes then it was a waste of time. But my aim was to see whether it gave such a thing or not, and I did find out… success of a sort. It’s not as if I even found all the talking heads trustworthy – you know, how one could imaging seeing and hearing Michael Faraday in the 19th Century. Not one of them fit to look at his boots let alone lick them… in my opinion.
Let’s get it straight. People say “It’s scientific” – don’t make it so.
People say “It’s quantum physics” – euphemism for “I don’t know and you aren’t going to either”.
I watched also some demonstrations showing the action of sub-atomic particles which carried the “What the bleep” label – have found similar here, doubtless evoking quantum physics findings, and cannot see what it has to do with consciouness. I was daft enough at that time (have found similar today so as to offer a link) to think that having googled for “What the Bleep” I was looking at actual content from it, and thought, “Oh a little bit of science after all” but extending it to consciousness and thoughts becoming things – what planet are they on?”
Maurice Poole
I know the harsh realities of life exist: illness, violent war, political corruption etc. I don’t think the law of attraction is the only force at work in the universe but I am open-minded to the theory that visualisation / belief / attitude can help you overcome personal adversity. IMO, people aren’t responsible for everything negative that happens to them (possible explanations: the will / intent of others including an omnipotent God (not sure about that one) or perhaps they have subconsciously chosen to experience something in this lifetime in order to learn and challenge themselves?) And you can’t change what happens in the world in general, without a mass of collective consciousness who believe in the same principles.
I interpreted the ‘subjective’ model suggested by Steve Pavlina purely as a means to loosen his thinking and alter his existing perception of reality. I don’t think that there is just me making the world go around but that perhaps the consciousness of the entire human race combined is sending out mixed messages? I seem to remember that CWG doesn’t advocate ignoring poverty and injustice but to be proactive in supporting organisations like Amnesty International and Oxfam, writing letters to mps etc. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
This thread and the film trailer for The Secret inspired me …………….
http://thecorporatevoice.com/truthtrailer.mp3
Philip Banks
http://www.philipbanks.co.uk
Further musings from my friend:
“The Law of Attraction is basically low-end marketing to brainwash the people who aren’t going to make it big in life. These are mental tricks to salve the fractured egos of people not cut out to be major players in the business world. Instead of explaining the law of averages (for every Richard Branson there are 350,000 people who need to work at lower levels in the service industry) it is far more lucrative to sell them a book, a DVD set or a wealth seminar with the message “You’re special and you’ll make all your dreams come true”.
The seller of the product is happy he’s made a sale and the buyer is thrilled at investigating his full potential to realize his greatest dreams. It’s a con.
Comparison is the source of ALL unhappiness in life. How do you know you’re unhappy with your lot until you see and determine that your neighbor has more things, better things, than your family? You don’t. If people would just give themselves credit for being smart and be grateful for their situation they wouldn’t fall for all this “fake it till you make it” stuff.
But these Amway-type seminars are always focused on “I was a loser like you until I …” sales pitch. The sad thing is, a guy working in the shop and helping support his two kids while his wife teaches at secondary school is NOT a loser. He’s just a guy with a family who pays his taxes and stretches the family’s income to include everything everyone needs. Next to Alan Sugar this guy only has less money. That doesn’t make him bad or less-than. But most people think having less money means you have less worth. Fix THAT perception and people become content and at peace with the world. These same content people also have a healthy “f*ck you” attitude too.
I’ve always believed if you don’t want to be angry, unhappy or upset then stop comparing what you have to what others have achieved. I don’t know if it works for everyone though.”
Again, my sentiments exactly, but expressed more powerfully.
Jane Hatton
“Here’s my considered view on all this (not that my view matters but I’ve watched this unfold and looked at all the material).
Belief in identifying goals and thinking about how they might be achieved is good. You’ll spot things that can help you on your way which you might miss if they weren’t at the forefront of your noodle.
Going beyond this to believe the crap in that video, particularly after the hard debunking of the cast of characters and deliberate mis-quoting is very, very silly indeed. I despair of this whole area of pseudo-scientific crap that ‘can’t be tested but you know some things exist that couldn’t be tested etc. blah blah.’ Here’s the news. If you can’t test the results – they don’t exist.
Andy mentions James Randi and his Million Dollar challenge. Anyone who can prove any of this mumbo jumbo works can claim the million. Now what daft justification will we get for why this doesn’t happen? It’s not like that Richard. You can’t use it for personal gain Richard. There will be some rules that conveniently mean that this amazingly powerful bunkum can’t be used in any way that would prove it exists. Cough convenient cough.
Real science is about formulating a hypothesis and then gathering and testing evidence to see if it best matches the facts.
Science is not, “oooo there’s no evidence for this but we’ll just assume it’s true and someday someone will find a way to test for it so there.” I also don’t think it’s about listening to someone who is channeling another person. You see this breaks down when you ask why nobody ever channeling someone hears news about where some stock market shares are buried or a deed to a gold mine. Never happens…. you just get mindless guff that Derrin Brown debunked brilliantly.
A very good friend of mine believes in the laws of attractions. They won’t wear a seatbelt because it would ‘attract’ an accident. They won’t stay out of dodgy areas in cities at night because that would attract an attack. As various people have stated this assumes that your will is the only thing in the world and that someone else who actually is attracting an accident (according to this pottiness) or attracting bad things being done to good people can’t over-ride your thoughts.
I mean really….. can’t you see this. The full blown LOA only works if you are the only person on the planet and the rest of us are …… oh never mind.
Want to do well. Have a goal, think about it a lot and figure out how to get there. Putting your critical thinking faculties on hold is not going to help you.
Remember the value of your reputation can go down as well as up.”
Richard AD Jones
“I try, honestly, but my utter despair that grown adults can honestly say without feeling stupid that anything like ‘The Bleep’ and ‘Secret’ are anything other than cons makes me feel utterly perplexed and a little sad.
And a note on being ‘open minded’. In these instances an ‘open mind’ is an excuse for not having to think too hard about stuff. If you truly had an ‘open mind’ then you’d look into it and instead of thinking ‘ooh, it sounds complex perhaps it is true’, then you’d actually work this stuff out and realise it’s a crock.”
Andy Calloway
“If people can’t explain stuff they just accuse the other person of, “not having an open mind.” You are completely correct.
Open minded is reviewing the evidence and taking a view on the topic without any preconceptions.
Open minded is not opening wide and swallowing anything shovelled your way without thought.”
Richard AD Jones
“open your mind ….. ..and your wallet”
Chris Green
“The problem I have with the whole of this thread is that no one has actually defined what the “Law of Attraction” or how it comes to called a law in the first place. Is it like a law of physics? This is defined by Wikipedia as
“A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior. They are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments over many years, and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community.”
In which case there will be scientific studies showing how the law was developed, the hypotheses being tested and how they were tested. If it is not using this definition then there is a need for a further definition of what is meant by a law.”
Bernard Ramsden
“I try, honestly, but my utter despair that grown adults can honestly say without feeling stupid that anything like ‘The Bleep’ and ‘Secret’ are anything other than cons makes me feel utterly perplexed and a little sad.”
And I feel terribly disheartened that so many folks are so rigidly cynical / skeptical. Just because someone has beliefs in something that cannot be scientifically proven ie: God for example, doesn’t necessarily mean they are foolish, gullible or dillusional. A large proportion of humanity have some kind of religious or spiritual belief system and have a subjective view of reality according to their own personal experiences. Don’t mind reasoned, logical arguments as Andy Smith provided but if comments just degenerate into, “If you believe this new age crap, then you are naive or stupid” that just sounds dismissive and patronising to me. It appears that we are never going to agree, which is a shame…
Maybe these particular films don’t present such ideas in the most effective way but it’s the overall theories that interest me and encourage me to continue questioning and exploring the status quo. As Nick mentioned, I take what reasonates, and leave the rest. If people are exploiting the public with purely the intention of furthering their own status / power / financial ends in a self-appointed guru manner and have no real ethics, integrity or will to aid spiritual enlightenment, then they are disingenuous, it doesn’t mean the law of attraction itself doesn’t exist.
“OK, let’s try an experiment. It’s an easy one and whether you answer or not will explain a lot.
Do you believe that there is a teapot in orbit between here and Mars?”
Andy Calloway
http://www.callowaygreen.com
“Maybe these particular films don’t present such ideas in the most effective way but it’s the overall theories that interest me and encourage me to continue questioning and exploring the status quo”
“This I believe, is the crux of the comments though. It hits a raw nerve with many ecademists that people out there are pretty keen on packaging a theory to make as much money for themselves with as little effort as possible. It’s also ‘presented’ in a self seeking, self serving manner. They also try and add credibility by using scientific terminology which as you can see is easily ripped apart by those with scientific knowledge and background.
Now, if you take the raw fundamentals that the film presents and experiment, search, evaluate, come to your own conclusion then thats your time spent as you like and no-one can argue with that. BUT .. I think the fear here is that people will buy this DVD with the intent of attracting wealth with the minimum of effort, and the main people attracting the wealth are the ‘gurus’ that made it. Hope that makes sense.”
Chris Green
http://www.callowaygreen.com
“I don’t think you should be disheartened. I don’t think people are rigidly cynical or skeptical. However, when someone promotes a film that purports to make such grand claims and links them to science I think that some level of review is permitted. In particular, this film appears to be a rather cynical promotional tool for a particular organisation and so it’s fair to provide some degree of journalistic balance to things.
The theory works. There’s no doubt of this – up to a point. Have a goal and go for it. Think about it and you’ll be more aware of opportunities that would further it. Be positive about it and you’ll ride through the waves that life sends to crash into you. This just works – no question.
However, when some guru tries to explain it in quantum physics terms and their credibility (and that of the film) is undermined then you take what you believe (the paragraph above) and the rest you ignore and don’t worry about. If people really want to believe what a 35,000 year old person from Atlantis is telling them through someone who makes a nice living by being the mouthpiece for said channeled spirit then there’s really not much one can do for them.
This isn’t being cynical – it’s just navigating between the truly great spirits (Martin Dewhurst) and the con artists and fakers wishing to make money off the back of the rest of us.
Now rather than ‘bunkering up’, could anyone who believes in the film please provide some counter evidence that supports the quantum physics theory (that the film puts into play by talking about it) or that shows independence in the production team or that the lady isn’t coining it by channeling Ramtha etc. etc. I really don’t find the “you don’t get it because you’re a rigid thinker” argument a very compelling one.
Please stand up for the film as there must be evidence for the film’s contents that has not been seen.”
Richard AD Jones
“Now, if you take the raw fundamentals that the film presents and experiment, search, evaluate, come to your own conclusion then thats your time spent as you like and no-one can argue with that. BUT .. I think the fear here is that people will buy this DVD with the intent of attracting wealth with the minimum of effort, and the main people attracting the wealth are the ‘gurus’ that made it. Make sense?”
Yep, common ground found. Thanks. This was kinda the point I was trying to make. Just got the impression that spiritual / new age theories in general, the law of attraction and anyone of that inclination was being ridiculed. I do believe anything which begins to be obsessively followed to the extent of a religion or cult is potentially dangerous. So would advise folks to take anything with a pinch of salt. It’s important to retain a sense of humility (avoid becoming holier-than-thou) and to continue thinking for yourself, IMHO.
“Answer my question:
Do you believe that there is a teapot in orbit between here and Mars? ”
Andy Calloway
Nope but anything’s possible….
“Questors can have a hard time. When you are not already sure what you think and believe, when you are not just waiting to push your own ideas down someone else’s throat, when you are openly looking around you in life for pointers and clues to how things work, or what really matters, not knowing where the reliable indicators are, you risk of being seen as gullible and naive. I think Jen (that’s me) is quite brave in speaking out about her quest. And even very dodgy material such as this video and film do have elements that seem to speak to questors – though I agree that is not who they are aimed at!
I think it would be sad if anyone were to be put off their quest by responses on a thread like this, or feel that they could not safely say that they were looking for something, though not sure what.”
Kathleen Fedouloff
“I’ve been trying to apply the law of attraction principle in my work with clients for a while now. The way in which it appears to work for me (from experience with 20 plus clients) is that the range of possibilities has to exist mentally emotionally and physically ( i.e. the environment has to have the ability to generate an event as well as the mind having the ability to accept it). when directing visualisations with clients I’ve found that it is possible to obtain results at the top of the possible range of outcomes only if contitions on the inside and outside match.
If this principle is to be used effectively in any major way to increase health or reduce poverty then its major role is to open minds to the possibility that things can be done differently and will produce different results. The model I use is similar to the way that a website is optomised around keywords being searched for. This would appear to me to be a clear physical equivalent to what is happening inside my mind when I’m visualising for myself or a client.
The keyword “trees” are the equivalent of neural networks being activated by visualisation. Thats as far as I’ve got so far with developing a useable model but at least it makes sense to me.”
Dennis Barker
“Nothing that I or other say will have much effect on deep rooted beliefs, it’s as hard as talking someone into or out of a religion.
At the core of most of what is being written (I do not say about because that is largely not what is going on) is allied with Jung’s archetypes, taken into New Age.
A dire warning about that part of Jung is ignored by many and it is this: there is no connection whatsoever between the internal brain thought world and the real world __even where it looks similar__
The idea that there is a connection has no rational proof or evidence supporting it.
I am not saying it is untrue just that there is no evidence, and this is key to many things: basic rule — it is up to those who say it is true to prove it, not for others to do the logical impossibility of proving a negative.
You can have a belief but stating that it is true is liable to challenge.
The attempt at connecting the two, internal world and external world, seems to often include quantum effects.
The reality is that many things are unknowable, unknown such as the infinity of space. We do not know, is beyond comprehension.
There is a lot more I could say. Maybe a little.
A good deal of this involves the highest fantasy levels of the brain, where kids learn to do that kind of fantasy and take it into adulthood. Most adults can tell the difference between fantasy and reality even when in that state.
It is that which makes fiction works so attractive, including films of the kind mentioned, engineered to be highly emotive. (I cannot comment, not seen it nor do I have the slightest interest, in fact I originally had to ask what it was)
And we have the human fascination with patterns, see them everywhere, including the stock market… which is just adult gambling, another manifestation of the effect. Most of time the patterns are mirages leading to a wallet adjustment, thinner, based on dreams.
That basic rule, follow the money is so often true if you want to get to the bottom of things. Even with sects, strange how money always figures.
Same goes with the fairground showman selling a snake oil thrill, he knows what those attending want and gives it to them, in exchange for a consideration.
Any here who are especially concerned could try this serious research piece >> http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
The opposite work has I believe been tried but you will have to go look yourself.”
Tim Channon
“The Law of Attraction is all about the idea that we literally create our own reality through our most strongly held beliefs. This in turn is based on the idea that the universe responds to consciousness, that the universe is actually made out of the same stuff as consciousness. Consciousness is pretty much invisible to current science. We have no instruments to measure it. So those who defend the LOA tend to base their belief in personal experience. Those who are sceptical employ all kinds of arguments.
One favourite is that there is no scientific evidence to support it (not that there is positive scientific evidence to disprove it, mind – something worth remembering).
Another favourite challenge is that people will interpret their own experiences to fit in with what they want to believe. This is patently true, and is as patently true of sceptics as it is of LOA supporters.
Often reason is invoked, and LOA is dismissed as wish-fulfilment on the part of those who defend it. The Law of Attraction is all about wish-fulfilment. That’s what it is. So using that as a counter argument is kind of like saying that the people who believe in the Big Bang have no credibility because they are just a bunch of Big Bang believers. Errrr … yep.
It’s also pointed out that the idea that one won’t be able to practise the LOA consciously while sceptical is just too convenient to be credible. The whole theory of the LOA is based on belief (because it’s based on consciousness), but in order to increase the credibility of their belief-based theory adherents should say belief isn’t necessary? Hmmm.
Okay, for those people reading this who think of themselves as intelligent, rational and reasonable sceptics who believe LOA is a fantasy system that is passed down to gullible people, here is something I would just like you to read and then analyse with all your powers of reason …
Think of the people you know. Think of the people you pass in the street. Are these people experiencing the world in the same way that you are? Be reasonable about this. Be rational. Be truthful. Because it’s okay for you to admit that other people experience the world differently from you. You don’t have a problem with that. You believe that the world we all inhabit is an objective and, to some extent, scientifically measurable world. In other words, it’s there, and it is what it is, regardless of how any of us individuals perceive it. Is it okay for me to say that this is what you believe? Is it okay for me to say that you believe your own experience of the world is subjective? It is based on your own imperfect senses, your own particular personality and brain chemistry, etc. Is this fair for me to say? So, to labour the point: You think that the real, objective world exists outside of you, and the world you are actually experiencing is a kind of facsimile of the real thing delivered to you through your various senses? Be honest. Is this your model of your world? Because that doesn’t sound unreasonable.
All I want to say is this … regardless of which of your bodily senses are fully functioning or deficient, regardless of how well balanced your brain chemistry is or what kinds of mental health issues you may or may not encounter through the course of your life, the world you experience during that life is the only world that will ever be real to you. It’s the only world you will ever know. When you talk about the real world, the objective world, you are only talking about a place that you have heard of. Nothing more. You haven’t experienced it objectively, and neither have the scientists who have told you what its nature is. You will live your entire life in your own world, every single moment.
Now if you want to believe in a world that you can’t directly experience, a fixed truth that you can’t directly perceive, but that science has told you is there, outside of yourself, because you trust these people of science to know better than you, then go ahead. Seriously, why not? We can do what we want. It’s cool. But why try and tell other people, whose worlds you haven’t experienced, they are living in a fantasy that has been passed down to them, and that you are not?”
Ian Moore
“If we have to go around disproving things then that’ll turn science on it’s head slightly won’t it.
The rest of it doesn’t address the basics of this. Goal setting and positive thinking works. The evidence about The Secret (though not scientific proof that it is crap) has been presented. If someone wants to put forward specific counter arguments to the charges raised by the skeptics then let’s see them. Otherwise there are some major concerns that the impartiality and quality of evidence outlined in the film are below the standard we might hope for.
Regarding out subjective realities, the only response I have to Ian’s comments are that I don’t understand the point. I’ll try (and probably fail) to put my understanding in similar terms.
There is a reality in the world. If I am burnt I feel the flame. If I talk to someone then I hear their words and they hear mine. We might not fully understand the other person but I experience the world day to day and believe that my experiences are a pretty accurate reflection of what happens around me. They are certainly my best understanding of what happens around me. Sometimes I am wrong. Peripheral vision lets me down or I mis-recognise something. However, this is me failing to understand the reality around me.
Now can I influence this reality? Hell yeah. I can react, communicate, identify, sort, exploit things in line with my dreams and goals. I can create a storm of bad stuff around me too if I believe it’s going to happen. I don’t react at the right time, I don’t seize the chance. I programme myself that it’s all going to fail and it becomes true. To that extent I am creating my own reality and destiny. Hopefully you’re still with me.
The bad bit is when a film like this tries to build on the above. I think most people would get the last paragraph. Some would nod and maybe never truly get it but I think it’s realistic. I once asked if anyone had ever dropped a tray of snooker balls on some stairs. A second or two later I became the first person to. Hypnotic language commands, belief – call it what you will. However to then try to provide a cosmic explanation for this that should be divorced from the normal rules of rational thought, is where the people on this thread have said stop.
The key problem is this. Glenn wisely suggested that wealth is not about money. Quite right. Where we ask for things that are in abundance then there’s not a problem. The LOA don’t fall over because we do have a huge capacity for love for example. We’re not normally in competition for a finite amount of love. However, when we think about money or possessions then the LOA appears to suggest that I can believe in getting those things and they will come to me. They therefore won’t come to others. My will over my own reality will mean I get the contract over the other guy. But what happens if he believes in the LOA. If he believes as strongly as me then who wins. If the population of the Earth wanted one thing and all believed in the LOA then who would get it? The only way the LOA stand up is if my will over-rides those of others – making me special? Making me some kind of God? Isn’t that what people start to believe before they pop off to McDonald’s with an AK47?
Seriously, is people want to believe in this then that’s fine. I totally support the underlying belief that positive thinking will help you maximise opportunities in your life. The extension that this is part of some scientifically flimsy, cosmic power is un-necessary.
The problem with the ‘science can’t explain it’, suggesting left brain thinkers ‘don’t get it’ or any of these other arguments that blame the faithless people who need proof is that this isn’t the only idea that can be supported in the same way. David Icke’s theory that we’re all being controlled by lizards is probably more compelling – there’s a good explanation for why we are unaware because the lizards make sure we don’t find out! I’m not sure why the complete LOA remain so impervious to rational explanation (at least in the Secret’s version). Must we believe Icke and every other wacky story out there? No. We think about things and apply our rational mind – even if we are open-minded. Sometimes among those we may discover things that are astonishing and incredible. We just don’t find them if we believe everything. So in applying our minds to the Secret we have questions. Please don’t deflect them or imagine they don’t count. Someone take the time to explain why the skeptics are wrong about Ramtha and the mis-quoted physicist.
To summarise in case of misunderstanding. I do think the positive thinking stuff works. I don’t believe that my will over-rides that of all others – I just think being aware of what I want makes it more likely that I will spot the chances and take them.
I’ll leave the philosophy to others.”
Richard AD Jones
“Interesting thoughts, of course we all percieve every aspect of experience and life differently, we all operate from the basis of our own values and experiences.
As a young teenager I had a series of spiritual experiences which were “Out of this world” by that I mean out of my ability to rationally explain, and also outwith my ability to adequately describe in either intensity or quality.
So from my perspective I Know that there are things that are beyond our understanding at this time, and beyond our definitions and scientific explanations.
Just so you know the experiences I had were of absolute and total love and righteousness beyond description. You may scoff but I assure you this is true.”
Gordon Smith
“My view is that this is a pile of exploitative drivel ladled with pseudo-science sauce – heaped on top of something immensely valuable and useful. I don’t feel the need to believe these things all or nothing but can pick the good stuff and throw away the stuff put in by a lady and organisation making money from the concept of chaneling a 35000 person from Atlantis. To believe that you have to have several Grand Canyonesque leaps of faith. A) You can channel people. B) Atlantis existed. C) It existed 35,000 years ago. D) This lady has been chosen to pass these thoughts on to us and can understand this other person’s language. E) The physicist was telling the truth in the ‘edit’ of his words and had been ‘got at’ afterwards to deny he meant what was shown in the film. F) The organisers do not have a demonstrated vested interest in putting forward this perspective……..and on and on.
I’m afraid even Evil Kneivel wouldn’t get across that kind of gap without being blind fold. Which then gets us back to believing lizards rule our planet, that Egyptians were aliens, that pyramids are spaceships, that …….etc. etc.
Being discerning is to spot when people are taking a ‘truth’ and bending it to their own purposes. There is enough evidence to surely raise a question here? Re-arrange …. minded…..close.”
Richard AD Jones
“I haven’t seen The Secret. I saw What the Bleep and struggled to remember much about it afterwards. My post isn’t intended to defend those films. It isn’t even intended to convince people that the LOA exists. Not out to ‘convert’ anyone, honest. The only purpose of my post is to ask those here that criticise LOA adherents as being gullible or foolish or irrational to stop and reconsider that. What is rational to you is rational to you because of your experiences. The same applies to everyone else. That’s all. It’s no big deal. Where’s the need to tell people they are not rational? We have no idea what is rational to another person because we have no idea what their experience has been. It’s just about having a bit of respect, that’s all. For the rest of it, I think some very good points have been made by the sceptics here. Like I say, I’m not defending the films.”
Ian Moore
There was lots of stuff thrown in to ‘What The Bleep Do We Know?’ to my mind. Need to watch it again or indeed finish reading the book to get more of a handle on it all. I don’t believe that people can’t see material objects ie: ships if they have no knowledge of them, although this is possibly true for aspects of the spiritual world, alternate dimensions, auras / energy, ghosts etc. Someone’s testimony was warped, yep that’s wrong but was it intentionally malicious? Either way, for me, it doesn’t deflect interest from the overall theories discussed. Views from both sides of the argument would make it more of an investigation / documentary. I don’t know if this woman was channelling Ramtha? but I would be open-minded to such phenomenon. Again, I’d say it’s the overall theories that interest me, not particularly who is explaining them. The ‘Secret’ on the other hand seemed very singular to me, focussing mainly on the LOA. I don’t think that the Royal Family are lizards but find ideas such as we are all inter-connected by metaphysical energy and can manifest reality via consciousness quite plausible.
“You are absolutley correct on this one it is always working…. ALL the people and I mean EVERYBODY who applies The Secret CONSCIOUSLY are very happy go giving, colloborative, and leading productive fullfilling lives, if you dont fit into that group you should have a good look in the mirror, the person you need to talk to is always available, just go and have the meeting….
If you do fit into that group of happy wealthy caring sharing human beings and dont beleive in the Law Of Attraction, you are already succesfully applying it whether you realise it or not and whether you accept it or not, you justrelate to it differntly or call it something else.”
In reference to the teapot: “NO it would serve no purpose by being there… So would not be attracted there….. Man created the teapot for his convenience whilst we are living in this physical thing we call a body….
What was your point any way?”
Steve White
“I quite like your summary above Steve. However, I think you should declare you are partnered with the impressive speaker Bob Proctor who talks about the Secret (on things like Larry King Live no less) and sells the DVD on his site (as well as doing a bit of network marketing of his learning products).
Thanks for responding – I think your expertise might help with some specific questions.
Is the lady is channeling Ramtha (a 35000 year old person from Atlantis) in your opinion.
Why was the physicist misrepresented and what is the value of the contents if he was?
What is there of substance beyond the undoubted (on my part) usefulness of thinking positively.
Esther Hicks (another lady who makes her living by channeling others) and who is a key proponent of the LOA says the following…
Equally, if something bad happens to you, then in some sense it was your own doing, because you must have aligned up your bad vibration to encourage or endorse it[2]. An example – when referring to the people who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks, Abraham says “There are no victims, there are only co-creators.”
That leaves me more or less speechless. So everyone in the building was a co-creator? Everyone who believed in the Secret/LOA would not have been in the building?
I note Esther also believes that a person who is truly harmonious will cease having cellular degeneration – which to the layman means live forever.”
Richard AD Jones
“If you do fit into that group of happy wealthy caring sharing human beings and dont beleive in the Law Of Attraction, you are already succesfully applying it whether you realise it or not and whether you accept it or not, you justrelate to it differntly or call it something else”
How convenient.”
Gordon Robb
In answer to the question: “Do you believe that there is a teapot in orbit between here and Mars?”
Best mate Phil says: “No, but I’ve heard of flying saucers!” Why didn’t I think of that one…Damn it….
“Think of it this way. When you get up in the morning you are woken by one of two things. An external stimulus such as a screaming child, someone outside or an alarm clock or an internal stimulus such as your ‘body clock’ waking you up.
Deep seated evolutionary reaction to some kind of time-balanced and synchronised stimulus prompts your brain to awaken. Not in one go, but slowly. Firstly it increases heart rate to start pumping more blood around the body, then it ‘pushes’ the brain to ‘fire up’ in effect and begin to make sense of the real world. I say ‘real world’, but what if something went wrong? As you know, dreaming is incredibly vivid and often when you’re in a dream, you can’t tell.
Sometimes when dreaming you find yourself actively taking part in the dialog, but very often you are constrained as if some force is stopping you from doing what you want to do or saying what you want to say.
As everything we see, hear and touch is simply external stimulus being translated into neurological patterns to be descrambled by the brain, each of us is simply a simulation. Our brains are the simulators and they take the stimulus and create a reality. Real to us. If that stimulus comes from elsewhere, say a memory or maybe, just maybe from another dimension, could it not be that within our minds we could potentially be playing out someone else’s memories? Or even someone else’s life? Maybe, just maybe we are not who we are? Maybe we are simply an externalisation and manifestation of someone else’s dream?
Who can tell?
When someone talks to me the energy waves are simply hitting my inner ear and being transmitted to the brain via nerves. These transmissions take what is said and descramble them into something that the brain can cope with. However, what if the brain gets it wrong? I’ve already proven above through description of the dream state that it is possible to get stimulus from elsewhere.
What if, when someone talks to me I pick up on one of these external stimuli and it affects the ‘translation’ of what is being said. Maybe I won’t hear what the person is saying, but what the person meant to say? Maybe this is how some people who appear to be extremely good listeners are actually operating?
The same is true with the other senses such as smell and touch. When we touch something, the nerves in the finger transmit signals to the brain which are tuned in and passed on into our internal simulation of our own world. As these things are simply nerve impulses, this means that you don’t have to actually touch anything in order for those impulses to be triggered. This has been proven by those having prosthetic replacement limbs. Very often they are able to still ‘feel’ their limb is there, even when it has been gone for some time. Also, this is an area of science that is being investigated by people such as Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University who looked into the possibility of using these neural triggers to actually articulate a robotic arm as if it were connected to the host.
So there you go. Perhaps there is something in ‘The Secret’ after all.”
Andy Calloway
“I used to say “Boll*&ks” a lot to things that I found illogical, nonsense or just plain weird. One of the things that used to totally perplex me was the number of respected-by-their-peers-scientists who were also openly spiritual and/or religious.
Imagine my shock, a few years ago, when reading in the Science and Technology section of The Economist an article about the observable proof that about 10%-15% of matter (at the sub-atomic level) pops into and out of existence at any one time! How could I say “Boll*&ks” to that apparent nonsense?
And what about Einstein? He wrote all of these life changing papers in scientific language yet he literally dreamed up some of the stuff by doing daft things such things as imagining riding a beam of light etc!
(As an aside, it took me at least 30 years before I finally understood why e=mc2 is so powerful and useful in my daily life).
For me a breakthrough moment with all of this “used-to-be-called-weird” stuff came with a significant “Aha!” moment that was a long time coming.
I invite you to ask yourself these questions:
“Am I part of a system or not?”
“If I am where does the system start and end?”
“How does the system operate and at how many levels?”
“What influence does the system have on me and, what influence do I have on the system?”
“Where does my information, knowledge, experience and world view come from anyway?”
Maybe, like me, you are on a path exploring the whole idea of “oneness” or “connectedness” from either a personal, scientific or spiritual point of view. I invite you to consider that, with new information, new decisions are possible and you might wonder why reaching a different conclusion than “Boll*&ks” might be useful in many different practical ways.”
Stephen Cotterell
“p.s. If , like me you already subscribe to Scientific American, you might have already read a recent Special Edition called ” Secrets of the Senses – How the brain deciphers the world around us” (if I were the editor I would have added “… and the world within us”). The Special Edition is structured by the familiar topics of Vision and Consciousness, Smell, Hearing, Touch and Taste.”
“”As an aside, it took me at least 30 years before I finally understood why e=mc2 is so powerful and useful in my daily life”
Is there any chance you can try to condense 30 years of learning into a couple of paragraphs?”
Lydia Bates
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot – Bertrand Russell”
Tim Channon
Regarding aging: “CWG says the human body was designed to last indefinately, given healthy air, water, food, thoughts, etc. This is quite believable to me, when I look at the amazing contrasts I see in different older people. Some look so ravaged, some look so fresh.”
The way he interpreted the bleeping ships: “It’s not that the natives couldn’t see the shape and colour of the ships, but that they could only interpret those shapes and colours within the context of what they already knew, ie the natural world. So when they saw the shapes and colours of ships and sails, they perhaps ‘saw’ unusually shaped clouds or something. It reminds me of the ‘somebody elses problem field’ in Hitchhikers, which allows Slartibartfast to park a spaceship in full view of the public, but their brains kind of slide over it.”
Ian Moore
“CWG?
I don’t know who/what CWG is but I’m going to suggest that “the human body was designed to last indefinately” is not true, not on an individual scale anyway. The human body is designed in order to reach fertility, to find another human body and produce some more human bodies.
So far, in the history of the world (assuming that it exists in roughly the way we perceive it) everybody who was born before 1890 has died. If the human body was supposed to just keep on going, isn’t it likely that one of them would have survived?”
Lydia Bates
Apologies, Conversations With God but the rejenerating and healing of the human body via positive thinking is discussed in What the Bleep. For myself, I think that it is possible to extend human life by using such techniques / visualisation / frame of mind etc, basically looking after your mind and your body, not sure about living indefinitely though, well at least in the physical form. I imagine you’d have to have a hugely powerful mind to defy death altogether.
“It’s something that I just feel open minded about, but if the collective consciousness of humanity is convinced our bodies can’t last much longer than 3 score and 10 years then it would take somebody pretty stubborn to go against that (not to mention somebody who can find unpolluted air to breathe, uncontaminated water to drink, etc).”
Ian Moore
“Do you believe that there is a teapot in orbit between here and Mars?”
no!”
Chris Green
My response: But you believe in God? Just curious….
“But you could just as easily say that the human body is designed to grow new limbs. After all, it’s just cell regeneration and we replace a massive number of old cells with new cells every day. And the fact that no-one has done it yet doesn’t mean that they won’t in the future.
Now it might be that medical science will make that possible, but that doesn’t mean that the human body was designed to do that, if it were designed to do that then it would already do it. We might have the capacity to extend life for the majority of people until beyond 100 years of age, but that doesn’t mean that the human body is designed for that.
The table infront of me has the capacity to withstand me standing on it, but that’s not what it was designed for.”
Lydia Bates
“PS: I still recommend reading Conversations With God above everything else.”
What did you get from that book?”
Chris Green
My response: It’s part of a trilogy but I don’t think I could do it justice by trying to explain it. It just answers all sorts of questions but encourages a looser way of thinking as nothing is either right or wrong, it just is and it isn’t. Everything in life is a contradiction, a paradox. And you experience certain things ie: negative emotions so that you can truly know / learn the polar opposite. Ugh, see, poor summary. To religious fundamentalists, it is deemed sacreligious and I imagine hard-core skeptics are deterred by the use of the term God. I’d suggest ignoring the title. The theory we are can manifest reality via thoughts in also included, can’t remember whether it is referred to as the law of attraction. I’ve enjoyed this discussion.
“Now there’s a whole different kettle of fish (but let’s not get there, this thread is messy enough as it is)”
Lydia Bates
“What on earth IS a ‘kettle of fish’? That would make very strange tea. Wow! we’re almost back at ‘teapot’!”
Simon Ellinas
Cartoonist
“Is there a kettle of fish in orbit between here and Mars?”
Chris Green
“Here is some more incoherence:
1) Everyone is entitled to their opinion (there must therefore be c9.5 billion opinions about most if not all topics relating to human beliefs and values). My opinion is mine and no more or less important than your’s.
I feel blessed that the likes of What the Bleep! (And Down the Rabbit’s Hole), The Secret, Ask and It will be Given etc. came into my life after I started to form some of my own opinions about the “weird” stuff. It is interesting how these ideas are very old but know they used “rational” or “scientific” language that they are stirring the pot.
2) My 30 years in 5 words. In essence everything is energy.
Energy transforms into matter and vice versa (light manages to do this trick all the time!). So if you or I make choices in directing or focussing our own energy guess what might just happen in the real world!
e=mc2 also means that we can choose to create. As Henry Ford once said, the best way to predict the future is to create it.
3) We are are all in different places on our personal journeys so any hope of agreement based upon our specific backgrounds and experiences is unlikely. And for the same reasons generalisations (such as the nonsense I expressed above) are not going to create a consensus.
My suggestion is to respect differences, embrace common values and wonder where they might come from. Maybe our personal Ecademy experiences give an insight, however faint, into the drive for connectedness within human experience and the wider system in which it exists?
BTW I am tempted to ask if we can blend in the science behind Butterfly effect and see if it works for you. You know the one, small changes create disproportionately large differences within the system.
p.s. What is your take on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_tNzeouHC4 ?”
Stephen Cotterell
“The problem with the butterfly is that, at the time it flaps, the effect on the world’s future is not predictable. I think Quantum Physics has something to say about that. So, getting 100 to flap in unison might not have 100 times the effect that one would have.
But then we would never know, would we? Real life, as they say, is but a sample of one.”
Laury Burr
“the human body was designed to last indefinately
Leaving aside the use of the word “designed”, which takes us into a whole new area, this statement is based on…I don’t know what. It is certainly contrary to our understanding of the biological process.
And now we are extrapolating e=mc^2 to encompass heaven knows what.
Like I said above, Stephen Hawking has got a lot to answer for.”
Gordon Robb
“Quite,
I have no problem in accepting that even the smallest action can have a massive effect on the world somewhere down the line, but that’s not the same as being able to have a massive effect on the world through the smallest of actions. The butterfly might cause a hurricane somewhere, or it might not, it might cause someone to fall of their bike, or it might cause the stock market to crash, or it might put me in the path of the love of my life, or it might not.
The idea that every action has a consequence is hardly news to anyone over the age of about 5, the idea that the world revolves around you and your every action tends to be reserved for those under that age.”
Lydia Bates
“As I recall, the reason Dolly the Sheep had an abbreviated life was something like this: DNA strands have, tagged onto the genetic code bit, a lot of extra ‘tags’. Each time it replicates itself, one of the tags drops off. In due course, there are none left and the body tissue cannot renew itself. Dolly was cloned from cells which were not embryonic in the true sense – they’d already lost some of their ‘tags’. Hopefully one of our readers can tidy up this explanation a bit…. (my memory has lost a few of its tags…)
So, life eternal – in the physical realm at least – would appear not to be plausible. Some people look more ravaged than some of their contemporaries for very mundane reasons – too many cigarettes/too much booze/too much time in the sun/poverty.”
Laury Burr
“God is not a man-made object”
Chris Green
“Some would claim that he’s a man-made subject, though”
Laury Burr
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein
The idea that every action has a consequence is hardly news to anyone over the age of about 5, the idea that the world revolves around you and your every action tends to be reserved for those under that age.
I agree Lydia. One of my many Aha! moments included the adoption of the idea that if whatever we do is for the benefit of two or more people then that’s a reasonable way to behave. Adding a touch “acting out of love rather than fear! into the mix makes it even better for selfish old me.
Personally I have a thing about those “selfish bastards” who think that they are more important than anyone else. Who died and put them in charge!!
Your comment also prompts a question in my mind about how many of our actions we take personal responsibility for and how many do we cede to the wishes of others. And that’s even before we get onto the Law of Unintended Consequences. Who makes all these “laws” up anyway? Is there a Law of Intended Consequences to balance it out?
Someone should kill that butterfly now… Chris if someone did follow up on your suggestion what would happen to the world
More quotes from Albert Einstein
* “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
* “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
* “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
* “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
* “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
* “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
* “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
* “Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
* “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
* “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
* “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
* “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
* “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
* “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
* “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
* “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
* “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
* “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
* “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
* “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
* “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.”
* “No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
* “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
* “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
* “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
* “The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
* “…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
* “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton) ”
Stephen Cotterell
“Quotations, problems. Many of these quotations could be cited by either side of the argument against the other. Clever chap, Einstein. Liked Mozart, I recall.”
Laury Burr
Absolutely love discussing and analysing the nature of existence from every possible angle. It gives me a euphoric or enlightened feeling, if that makes sense? I think it is very useful for us to come together, the spiritual and the scientific, in an attempt to reach some kind of consensus, offering our own views and beliefs, whilst still being willing to question and revise them. I feel such debates increase growth, tolerance and understanding and may actually help increase the critical mass of consciousness required to aid human evolution. Hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious, am just idealistic.
“My sons’ physics teacher used to say “Everybody would die of cancer if they lived long enough”. What he meant was that if you were healthy in all other respects, you would eventually develop cancer because of the natural levels of background radiation.”
Bernard Ramsden
“I am afraid you are a little misguided and misinformed, I work with Bob Proctor here in the UK, Bob did all the work for the Secret For NO MONEY not a sheckle not a nickle….. he never even asked them for expenses, he tithed ( you may want to check this word out it means to give freely without condition) his time and his expertise for a project that he believes in and has dedicated his life too.
He is 72 and does not need the money he does however have a strong desire to help people understand how life really works…. He wants to help people become AWARE…. Awareness is everything and if you are not living in awareness then by definition you are living in its polar opposite which is ignorance… This is also a Law everything in the unverse has an opposite left , right up and down, inside outside, question… answer…. You cannot have one without the other. anyone care to try?
In fact it was Dr Werner Von Brauhn who was the father of the space program (remember him?) he said that the laws of the universe are so precise that we can send a man to the moon and we can time the landing within the precision of a fraction of a second…
Other laws worthy of discussion
Law of Cause and Effect (Lets see who disagrees with this one)
Law Of Polarity
Law of Gender
Law of Vibration
Law of Rythem
Law of Relativity
Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy (if you dont believe this one think about how water becomes air ether or gas and becomes water again…. And by the way we are all walking fertiliser…)
Lets get this board stirred up and sort out the men for the boys…. and see who knows their stuff…
There are so many benal small minded petty comments coming from people who don’t know and they dont know they dont know…. Go and seek the truth for yourselves read the works of Thomas Troward, James Allen, Wallace D Wattles Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale, Andrew Carnegie to name but a few. Study them with an open mind and maybe just maybe there will be little less small mindedness on this subject…
Oh by the way you get wealthy by helping others get what they want…. Step forward all those that disagree with this one, this could be called the Law of compensation….
I am happy healthy and exceedingly wealthy in every sense of the word and I have done this all based on the Law of Attraction, as i said if you are happy healthy and wealthy then you are using these principles whether you know it or not (Ignorance) whether you accept it or not or whether you LIKE IT OR NOT….
PS in Times of change the learners will inherit the earth whereas the learned find themselves beautfully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists…
ERIC HOFFER (Check him out too)”
Steve White
“Rather than lording it over us (rather unsuccessfully) Steve. Consider this please.
Just because people do not understand or agree with you does not make them small minded (the law of wind your neck in you condescending person).
Just because people do not agree with you does not make them uneducated or unread. I have read some of the books you discuss there and still don’t choose to accept blindly stuff that a lady channeling a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior says (the law of close your eyes and open wide)
Just because you are incredilbly wealthy in every sense does not make your opinion superior to that of others (the law of pomposity)
Just because you suggest those who do not agree with you are learned rather than learning does not make it so (the law of self delusion)
Just because you choose to insult people does not mean they will forget that you have not answered specific questions posed to you (the law of you can’t fool all of the people much of the time actually Steve)
Just because you quote Werner Von Braun does not make it relevant (the law of mention someone scientific and hope the halo effect covers the cracks in one’s argument)
To summarise Steve. Thanks for being so condescending. I am pleased for you that you are so special and that you are clearly so pleased for yourself. You appear to come from the perspective that you are perfect and the rest of us who haven’t swallowed the steaming pile of rubbish added on to a good theory (positive thinking) are somehow your inferior. I’m left shaking my head really.
PS I assume Bob doesn’t profit from the sales of the Secret on his website or from the spinoffs from his appearances on Larry King Live expounding this stuff? Given you rather condescendingly suggest we look up tithing (another example of Steve’s law that all or you are a bit thick) then you might check out disingenuous.
PPS Given your superiority to the rest of us (with all this awareness and learningness and things) could you tell us if you believe that lady is channeling Ramtha? Also please ask Bob why the physicist is mis-quoted in the way he claims to have been?
PPPS I like the Napoleon Hill stuff, am a practioner of NLP, have studied different aspects of cognitive psychology, am committed to lifelong learning in many ways, do a lot of left and right brain things, like and practice EFT, believe in a higher spirit etc. then please reply with something better than you’re close minded, left brained or ignorant. Specific answers to my questions will be most welcome.”
Richard AD Jones
In reference to an earlier insult about people being uneducated: I favour EQ over IQ. IMHO, superior intelligence or higher knowledge is irrelevant if you treat other human beings like crap – this applies to both sides of the argument…
“Lydia, I read you were a student of the bible. How would you compare faith with the law of attraction? “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Do you find it strange that something as intangible as faith should be described as a substance? Substance to me suggests material mass. What do you think?”
Gordon Smith
“Some thoughts on that as another Bible student……:
The greek word translated as substance is “hupostasis” – more accurately meaning ‘essence’ and it is based on the ‘evidence of things not seen.’
The rest of that chapter (Hebrews 11) talks about people that had ‘faith’ to act on things that they had been told would happen (Noah, Abraham etc.) by God. That faith was based on their past experience and the evidence that these things could be trusted.
A blind faith is not encouraged anywhere in the Bible. As with science, if you try and take an abstract view of one part of it and put a twist on it based on a pre-determined idea it doesn’t hang together.”
John Cave
“Traditionally science is used to prove things. (quote)
Whilst respecting your right to your opinion, namaste and all that, I beg to differ.
Science is all about DISproving things. The scientific method is to assert a disprovable hypothesys, and then to devise experiments which will disprove that hypothesys. If the hypothesys survives those experiments, then it becomes a theory.
So, in what way is the “Law (haha) of Attraction” disprovable? What experiment could we think up that would disprove it? Science – real science – doesn’t have get-out clauses. It doesn’t say “Oh, it *would have worked* if only *you’d have had faith*. It says “Hmm, it *didn’t* work. Therefore it’s b*ll*cks. And guess what? That’s how the Real World (TM) works, too.
Yes, I know, I know; there’s no point in even mentioning this.; Those who believe in this “law” – those who desperately want to believe they can think themselves rich without having to do any work – will just poo-poo any threat to their perfect solution. And good luck to them.
But the real world – despite what you might want to believe – is all around you and will bite you on the bum when you aren’t expecting it. Just because you believe everything will be sweetness and light – and hey, you might even convince yourself that it *is* all sweetness and light – doesn’t mean that is reality.”
Derek Sorenson
“Steve recommends a list of authors. Of these I have read Wallace Wattles’ Science of Getting Rich and find it somewhat attractive but am repelled by his repititious insistence that “it is scientific” without saying why or how. One thing is for certain, he could not possibly have based his ideas on particle dynamics or quantum physics. I downloaded Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich from some place a few days ago and have skimmed through it. It appears to portray some good sense but includes some errors I dislike – but I think that’s due mostly to his style of over-egging his pudding as they are not at the heart of his thesis. One point in his favour is his qualification of the piece of drivel we sometimes hear, “thoughts are things” because when he says that at the outset he also says “when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.” Clearly, and he says so, he does not believe in something for nothing. No mention of a Law of Attraction. That, I think, is a later fable invented to refer to some fantasy on the effects of a branch of physics not understood by most people. And my experience of these authors does not commend the rest of the list to my research efforts.
Where do all these “Laws” come from? Some seem to be applied to fairly self-evident principles though one or two have been enunciated as such in true scientific work. Steve challenges us, especially concerning the Law of Cause and Effect. I don’t know if I am really disagreeing but try this. Newton’s Laws of Motion include the principle that an action produces an equal and opposite reaction. This is a necessary part of almost all engineering calculations and whilst there is a need for further science in the sub-atomic domain it is Newtonian theory that has governed all space exploration as well as terrestrial technological development – sub-atomics apart. That is still not the top and bottom of all causality for “one thing leads to another”, often in non-linear ways, especially in social systems, and becoming more complex in advanced systems studies. The last includes the infamous butterfly effect, used in the classic James Gleik Chaos as a metaphor only, to illustrate the sensitivity of complex systems to initial conditions.
I most certainly agree with the idea of wealth creation by helping others to achieve their aims. I do not think it is so much the only way, but it is certainly the enlightened and most desirable and satisfying way I can imagine.
I’d like to know what is meant by some of the other “Laws” and where they come from. It would be difficult to make Gender a Law today unless that one is qualified. I know what I would mean by it but I dare say people are out there breaking it as we converse. I haven’t any idea what is meant, here, by Laws of Rhythm and of Vibration.
It’s all very well to give us a reading list, but when NH deals with some subjects he’d have done better to get back to best sources – to which we might refer with great profit. That of course is my opinion and I shall stick to it.”
Maurice Poole
“You have been gifted with an intellect and one of youre intellectual faculties is perception, 2 people can look at the same thing and see it differently there is always 2 sides… which is why this thread exists…
Also
Our evaluation of something is based on our belief system about that particular thing, if you choose not to believe in something then so be it, nobody here no matter how much eveidence is given or produced is going to change some peoples minds on this I learned a long time ago that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still….
96% of all the wealth in our economy today is controlled by1% of our population how did this happen? I think they probably know something, and so did Carnegie… He was the fella who was the 1st Billionaire who asked Napoleon Hill to write the book Think & Grow Rich…. There is an army of people who will credit this book as a cornerstone to leading a succesful life.”
Steve White
“You seem to have spent quite a lot of time thinking about this and working on it, so can we run a little experiment here? A little bit of platonic question and answer if you will. I’ll ask a question and you can tell me whether you agree that it is right or wrong – ok?
So statement 1 is the one that you mention in your post – that the LOA is always working. Is it true that the LOA is always working?”
Lydia Bates
Steve: “YES!”
“In fact it was Dr Werner Von Brauhn who was the father of the space program (remember him?) he said that the laws of the universe are so precise that we can send a man to the moon and we can time the landing within the precision of a fraction of a second…
Assuming the maths is right that makes a lot of sense, its relevance to this thread is lost on me.
According to this site, (http://www.tameyourbrain.com/lawperpetualtransmutation.htm) what you have quoted above are the 7 Laws of the Universe, do you believe that?
Whilst there may be some validity in some of the ideas being quoted, they are not laws, as much as anything else it is a debasement of the English language. The use of the word law is giving unnecessary gravitas to what should correctly be described as theories. This is compounded further by the application of physics type terms and unnecessary capitalisation. What people should be saying is that there is a theory of attraction that could be beneficial to some people, in certain circumstances; that would be difficult to argue with.”
Bernard Ramsden
“96% of all the wealth in our economy today is controlled by1% of our population how did this happen? I think they probably know something, and so did Carnegie” (quote)
And your point is?
Are you claiming that if everyone does what Carnegie did, we’d all be billionaires? And that those billions would actually have any real value?
Who’d be there to generate the profits to feed the billions into those pockets? Read a good book on economics before responding, please. Yes, there will be a financially wealthy few, and even fewer financially super-wealthy. But financial wealth is relative, my friend I don’t think Einstein had a monoply on that word…). If you had billions of (meaningful) dollars, pounds, whatever, would you risk your life to dig up some coal? Would you clean the toilets in an office? (Or, worse, in a pub?) Would you fly a jet full of people to Malaga/Kiev/Boston? Would you spend all day mowing the grass in your local cemetery?
Now, spiritual wealth, that’s a different matter. I could be persuaded that we could all feel a sense of spiritual wealth. At least in the parts of the world where we all have enough to eat, drink (and, occasionally, be merry…) Can we starve and be spiritually happy? Hmmm, interesting thought.
At which point, for now, I’ll bow out. Need to take care of adding a bit to my financial wealth. Reasonably happy with my spiritual wealth, though.”
Laury Burr
“You drove me to look into this and although further on in the chapter it mentions “the ancients”, Faith cannot only be applied by those who have past experience of it, else nobody would be able to get into that position, Catch 22 situation.
Reading this chapter contains some great quotes “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God ” ,,,,,,,,”Without faith it is impossible to please him”
I do take the point that it is possible to increase your faith, through the evidence of previous applications .
A good place to operate from I believe is, Pray to God as if it all depends on him and act as if it all depends on you. At the same time be positive and have faith that through your focused planning and deliberate enthusiastic action you will achieve your goals.”
Gordon Smith
“I’m not sure that I agree that faith=substance=material mass – if that were the case then someone could give me half a pound of faith to take away with me to see what it was like. I suspect that that quote uses the word in it’s alternative meaning of Essential nature; essence. >> http://www.answers.com/substance&r=67
Ok, so the law of attraction is working all the time.
Does the law of attraction work everywhere?”
Lydia Bates
Steve:”Yes!”
Lydia: “Ok, we’re getting somewhere now,
So it works all the time, and it works everywhere.
Does the law of attraction apply to everyone?”
Steve: “YES!”
Lydia: “Fantastic, so the law of attraction works all the time, everywhere and on everyone.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but the law of attraction is essentially ‘thoughts become things’. In otherwords that whatever you are thinking about, will find a way to manifest itself in your life.
Is that correct?”
“The teapot is not man made.” (quote)
who made the teapot?”
Chris Green
“Possible answer: no-one, as it doesn’t exist. It’s a bit of fun, except to Bertrand Russell who was out to ridicule what he did not understand. I try not to do that but perhaps I have just been guilty of it?”
Maurice Poole
“But I have a teapot in my house. I know what a teapot is and how it can be created. I could probably find out when the first teapot was made and i’m pretty sure that no-one took one out into the middle of space in that time until now.
Unless one fell out of a spacecraft window.”
Chris Green
“But there is no logical impossibility in it being there. Improbable and implausible yes, but not logically impossible.”
Lydia Bates
“insinuating that it was just about making money for the people that created it….. It is not
So the lady who channels the 35,000 year old Altlantean warrior (Ramtha) actually doesn’t make money out of the DVD. Looking at the cost of production and knowing the value chain for this business then I can assure you that someone is making money out of it.
At Ramtha.com you can sign up for courses at $1,000 a pop or you can buy the DVD for $30 at Bob Proctor’s website. The exposure isn’t doing Bob any harm at all one assumes for sales of his wealth creation workshops but I accept that his involvement may be completely because of his belief in this area. Unless he’s giving the profits on this stuff away though – he is profiting from The Secret either directly or indirectly and the lady channeling Ramtha is also presumably making a tidy living out of all this.
So can we get past this one point and accept that the people involved in this are making money.
Now I don’t think I’m being defensive Steve as I am defending nothing. I am just wondering if you are ever going to answer the questions posed to you or am I wasting pixels here (I have to say I suspect I am). Why not indulge the ignorant, defensive, poor, ignorant, rigid thinking, unlearning peons that you appear to be saddled with here on Ecademy according to your previous posts and just answer the questions posed?
Do you believe the lady is channeling a 35,000 year old warrior spirit from Atlantis?
Why was the physicist misquoted to support this product?
There are more questions but those seem to be the elusive ones that no-one can answer at present.
Quick recap though for the cheap seats….. positive thinking works imho….. I just hate people taking sound stuff and burying it in pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo so they can coin it in. If this was about someone selling a DVD on positive thinking I don’t think any of this debate would have happened, It’s the hijacking of a good foundation that seems to cause the upset.
PS Rather bizarrely, as I have been posting on this thread I have probably had the best two days ever for my net wealth improving. This stuff works in mysterious ways.”
Richard AD Jones
Chris Green: the question was “Do you believe that there is a teapot in orbit between here and Mars?”.
So then we would have to weigh up ”improbable and implausible” Vs ”not logically impossible” …
Andy Calloway: “No we don’t, the teapot is there. Don’t you get it?”
Chris Green: Did Dawkins put it there? Or Bertrand?
Andy Calloway: “Why did someone need to put it there? Honestly, you’re just being awkward now.”
“Perhaps he manifested it there by thinking about it. If there’s anything in this daft idea even that’s possible. But then, Dawkins and Russell know/knew a lot about some things and nothing about others which is why they spout/ed drivel about the latter. So if they can/could, so can anybody.”
Maurice Poole
“Anyone interested in improving thier Brain Power?
I was reading Dr Mercola’s newsletter today. My friend went to the site to see his 7 tips for improving brain function. Watch this and hear tip 7 on his YouTube video!
http://www.mercola.com/2006/nov/9
Regards
Steve
PS Jack Nicholas the greatest golfer of his era would not even hit a ball until he had a very clear PICTURE in his mind of exactly where the ball was going to land, he called it going to the movies…
Muhammed Ali The Greatest boxer of all time used visualisation to correctly predict 17 out of 19 fights correctly, he even named te round…. Just thoughts… That Became THINGS…
Question
Did they attract this or was it already here????
Answer
YES………
Food for thought? I wonder what if anyTHING you will make of that?…”
Steve White
“Steve says:
Question
Did they attract this or was it already here????
Answer
YES………
That’s like asking is it fine or is it wet? and answering YES! to that.
No entertaining the possibility that Ali was good enough to finish a fight in any round he chose, then. Or that Nicklaus had the ability to land the ball where he wanted. I think both those are true, and that positive thinking (as per Richard Jones) was likely to have been purely mental focus for the task in hand. Why do we need a “sub-atomic” theory to say they manifested their winning tricks? It’s enough to say the sportsmen were dedicated to excellence, focused on their tasks and applied their skills. Now I challenge LoAers to say that is not a proper description.”
Maurice Poole
“I think people here probably understand and believe in visualisation. That might be the Formula One driver mentally rehearsing a lap or to exponents of “The Inner Game of Golf” or the Ian Woosnam recommended book “Masterstroke: Use the Power of Your Mind to Improve Your Golf With Nlp : Neuro Linguistic Programming”.
This is positive thinking, clearing your mind of negative thoughts and mental rehearsal. Most of us have probably got this in the old locker already. I just wondered if there was a point?
If you are trying to convince us of the power of positive thinking then you’re pushing at an open door. If this enlightens us why the 9/11 victims all attracted that death of the person dying of cancer has attracted that then I have missed the link. Of course this may not be the reason for your post.
How are we doing on the questions about Ramtha and the mis-quoted physicist? Can we look forward to anything on these matters or just further stuff on an area that is not in dispute and which many people here already have an appreciation for?”
Richard AD Jones
I actually agree that it’s a shame someone who believes and understands the whole thing indisputably doesn’t attempt to answer some of the direct questions ie: whose will wins, life’s harsh realities etc. I think they maybe protecting themselves from all the negativity (!) as it can be upsetting to have deeply held beliefs ridiculed. I’d be genuinely interested to hear from the experts what their opinions are on the negative side of the spectrum.
I’m not 100% convinced that a person is responsible for everything negative that happens to them. Could it be the will / intent of others overpowering theirs or the will of an omnipotent God? (Not sure about that one). Or do you think they have subconsciously chosen (at a deeper level) to experience something in order to learn and challenge themselves?
Is it a case of the majority of consciousness rules? For example, I could imagine there is enough hatred to bring on acts on war, but what about the victims, is their will for peace / survival overwhelmed by the opposition or do you genuinely believe that they choose that fate? If someone is suffering from a terminal illness, have they been thinking too negatively throughout their lifetime, that has formulated in a disease? As I mentioned before I don’t pressume to know the truth but will continue deliberating…
“The whole point about quantum mechanics based on the fact that, at quantum level, there is so much randomness around that pretty much nothing is predictable? Therefore at quantum level (the rather spurious building block of the LoA, as it seems to me) nothing can be influenced. Chaos theory (byes fluttering, and all that) is just that – CHAOS….
Now, I’m about to tie myself in knots. Not a pretty sight – but hey, you might care to join me…It’s just occurred to me that, as we all apparently are totally incontrol of our own destinies, and therefore of the time and manner of our passing, we are all doomed to hell. We all sooner or later commit suicide. No such things as ‘martyrs’, just self-inflicted victims.
But then again….
If the law of attraction applies to ourselves, can we use it to manifest stuff for others? Suppose Fred wants ‘X’ to happen, but Jane wants ‘Y’ – who wins? Probably been asked before – I’m losing the plot (better than being one of those who never even found it….)”
Laury Burr
“We spend time here, we think about the posts, we react in a variety of ways (positive or negative – and how you rate each one depends on your own viewpoint! – or just plain sceptical like me) and other people react to our reactions. Sure, it builds up a kind of energy, but we don’t need all the paraphernalia of LoA to explain that. Newtons’ action & reaction would do….
If all you’re saying is “whatever we do is likely to generate some form of response from at least one other person, animal or atom in the universe” how could we possibly disagree?”
Laury Burr
Of course, I don’t believe people actually wished their own death in 9/11…but I can see how there is a collective consciousness which is swayed by the intentions of humanity. For example, as greed, hatred, corruption increases to a critical mass, it generates into war between countries. So, likewise if enough people seek peace, justice, diplomacy, then there is more chance that there will be some resolution in the world. Hopefully, this is what is happening in the US, at the mo. So as an individual contributing to that process, you join the colllective with your thoughts / energy, which then has the potential to change into action / reality / change in the world itself….
John Joint: Jane,
What is “Collective Reality”?
Jane Hatton: “Collective reality is the state of events we collectively agree upon. For instance, we all agree there is a war going on in Iraq and the American government’s military has placed several thousand troops there to set up a parliamentary democracy after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Another example is that Tony Blair is the current Prime Minister of the U.K. and has been serving in office since 2-May-1997. The majority of people in the world agree this is the current state of affairs; they collectively believe this is what’s real.
Collective reality is what the greatest amount of people believe is taking place in the world from a political and economic perspective. The content of a major newspaper from any metropolitan city is a great example of collective reality.
collective (adjective): of or characteristic of a group of individuals taken together: the collective wishes of the membership.
reality (noun): real things, facts, or events taken as a whole; state of affairs: the reality of the business world; vacationing to escape reality.”
John Joint: “So if I understand correctly, it is: whatever enough people believe becomes collective reality. If so, then I am finding it hard to corelate the elements of your original blog and especially this statement:
“This is self-delusion based on exalting one’s ego and has no bearing in collective reality”
Never mind. Thinking of ego, I do believe that Blair is the UK’s PM. And that stone walls appear solid. So I guess there is a chance that I can survive in a world of many different perceived collective realities.”
“Okay let’s not worry about the benefits of positive thinking bit…. I’d like you to prove that everyone in New Orleans pretty much brought the flooding on themselves (that’s one of yours I recall Heidi), or that the starving in Africa have really “asked for it”. Perhaps you could prove that Esther Hicks (a key proponent of LOA) is correct in her assertion about 9/11 that “there are no victims, there are only co-creators.”
Or just prove any of the ‘scientific theory’ beyond the benefits of having a goal and thinking about it (which I believe). For example, I am unsure how the people in New Orleans manifested a change in weather patterns. Or was it just they attracted poverty so could not drive away? Any double blind, peer-reviewed scientific studies would be great if you have references.
I am using New Orleans as an example because of your previous comments here about it.
Anyway – well done for stepping up to the plate. The following is not directed at you Heidi – just feel the need to say the following.
Why do I get so indignant about this topic? Well it’s because there are plenty of weak and damaged people in this world and I am no fan of the people who prey on them. Sell them a positive thinking course and I have no problem. Wrap this up in pseudo-scientific bull and then sell it on DVD for $30 and you are exploiting people. Shame on these people. Really – shame on them. Helping others? It’s like copying an article from the Internet, claiming it is unique and some special secret and then selling it for $10,000 to someone. Would the parents be proud of these people? Is standing on the shoulders of giants and taking a giant ‘guess what’ on the needy that exemplary.
Did these people come up with the core idea themselves? Did they create it? No! They wrapped it in some stupid story and peddled it to the masses (unless you really believe that Ramtha is talking to you from 35,000 years after his death). Shame on them!!!”
Richard AD Jones
“I don’t have to prove or disprove it. I just reject it. It does not work here as I am proof against it. I am not saying it does not work. I don’t want to get into that argument at all. I just do not accept that it has anything to do with me, thank you very much. My faith is elsewhere and I am just sorry for anyone that rejects the truth in favour of new age fables.”
Maurice Poole
“You can achieve anything, repeat anything, with the LoA?
If I think hard enough, therefore, I have the power to disprove the Law of Attraction. Is this the 21st century oozlum bird?
Keep thinking, peeps. Keep your minds open to all possibilities. ALL of you!!….
What if death happens for a Reason?
Now I’m totally confuzzed. Isn’t that a question usually asked (equally with an implied “yes it does” as the only “acceptable” answer) by determinists? People who believe that everything is pre-ordained, we’re like trains on a track with no points (‘switches’ in US parlance) and no brakes? Isn’t that the diametric opposite of the teachings of the LoA?
Would it harm us to live as though it works? Well, depends what we want. Maybe Mugabe, Hitler, Stalin believed in LoA. Just a thought….”
Laury Burr
“The point I’m trying to make is that school gives us a grounding in common sense. Early on they teach us (well, try to) how to evaluate things, how to test things etc.
Remember all those maths problems where they write something on the board and then say x=y, prove it?
What they were attempting to do was to give the pupil (us) the tools to be able to evaluate things. Not just accept what we are told even by the teachers themselves.
In science they could just show us a video that explains how light refracts. They could then explain how it does it. But to really hit home you have to get the mirrors and prisms out, shine light on stuff and do it yourself.
No-one should just take a DVD or video (even one on Google) and just believe it. That’s not what we’re taught to do. We shouldn’t even just read a book and believe it. I didn’t read Darwin and suddenly believe evolution. I didn’t just suddenly decide ‘The Secret’ can’t possibly be true, I took what was given, evaluated and came to a conclusion.
Books, videos and education are nothing if they’re just poured without check into an empty vessel to be regurgitated to others.
Many of the posts here have some very good questions. Many of them are simply people repeating what they’ve heard without thinking about them. They’re easy to spot because they back it up with “why don’t you try it” and “you can’t disprove it”.
An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, and so far at no point has anyone in the ‘pro-secret’ camp been able to give any. There is none. It’s just “try it and you’ll see”. Unfortunately that only works for those who want something out of it.
Equally unfortunately, it’s impossible to knock down evidence if there is none to knock down and that’s where we find ourselves now. It’s just squabbling.
On one hand there is child-like squawking from (gasp) ecademy blackstars and even the owners, and on the other there are people asking sensible questions and just being squawked back to. Even going childish doesn’t work.
The teapot question was utterly nonsense and yet it provoked questions. Someone said “everything is possible” even though it most certainly isn’t. Assumptions were made and those were argued about even though it was utterly rubbish.
I gave a paragraph of utter nonsense about senses. A complete ‘brain-fart’ that took exactly as long to type as it did to write – ten minutes. And someone posted a reply as if I’d said something interesting!
There are people here arguing about something that could not possibly be true. It’s wrapped up in new-age speak as if the people telling it are some 21st century messiahs. However they offer nothing to back it up. No proof, no evidence, nothing. Just anecdotes about winning the lottery, the story of someone channeling long-dead warriors and a complete misunderstanding of quantum physics.
And yet we’re all too polite to say “shut up and grow up, this is supposed to be a discussion group for adults and you’re prattling on about wizardry”
Andy Calloway
“Definition: The effect whereby people unwilling to explain aspects of their position either find questions on this topic become invisible to them OR, when they try to answer, their responses are subverted into either comments on, or questions about, totally unrelated subjects” (quote)
Richard, I thought this effect was called politics.
In my opinion, disasters ,natural and man made affect the good and the bad and are outside (in most cases) of our sphere of influence.
Cultivating positive thinking ( a given) and working with the end in mind while consciously using emotion as the driver is a good idea. Thats it, in my opinion.”
Gordon Smith
“You believe that the law of attraction works all the time, everywhere, on everyone. That whatever you focus on manifests itself in your life, and whatever manifests itself in your life has done so because of your thoughts – right?
This is the very crux of the issue about the law of attraction. If we all attract everything into our own lives, then no-one has any responsibility for their actions. If the Law of Attraction exists then Hitler is not to blame for the holocaust because the jews ‘attracted’ it to themselves,if the Law of Attraction exists then those kids in Beslan ‘attracted’ the Chechen’s who held them hostage for 3 days and killed nearly 200 of them. The people on the Titanic ‘attracted’ the iceberg. Any child that is run over and killed by a drunk driver ‘attracted’ the driver. The list goes on and on.
Offensive? Absolutely it is.”
Lydia Bates
“You are on the money here…
Hitler attracted what he wanted in his life
Maybe the Jews where thinking” hope we dont have any problems because of our religous beleifs
The drunk driver attracted what he didn’t want, to run someone over drunk
maybe the child thought hope I dont get hit by a car, at least mum thought about it all the time
You must remember 1 thing about the Law of attraction!, most people attract what they “don’t want”
and that is the fact.”
Matthew Alleyne
“Am I responsible for what happens to me, or is the human race responsible?
does the law of attraction work on an individual level or on a global one – because it can’t work on both at the same time.
If it works on a global level then I have no individual control over the law of attraction. If it works on an individual level then each jew that ended up in a gas chamber brought it upon themselves.
which is it? either you have to admit that the law of attraction doesn’t work, or you have to agree that the jews were responsible for their own deaths.”
Lydia Bates
“Ok, so we’ll use the cuban missile crisis example again, with a large proportion of the world focussing on not wanting the russians and the americans to press the button and destroy the world.
Was the law of attraction on holiday when that happened?
I see you put a YES in the title, thank you. Ok, so now we’ve blamed the jews for the holocaust, the 11 month old baby for it’s own rape, the victim of a drunk driver for their own death, and a group of school children for a horrific seige.
How about we blame the 230,000 people who died in the tsunami for attracting that?”
Lydia Bates
“Some one wanted it!, and some one didn’t!
ying and yang!”
Matthew Alleyne
“We all brought the tsunami and katrina – just by thinking bad thoughts?
And there was me thinking that it had something to do with geology – silly me.
On that point, how did anything manage to happen before mankind developed a conciousness. Did the law of attraction exist before mankind, if so how was it working and on who/what? If it didn’t exist before mankind, then where did it come from – last time I checked the dinosaurs were still effected by the law of gravity.
What caused the dinosaurs to die out, did they attract it? What was it that attracted the ice age, and the moving of the continental plates to form mountains and oceans?
“You must remember 1 thing about the Law of attraction!, most people attract what they “don’t want”
and that is the fact.”
So if a lot of people didn’t want mutually assured destruction – it should have happened. And if another lot of people wanted mutually assured destruction – it should have happened.
It didn’t happen – why not?”
Lydia Bates
“Now here’s a conundrum:
I would argue that our parents are the creators of our lives. Or did we pre-exist, and thereby pre-ordain the success of a spcific sperm on its way into the egg? Or does it go back further – we pre-ordained the decision to copulate/make love/rape without protection/with failed protection – etc etc?
Conversely, if the conception was the result of the will of one or other parent, at what point did we as child take over our destiny? Moment of conception, moment of birth, sometime between, sometime after?
And talking of big bangs, is that how the law of attraction was first discovered? did it spring into life fully formed, or did it have its own period of evolution?”
Laury Burr
“In fairness Lydia, there are many agents in this and the determination of the Nazis to do evil things overrides any thoughts becoming things for their victims; the criminal irresponsibility of the drunken driver overrides the happy thoughts of the child; the baby was powerless to prevent by thoughts or anything else the evil intentions of the man who should have been strung up in my view.
All adds weight to rejection of LoA though.”
Maurice Poole
“Here’s my summary.
There are three main points I can see.
1) Positive thinking works. It does. It’s great to focus on things you want and by being consciously and unconsciously aware of these you tend to achieve more of your goals.
I think almost everyone ‘gets’ this and many try to adhere to these principles and benefit from them by and large. A sub-set of these people believe the reverse is true and so try to limit their contact with negative influences.
2) The Laws of Attraction take the principles in 1 and layer on:
a ‘scientfic’ explanation
a more extreme interpretation of the principles from 1
The scientific explanation has not been explained in terms that satisfy some of the people in the other thread and they would suggest it is merely pseudo-science.
The more extreme interpretation goes beyond positive thinking into a broader definition of how an individual can manifest their own reality. As a result, some people genuinely believe that holocaust victims, babies dying, flood victims etc. have brought this on themselves. This is a logical conclusion for adherents of the Laws of Attraction but attracts incredulity and outrage from non-believers. A few people have been brave enough to state that they have this type of belief.
There have also been some arguments that logically the claim of LOA adherents to manifest their own reality breaks down logically for a variety of different reasons.
Much of the defence of the LOA appears to revolve around the benefits accrued from the positive thinking in point 1. No specific evidence of the scientific aspects of LOA has been presented to date or an explanation as to how a baby (that presumably can manifest it’s own reality) deserves to die.
3) Further to the above, a number of people have commented on the Secret. This may well be because they see the benefit that is gained by following the principles therein. There is no direct harm to them in dioing so as basically they are being re-sold the principles from point 1.
However others find the Secret unpalatable because of the additions to point 1 and also because of the intentions of the DVD. The DVD is claimed to have been made by people with a particular world view and there are accusations that it is a cynical money making exercise. Specific questions have been raised about two aspects of the film namely:
the claim that the lady in the film is channeling a 35,000 year old spirit – a warrior from Atlantis
the alleged editing of the noted physicist’s words to make him appear to support the concept of the DVD when he claims that he does not
The three points get intermingled in different posts and threads making it difficult to decipher who is saying what at times.
I have also found that some people tend to avoid difficult questions about important things to them (as with many things) and distraction (asking other questions, making unconnected comments) and avoidance (just not answering) are the understandable result.”
Richard AD Jones
“Take away the mass murders of 9/11 and the natural disasters of tsunami’s ,
There can be no argument that we create our own lives, and when we change our thinking ,the quality of our lives change. If belief in the loa can be a positive vehicle to bring about happier, more upbeat and more generous natured people, then thats a good thing.
To feel that we can become more than we are, to feel that there is a compelling future that we can be excited and enthusiastic about is a great physcological tool, and yes when we are more joyful, more enthusiastic, more energetic and focused we manifest better things. We create a more positive environment we ATTRACT more positive results. We are less fearful of taking a risk more inclined to think of the great results that we might possibly achieve .”
Gordon Smith
“Interesting though, some things happen because we want them, some things happen because we don’t. WHO DECIDES WHETHER IT’S A YES-VOTE OR A NO-VOTE THAT WINS?? God, presumably.
So, Katrina and the resulting dead people. Do you feel, through your undying belief in the LoA:
1 More guilt because you’re part of humanity, and humanity as a whole brought it upon some of humanity?
2 Less guilt, because the ones who died wished it upon themselves so – notwithstanding the fact also claimed by you that humanity as a whole is responsible for everything that happens – you can, like Herod, wash your hands of the whole thing?
3 Less guilt because, having voted for the Republicans who failed to pump in enough money to reinforce the levées sufficiently, it wasn’t their fault (nor yours) that Katrina happened?
4 More guilt because (as I suspect) you voted Democrat, but they failed to win. (And did they lose because you wanted them not to lose?)
5 No guilt whatsoever for anything at all because either (a) you’re still alive, so you obviously didn’t wish it (because we’re each masters of our own destiny) or (b) everything happens because of a collective responsibility which no individual is capable of changing anyway?
And, by the way, is that collective responsibility only functioning on this tiny speck of dust we call earth, or is it really all the fault of the much larger collective community of life forms in the galaxy? The universe?
I’m finding it hard to grapple between the concepts (a) that “we are each one” and responsible for our own actions and (b) collective responsibility. I still vehemently deny any responsibility for Belsen & Auschwitz, even if I were there in a previous existence (mind open on reincarnation…)
I accept responsibility for MY actions but not for other people’s. Believing that what other people do to me is entirely my fault – and therefore that whatever I do to someone else is totally theirs [I assume the law of reciprocity applies to the law of attraction] – is a step I consciously reject at the logical, intellectual, philosophical, pyschological, emotional and spiritual levels. (Yeah, yeah, I choose to reject it!)
Now, I was just thinking (no rude comments please….) – “it all happens for a reason”, the individual and the collective….The will of Allah, God’s will, Karma……
This is NOT new. This is a re-presentation of the eastern philosophy of self-realisation (or is it self-actualisation? I forget – some years since I read about it). Recognition of the God within each of us. Except that someone’s found another way to make money out of it – not part of the greater plan, that. A bit like charging people for telling them their individual mantra. Maybe there are more money lenders to be thrown out of the Temple.”
Laury Burr
I believe in the theory of reincarnation so am probably more willing to accept the idea that you could choose to experience some form of personal adversity in one lifetime in order to challenge yourself and increase your knowledge / experience of that particular aspect of existence. I can understand why people would be outraged and angry at the mere suggestion that a person subconsciously chooses an inconceivable death or atrocity, particularly if they believe you only get one life and that’s it.
“We are living in the body that we chose for the reasons that we chose it….We chose our parents” (quote)
Well I have seen some incoherent ramblings but this takes the biscuit. And then:
the law of Attraction has been around since thought existed in whatever form
Like you’d know that eh? We have not accepted that it exists now, let alone then. And really, to be consistent, you have quoted Karl Jacobs who denies such assertions: who really knows anything!”
Maurice Poole
Maurice: You believe in reincarnation, if you want but I do not.
“it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (The Bible, Hebrews 9:27)
My reply: “Did you just quote from the bible?”
“It’s fashionable to bring all beliefs down to the lowest common denominator and restate the resulting “essence” as though it is the common rule. That results in no belief at all, and obscures the truth. Now we might not be able to agree on the truth but that’s another matter. There’s still a need to be peaceable with each other. I declare that God loves you all so I am not about to hurl insults, much less bricks, at people just because ideas may be unpalatable.
One thing about causation. There’s nothing fuzzy about realising that what I do or say (and that by nuance, tone or body language) will affect others and maybe cause them to act in ways that affect not only me but others again. When we map all this out it is remarkable, but surely not surprising, that causation comes round in a loop, maybe to reinforce my original action or to mitigate it. This might result in a complex map – I could show you some. – we might not get a wholly Newtonian “action/reaction” cause and effect, because a large part of the results (majority sometimes perhaps) comes later from the knock-on effects. This is not karma, nor making deposits in a Universal Bank, though some may see it as having likenesses. But I would not deny that I have potential to affect more events than I realise. I do not expect that to go backwards to influence the Nazis, nor to be powerful enough to cause hurricanes and tsunamis. But it puts a great responsibility on people of goodwill to try and be influences for good. We are fallible and need a basis for this. I do not see a firm footing in new-age stuff.”
Maurice Poole
No offence intended, I just found it interesting that you and possibly Chris may be coming from a different faith perspective rather than the rational, ‘anything that is unproven, unscientific doesn’t exist’ side of the argument. So you can believe in a God (and that the bible is fact?) but are less willing to entertain alternative spiritual or new age theories. As you say, each to his own….
“I am not out to make personal attacks. But entertain alternative spiritual or new age theories? I am not saying there will not be evidence that some of them do wonders, but they are not from the source I trust – the Bible specifically warns us.
Having said that, I believe it is possible that good science may find out principles that are currently unsuspected, let alone proven. That’s why I have taken a long look at this theory of attraction, even following links to many video clips, feature films etc and decided that it is not for me, whether it exists or not. I have not found any justification in the appropriation of science and I do not find a recognisable voice in the cacophony either.”
Maurice Poole
“My background is Christian, but I keep my mind open to other points of view. Specifically, my logical brain sees a fallacy in thinking “It’s in the Bible so it must be true” – because the decision behind that is the assumption that the Bible is literal truth is our own, personal decision (if we accept it all as metaphorical truth – but truth all the same – we get into dangerous areas of interpretation. Poor old Darwin….). It is the leap of faith. Equally, our Jewish friends place great store by the Talmud, our Islamic friends similarly by the Qoran – we can’t all be right as there are conflicts between them.
Incidentally, I do know that there are references in the Bible that seem to support the principle of reincarnation. I’ll return on that point when I can find the lookups….”
Laury Burr
Laury Burr: “Well that’s nonsense anyway.
Maurice, you know that and I know that. But do they know that?”
“Who? And what?
First “who?” Either you mean present correspondents, in which case let them speak for themselves; or you mean those that were or were not involved in the crisis, in which case they experienced the reality, though without doubt each of them might have constructed different versions of the reality in their individual mental maps. Well we all do, for we bring different perspectives to it, so that will apply to the first case too.
Now “what?” No-one is forced to believe it, but it seems ridiculous to me to believe in parallel universes because either something happens or it does not. The trouble arises when mathematics (which I love incidentally) gets out of control. Because of the uncertainty of observations in the sub-atomic domain all events are seen as probabilistic, that is, there is a quantified probability that this or that happens. This is based on statistical analysis and can be applied to large populations of particles. To apply it in the manner of Schroedinger’s cat – find a pleasant bit of doggerel about it here (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_122.html) (to which I wrote a response in kind but have never shown it openly) is nonsense – the cat had a 50% chance of living or dying and there is no way of predicting which for sure, but it has come to mean that the specific cat was both alive and dead, presumably reinforcing the parallel universe idea but is wholly illogical – misapplication of statistics. Think about it, if everything is probabilistic and all outcomes true as opposed to being a priori possible then there would have to be an infinite number of different universes in the same place at the same time. No, you’d have to specify a level of priority at which division would take place and deciding would be impossible. I prefer the single reality and many views of it.”
Maurice Poole
“Oh dear!
“That” (i.e. “what”) = that the concept of parallel universes is nonsense
“Who” = the proponents of LoA – yes, I do of course mean the present correspondents.
“Let them speak for themselves” – c’mon, Maurice, they’ve been given their chance to do so. I was, rather vainly, hoping that by suggesting a “parallel universe” proposition (in which I do not believe, lest any doubt remain) I would elicit some form of response from the LoA school – either accepting or rejecting that possiblity.
Thanks for the link about poor old S’s cat; I’d heard of it before but now I’ve grasped the concept. And I’d reached my conclusion about parallel universes (i.e., I believe there’s but one) by exactly the same line of logic as yours. Other universes outside and beyond ours, maybe, but that’s a whole different argument….
Let’s elect these LoA believers as our political leaders. Because, we could abolish the entire law enforcement and justice system. Because there is no such thing as a criminal. Because the “victim” invited the crime. So, either the ‘crime’ did not exist at all or – at the very least – every single “criminal” would be free to claim “entrapment”.
Sorry, that isn’t enough. No-one will respond to that. It’s too airy-fairy, too theoretical, too anonymous.”
Laury Burr
” love the dramatic approach with your comments, very interesting indeed.
You just don’t get it do you!
You attract into your life what you “feel” for, nothing to do with life’s daily occurances.
I think you should try this.
Think about something you actually want to happen in your life, then feel it on a cellular level and then see what happens. Really feel, like you actually living it…
Also, have you actually seen the movie?”
Matthew Alleyne
“Ah, but read elsewhere in this blog, Matt. We are being told by other LoA believers that people ‘attract’ what happens to them – that, for example, the Jews died in the holocaust, the 5000 or so in the Twin Towers, the drowned in the aftermath of Katrina and the burst levees, not because of someone else’s fault, but because they somehow ‘attracted’ death towards themselves.
So you’re saying they’ve got it wrong?
Gosh, it took Christianity well over a millenium to reach the Reformation (with a few earlier splits en route). Is the LoA following splitting into factions already?
And no, I haven’t seen the movie. Not yet. (Don’t have time, making all these comments here…) I’m taking my information from its disciples. Rather the way I learned about Christ, you could say.
And no, I don’t get it, quite obviously.”
Laury Burr
“Your experiences cannot prove the skeptics are wrong. Your experiences can prove that positive thinking works and that sometimes good things happen by chance. The bit they cannot prove is that, for example:
disease cannot exist in an emotionally health body
being emotionally healthy means you can stop cell degeneration (and live forever)
the Jewish people brought the Holocaust onto themselves, the 9/11 victims were “co-creators” of the event etc.
the quantum physics claims
Nor can people’s experiences prove
the lady in the Secret is channeling a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior
People can add their experiences in boxes marked chance or positive thinking but you cannot prove the full Laws of Attraction (to the skeptics or anyone in truth) with stories from people saying they asked the universe for X and it occurred so the full extent of the Laws of Attraction are correct.
Things other than experential evidence might prove the above but this has not been put forward so far.”
Richard AD Jones
“Richard, please clarify – is it the case that the lady in scarlet with the fantastic highly contestable claims appeared in The Secret? I thought she was said to be in What the Bleep. I’ve seen film footage of her preposterous and idolatrous claims. But for all the flaws I witnessed, I do not recall the Ramtha twaddle in The Secret. I have not seen What the Bleep, only the mad professor in the cartoon film showing actual quantum ideas that bears the same name. While on the subject, is the cartoon character a charicature of Fred Alan Wolf? Does anyone know?”
Maurice Poole
“Bad things happen. “Yeah, s**t happens – for a reason” Yes, the reason s**t happens is that – as you rightly say – man is (how’s this for the ultimate irony?) inhuman. But we don’t need to do anything about it ‘cos the LoA says it happens “for a reason”.
So, as I said elsewhere, let’s disband all the law enforcement & justice systems, since there is no crime. Those once perceived as ‘criminals’ were merely acting out the wishes of those once perceived as the ‘victims’ – we can’t convict them, because it would be thrown out of court as ‘entrapment’.
Let’s go further. Let’s close down the medical services. We call illness on ourselves, so if we actually want to get better we can do that by ourselves too.
Let’s close all the foodstores. If we don’t want to go hungry, we will manifest our own food. Transport? Nah, we’ll manifest ourselves to our chosen destination.
Now, obviously I’ve gone off the rails somewhere, I’m misunderstanding all about the LoA. But I don’t know quite where I slipped from the pure incontrovertible truth of the LoA into the realms of Lewis Carroll wonderland nonsense. Can you tell me where I took the wrong turn?
Please?”
Laury Buerr
I’m not sure what I believe exactly but tend to lean more towards the spiritual (New age, Buddhism etc) than the skeptical. I do believe we are interconnected by metaphysical energy and that you can manifest reality in the universe but am not sure I like the term ‘law of attraction’ and all that encompases. I haven’t mastered the technique of visualisation etc but am prepared to experiment. I don’t think that theory alone is all that exists but is part of a complex structure of contradictions, as outlined in Conversations With God. (“Whatever you believe, becomes true for you.”) Anyway, I’ll continue trying to get my head around how it all fits together, but I fear that is practically impossible. Just for clarification, Ramtha was featured in ‘What The Bleep,’ not in ‘The Secret.’
“I’m not sure the continuum is between spiritual and skeptical. I used to call the extremes California and Yorkshire but maybe the opposite end to the new age is concrete, scientifically provable – dunno. It’s not about a critical state of mind though necessarily. I suspect there are skeptics by nature who have adopted new age thinking through personal experience and vice versa.
It is interesting to expand your range of personal capabilities and so go for it. Use what works, throw away the rest and beware of false prophets (in all guises) and feckwits selling you the $1,000 version of stuff from someone else’s $10 book (or even free Wikipedia version).
Personally I quite like Jack Schwarz work on breathing and meditation, pretty much everything Jack Black does in his Mindstore for Business course, Andrew Carnegie’s ‘inner board’ and quite a lot of other stuff that works for me without straining my credulity or bank balance.”
Richard AD Jones
“There’s nothing new about any of this.
I was reading about this guff in the 70s, exactly the same as the claims made about this fanciful LOA, although not by the same name. Tuesday Lobsang Rampa talks about it in You Forever. I swallowed it whole, yup, the whole thing. I really believed that if I wanted something enough and concentrated on it enough that I could MAKE IT HAPPEN. Hey, what can I say? I was a teenager. It was before I’d had much taste of life and realised that, actually, if I wanted anything to change I had to actually DO something about it.
For the uninitiated, Rampa was an ex-Tibetan monk who magically transmogrified into a retired London taxi driver immediately prior to his writing career. I think I finally twigged when I read a book – one of his last, I think – which had been dictated to his wife by their cat. Can’t remember the title now, think it might have been Living With the Lama (or should that be Llama?).
In the end I think he just got tired of making all this crap up, and that he hoped to escape by writing utterly preposterous nonsense that even the new-agers would find it hard to believe. Unfortunately, the cult following acquired by The Secret demonstrates that he’d have had to do something a LOT more off the wall than writing a book by his cat. Some people will believe anything.”
Derek Sorenson
http://www.websiterepairs.co.uk
Yes, I am probably over-simplifying but wanted to explain where I stand in the grand scheme of things. It’s hard to articulate clearly. As you summarised, there are several different arguments running through this thread. Science and spirituality are both concerned with exploring the nature of existence in one form or another, so we are are all ultimately coming from the same place. I think the truth is somewhere inbetween or a combination of the two. I have a sneaking suspicion, we know everything at a subconscious level, but on the surface, we know nothing for definite.
“I really dislike LOA being presented as a system by which people get what they ask for. That isn’t how it works. As a broad generalisation, sceptics and LOAers can be seen like this respectively: those who believe their experience creates their beliefs, and those who believe their beliefs create their experience. The first group feel that life is something that has been thrust upon them, something that is ‘done to them’. They are adrift in an unpredictable universe over which they have no control and minimal influence … no choices, little say. The second group see life as unfolding from the self. So it then becomes about recognising that the external is a mirror of the internal, and using that knowledge as a tool for self-development, increasing self-awareness, increasing personal control over the experience of life.
The sceptics find comfort in the idea of a random, uncaring universe, because that means personal responsibility counts for very little. The universe did it to me. I had no choice. Kooky folk find comfort in the idea of a caring, responsive universe, because that means they can do something about their situation. They can take responsibility.
The second group are seen as being self-centred by the first group. This is actually accurate, the believers are self-centred, because their whole view of life is based on centring on one’s self, but not for selfish reasons. It’s just a natural starting point.”
Ian Moore
“The first group feel that life is something that has been thrust upon them, something that is ‘done to them’. They are adrift in an unpredictable universe over which they have no control and minimal influence … no choices, little say”…”The sceptics find comfort in the idea of a random, uncaring universe, because that means personal responsibility counts for very little. The universe did it to me. I had no choice” (quote)
I’m not sure where you come to the conclusion that those of us who don’t believe that we can manifest whatever we want into our lives are wandering around with victim complexes in a purely reactive manner with no control over anything at all.
I believe that I have a great amount of control over my life, and indeed a great deal of influence on the lives of those around me – in fact I suspect I have more control than some of the LOA’ers because I understand the mechanisms of the world and work with them rather than just focussing my thoughts on something and waiting for it to happen.”
Lydia Bates
“LOA does not state that belief creates experience. I think most of us would probably agree with that, whichever side of the debate we’re on (not wishing to put words in anyone’s mouths of course).What LOA states is that belief creates reality.
There is an enormous difference between beliefs creating experiences and beliefs creating reality.
The experience is what you perceive of the reality, not the reality itself. There seems to be an approach that says “your reality is different to mine, because of our perceptions”. I would suggest that reality is fixed and people’s perceptions vary. Therefore, by subscribing to the LOA, what you are actually doing is changing your perception of reality, not changing reality itself. This would explain how you can change things that happen to you (because that is strongly perception-led), but you can’t stop reality also happening where it is outside of your control (hurricane katrina etc).
This would suggest that the LOA is not universal and working all the time for everyone, regardless of whether you want it to or not. It merely impacts on your own perceptions, which can, at times, seem to have the effect of creating reality, but doesn’t actually. Most of the ‘sceptics’ contributing to this debate all seem to agree that this is the case. None seem to be decrying the attraction theory, simply it’s application as a universal “law” and the attempts to underpin it with dodgy physics.
It is, of course, logically impossible for the LOA to be working all the time for everyone, because two people can simultaneously be trying to attract mutually exclusive goals – therefore, for one of them, it can’t work. Not universal abundance, then.”
Craig Marriott
http://www.mgifs.co.uk/
“I believe in God, so my views on the Laws of Attraction come from comparing how that worldly viewpoint compares with my views on prayer and prophesy.”
“Incidentally, I do know that there are references in the Bible that seem to support the principle of reincarnation” (quote)
really???
Chris Green
Official forum for the Secret >> http://pat.powerfulintentions.com/forum/thesecret
I think that praying may be more or less the same thing, it just varies whether people regard it as speaking to God, the universe or their higher self. I guess we are never going to find any resolution on this subject, as there seem to be different strains of thought on the law of attraction, as with everything else….In my humble opinion, my beliefs are my beliefs and your beliefs are yours and whatever that construct, however you perceive the nature of existence becomes your truth / reality….it’s all subjective.
“Personal experience of something that there is no scientific proof of, I would say is a very common occurance. Not everything can be explained from within our current level of understanding.
Faith healing for example, now before I am jumped upon, I agree that in some cases an emotional, physcological shift can create what one could define as a miraculous cure, and that in fact could be explained by science. I don’t think all faith healings though fall into this category.
I personaly witnessed a young child who was wheezing horribly being treated by a doctor who told the parents to take the child into the kitchen, and put pots and pans on the cooker, to create a steam filled atmosphere, if after a couple of hours the baby remained the same then the parents were told to phone an ambulance.
The doctor left and the child was given a blessing from two church officials. The instant the blessing was finished the child instantly stopped gasping and regained a normal breathing pattern. I was absolutely gob smacked. Some things are beyond our rational understanding.”
Gordon Smith
“There was an interesting study conducted a while ago (I don’t have the references to hand I’m afraid) into the placebo effect with faith healing – they discovered that ‘faith healing’ conducted by placebo healers (i.e. those that were not healers and were just acting out a series of actions over those who were hoping to be healed) was just as effective, and in some cases more effective than the healing conducted by ‘real’ faith healers.
And coming from a family of asthmatics, I’ve seen attacks like that seemingly disappear for no reason at all more than once – with no sign of a church offical.”
Lydia Bates
“I take your point Lydia but as the child was my son and there is no history of any respiratory ailments in my family ,… My son was maybe 3 years old at the time so I don’t think the placebo affect would come into it IMO.
The study you refer to does it say whether or not the people were genuinely cured of thier sickness or ailments ?
Was it through thier belief that they were healed ? if so what conclusions can be drawn?
In my sons case, I totally believed that he would be healed, I couldn’t wait to get the doctor out of the door, so that he could recieve the blessing. But no way the baby could have related to that. I kid you not the very second the blessing was finished he stopped the horrible noise he was making.
Could this be faith preceding a miracle?”
Gordon Smith
Lydia, it was a broad generalisation by Ian to explain the respective views, weighted towards people who have a rather bleak view of the world, people who believe they are at the world’s mercy. No offence was intended, I can assure you. I imagine the majority of people fall into a combination of the two, as you and Lydia have described, taking responsibility for actions, personal empowerment but also acknowledging external factors.”And I do not accept that everything that happens is attracted into my life” I think he was trying to get away from that definition but focus more on the theory that whatever you believe becomes true / reality for you, so it doesn’t matter whatever the particular view / perspective is. This is how it becomes universal as whatever your principles, philosophies about the nature of the world becomes your reality / truth. That’s the way I understand how you manifest reality in the universe. Oh I don’t know….Help? I have a headache…
“Is it possible that the unnamed speaking blonde early in The Secret is RZK?
One thing is for certain, despite being billed a quantum physicist and a former Professor of Physics, Fred Alan Wolf who takes part in The Secret is somewhat in league with the Ramtha stuff, and isn’t he the one that tries to give an air of physics respectability to What The Bleep? As if.
Praying differs – I know God and He knows me. Universe – wouldn’t hear me if I shouted. You have a higher self? Wonder where that is. I haven’t.”
Maurice Poole
Me: It’s possibly all the same thing to me, just with a different name, God, Allah, source, energy, life force, higher self, spirit. But that’s another debate….
Maurice: “whatever you believe becomes true
What if you believe a lie?
No, I don’t accept that either.
But what you believe certainly affects what you perceive and conditions your view of reality.”
Me: “whatever you believe becomes true – What if you believe a lie?”
I’d probably answer there is no right or wrong, truth or lies, there is only opinion / perspective. How do you know that your reality is the absolute truth? Everything is a contradiction, a paradox. The only thing we know, is that we know nothing.
Lydia: “There are lots of documented cases of people with mental illness believing that they can fly/can’t die/etc – in general if they are not closely monitored they end up killing or seriously hurting themselves.
watch the early stages of x-factor sometime. a lot of those people really believe that they have what it takes, they believe that they can sing – they are wrong.”
Maurice: Of course there is right and wrong. Truth and falsehood. Those are different things from reality.
“MY reality”? I haven’t got a reality. There’s only one. I have a unique view of reality and so has everyone else. Some probably coincide in many ways, which makes information transfer useful but in general each is unique.
So MY VIEW OF REALITY is not, and cannot be, absolute truth as I cannot know everything, and what I do know is at least slightly different from what anyone else knows. But there is reality and there is absolute truth. There are lies too, and each of us is susceptible – human fallibility. That’s why I say that it cannot be right to say that whatever I believe becomes true.
Me: So MY VIEW OF REALITY is not, and cannot be, absolute truth as I cannot know everything, and what I do know is at least slightly different from what anyone else knows. But there is reality and there is absolute truth. There are lies too, and each of us is susceptible – human fallibility. That’s why I say that it cannot be right to say that whatever I believe becomes true.” (quote)
Then everything you have just described, including the last statement is what you believe so it becomes true for you…I’m teasing you now.
It’s a complex theory. Again, I’d suggest reading Conversations With God, I cannot do it justice myself, as you say human fallibility….
Decided to do some research on the aspect of the ‘law of attraction’ etc which is causing all the controversy…Found this which seems to go some way to explaining the reasoning behind that view >> http://www.nibiruancouncil.com/html/whatiscompassion.html – It’s way out there but seems to explain such catastrophic events as learning experiences for humanity and to aid spiritual evolution. So, you are no longer pitying victims of adversity or death but are seeing them as choosing a negative experience, at a subconscious level, to either aid their own growth or for the greater good. So, everything that a person creates is neither right or wrong but to aid personal or collective development, it’s all part of the human condition. I suppose it falls into the concept that everything happens for a reason rather than random chaos….
Andy: “Reading something on a page found in Google and then presenting it as ‘research’ as if it means something is not ‘research’. It’s just regurgitating information, which again you could argue is a branch of research, but in this context, it’s not.”
Maurice: “It does fit one branch of research. Part of all research is literature search. And use of data published by others is secondary research. I think your view of research is what would be known as primary research.”
Me: I didn’t imply that it was fact, it just seems to explain the reasoning in the mind of a LOA practitioner such as Esther Hicks who allegedly said, “There are no victims, there are only co-creators.” As usual, I’m interested in the overall theory and whether it resonates with me, not where it originates from, who is explaining it or whether it has been scientifically proven.
Gordon Robb: “As usual, I’m interested in the overall theory and whether it resonates with me, not where it originates from, who is explaining it or whether it has been scientifically proven” (quote)
Let me get this straight. You are saying that you are interested in anything that you find fits well with you, accepting it may or may not be true? And irrespective of the source?
Sorry, but I find this very worrying.”
Me: IMHO, it’s just the nature of having any kind of religious or spiritual belief system, it is based on faith and intuition, exploring ideas at a deeper level. However, “you are interested in anything that fits well with you” this applies to everyone, doesn’t it? The source is not as important as the actual content, and you use your own judgement for that.
Glenn Watkins: “More here with Fred Alan Wolf who is featured in the dvd:
http://www.monday9am.tv/fotw”
Pat Graham Block: “I also recommend the work of William Tiller.
http://tillerfoundation.com/
When the Founders of http://www.powerfulintentions.com set out to create our own online community 2 and a half years ago, we used the teachings of Dr. Tiller to “condition the space” and so far, there is great evidence it is working!!!”
I wish Fred Alan Wolf was my eccentric uncle! Also found answers to many questions asked: http://www.fredalanwolf.com/page5.htm
“Fred Alan Wolf is into that Ramtha nonsense and is a shaman into the bargain according to his own statements. Physicist he might have been. You listen to him if you like. I watched the recommended video and one moment he says there was nothing and then says that matter is created when an observer watches. What observer?”
Maurice Poole
“Can I recommend David Icke’s belief that world leaders are illuminati who are in fact a race of disguised lizards. How cool is that? How about the believers that the Earth is hollow or Erich von Däniken’s work on alien influences on the planet?
You’re going to have a great time because when you suspend your faculties for thinking things through, the world is full of daft theories.
Now just once more because I like to keep it real as well as cool. Positive thinking – great. Being aware of opportunities – great. Believing people who channel 35,000 year old warriors for their own greedy purposes – not so great. Believing people who layer on pseudo-science onto the great things in this paragraph – both un-necessary and not so cool. Why un-necessary? Because if these blogs were about positive thinking there would be almost no comments against the ideas. The reaction is all about the ‘optional extras’ added on by people that don’t actually add to the approach one bit but which seem to have captured the belief of some.”
Richard AD Jones
“To me, the whole point to the whole movie is what Rhonda Byrne wrote in the sand.
We are here to FEEL GOOD. The reason people create goals or desire stuff
is because they believe that in the having of it, they will FEEL GOOD!
And good stuff cannot come to people that are not a match to good stuff!
That’s why “the better it gets, the better it gets and the worse it gets,
the worse it gets” and “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”.
They are a match to one or the other.
I, for one, have been living law of attraction (and teaching it) for
over 20 years. (even before I knew what it was called)
And…I have learned it is not my job to convince anyone of anything.
You cannot answer a question that is not being asked.
There is no law of assertion. Only law of attraction.
If the thought of creating your life, on purpose…
try it out.
If the thought of banging around haphazardly, letting outside
circumstances dictate your experience, is more to your liking,
that’s fine, too.”
Pat Graham-Block
http://pat.powerfulintentions.com/blog/
“What a debate! I have not taken the time to read all the comments but did read a dozen or so…fascinating!
What The Secret may be teaching is that as a human being “I create my reality” (within the confines of the mechanisms of the Universe relating to humans…)
This movie perhaps gives people a new sense of hope: for example someone might have a track record of always being in abusive relationships. After viewing the film they might now have slightly elevated their understanding, or seen things from a different view rather than the same fixed view, and experienced a moment of more clarity, and perhaps then say to themselves “somehow I attracted that relationship; and if I could attract that, perhaps I could attract something else, something better”
Will this actually be able to help that person in any way? They might now start wishing and thinking about a harmonious relationship, stick some beautiful photos on the wall and carry some stones in their pocket, but then 3 months down the line maybe there is still more abuse. Then they will say “the law of attraction” does not exist, it is hokus pokus, etc…(quite a few folks on this thread have pointed this out in some way or another…)
Many people want a quick fix and will not typically go through what it really takes to gain mastery, or at least gain a deeper understanding. I don’t think that any of the people in the movie got whatever they have or a are being whoever they are being by simply watching a 90 minute movie or debating in their mind if the law of attraction is a “law” or not.
As the famous zen Master Sozan in the year 600 ad said: If you work on your mind with your mind, How can you avoid an immense confusion?”
What the film does not talk about very much is the “I”. Who is the “I ” that is asking for the new car, harmonious relationship or million pounds…
And in my estimation this is where the real “Secret” lies…in discovering the real “I” underneath all the mind clutter, emotional residues, negative conditionning, viewpoints, opinions, hopes, desires disappointments, etc…
Who is under there and how does that being really function?
That’s the hard work! And those who do it in my experience and observation fully understand the so called “law of attraction” or whatever anyone chooses to name it as. Those who don’t clear the mind and continue to clutter it up might tend to get caught up in semantics and all sorts of other distractions …and miss the core essential! After all, Shakespeare did not say: “to attract or not to attract”.
…before I wrap myself up in my own semantics or someone else’s, let me sign off and go clear my mind!”
Johan Taft
http://www.MagnifyYourGreatness.com
“I have now watched the film.
I do not agree with it from a Christian perspective. I invite you to listen to a counter arguement. http://www.bringyou.to/NewAgeChurch.mp3
I consider the Secret to be a delusion, and the Success that they mention to be a huge paradox in the land of so-called plenty in the USA. I have worked in America and found a huge difference between rich and poor. Coincidentally in the US there are over 65 million people without health insurance.
So many people buy a lottery ticket every week, and visualise that they have won – a fool and his money are easily parted.
The fool says in his heart that there is no God.
I honestly think that the film is a trick to take people away from God.
IMHO we are living very much in the last days and those that choose to follow the genie are missing the point – the meek shall inherit the earth.”
Lawrence Perry
Personally, I enjoyed watching this interview with ‘What The Bleep’ filmmaker William Arntz (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1946538469392149869&q=what+the+bleep) who explained that it is not about taking people away from God but enabling them to realise that God is part of themselves. We shall just have to agree to disagree, I’m afraid.
As I have said earlier in this thread and in others, I feel that it is infact all the same thing ie: isn’t it possible that all the gods are infact the same God but just with different names, interpretations and worshipped via alternative religious or spiritual practices? I shall never understand how Christian fundamentalists profess that anything of an alternative nature is in league with the devil or demons. IMHO, it is a beautiful thing to follow your own path to spiritual enlightenment…
Just because a majority of people have decided that the ‘law of attraction’ etc is a delusion, does not mean this is the truth, it’s only a few opinions. If there was a majority of people who decided that you were deluded for believing in God, that such a concept had no basis in reality, this wouldn’t change your religious beliefs, would it? You know in yourself, what resonates, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. To me, there are mystical forces operating in the universe, although I don’t profess to understand it all. I am fascinated by spiritual and new age ideas, so shall remain open-minded to exploring such theories…
If you believe everyone chooses their experience from all religions, creeds/races, then there is no prejudice to one particular aspect of humanity IMHO. I am open to such theories, don’t particularly like the term LOA and confess I don’t understand it completely or can explain it effectively but I’d suggest, yes some things are horrible and disgusting ie: child abuse but if you view human beings as infinite and powerful, as being able to reincarnate over and over indefinitely, you could be more accepting that an individual has chosen to experience something painful (perhaps even before they are born) in one particular lifetime in order to aid their own universal growth, learning, development.
If you see a child as simply that, of course you are not going to understand, but if you see them not as young but as an old soul with potentially hundreds of lifetimes behind and infront of them…..Controversial definitely, but it doesn’t mean that the people confessing to believe such ideas ie: that you can control your destiny and subconciously choose experiences whether positive or negative etc are evil or unsympathetic. It’s just an alternative way of viewing the nature of the world.
Graham English’s perspective here in full >> http://integral.grahamenglish.net/graham-english/what-does-an-integral-law-of-attraction-look-like/
I thought you and your readers might be interested in this…
The Oprah broadcast of “The Secret” will be February 8th. Also, it will be followed by an International Law of
Attraction Teleconference. If you want more info go to http://www.lawofattractionteleconference.com.
Also, the more posts that Oprah gets on her message boards about a particular topic, the more inclined she is to
repeat the topic. So go to http://www.oprah.com and find the message board for “The Secret� to let her know that you
want more of the same!
Spread the word!
I have throughly enjoyed reading these posts. I am curious to why there was not more discussion on Dr. Masaru Emoto water experiment that was to me the most important part of What The Bleep. And for me started my interest in LOA.
for all the people that “have” had bad past experiences, you end up living the rest of your life dwelling on that traumatic experience, no matter what people say when they bring even MORE negativity in the world saying The Law of Attraction is rubbish, and fake etc, take into account: IT IS BETTER TO IMAGINE AND BELEIVE THAT YOU “CAN” MAKE YOUR LIFE MORE COMFORTABLE AND WORTH LIVING, AND TO CONCENTRATE ON HAVING A HAPPIER FUTURE AND HAVING THE FAITH IN YOURSELF.. THAN TO GIVE UP BECAUSE OF SOME ONE ELSE’S DISBELIEF, AND CONTINUE TO LIVE IN BLACK AND WHITE,AND TO END UP JUST FOCUSING ON THE DOOM AND GLOOM BECAUSE OF ALL THE BAD IN YOUR LIFE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD IS STILL HAPPENING, THIS IS YOUR LIFE, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR SELF, BEFORE TO CAN CHANGE THE WORLD..JUST FOR ONCE ” IMAGINE, FOCUS, AND BELEIVE YOU “CAN” ACHEIVE YOUR GOALS, START BY FOCUSING ON “YESTERDAY WAS BLACK AND WHITE, AS FROM TODAY, I WILL NOW SEE IN COLOUR”. today, just look in the mirror and smile, make it a goal, that everytime you look in the mirror, you smile back at yourself, one day you will look in that mirror and laugh..Laughing was something i had’nt done for a long while..today, i see myself in colour, i see a sparkle in my eyes, i see the colour in my cheeks, and i see a huge smile..as today i acheived my goal ..to see myself laugh again, the more i smiled each day, the bigger the smile reflected back..i never thought id ever hear myself laugh, but i focused, and beleived..and with the Law of Attraction..I received..Claire.xx
We are about to launch a website focused on self empowerment cateogrised by approachs (from CBT through L o A to Cosmic ordering) and applications (stress to productivity)
The “strong” form of the law of attraction a la Hichs/Byrne is internally inconsistent (magnets repel not attract) uses an unproven transmission mechanism (magnetic fields/energy) and if used literally highly likely to damage your health/happines/wealth (ie if you cross a busy motorway with your eyes closed you are very likely to get run over ni matter how positively you think the cars away). Some of the comments of Hawkins and Procter are also very disturbing (re global hunger and its cause)
There is though clearly strong evidence for a weaker but still very powerful “weak” law of attraction which says having a postive attitude will in general increase the probability of achieving your goals. THis thropugh standard CBT and the scientific evidence that feelings/emotions can imprive your health. However most importantly with a positive attitude you benefit from social networking effects where because more people regards you positively on meeting you (ie you would be a good work college, a good business partner, a good friend etc) both your opportunity set increases and the probability of taking advantage of each opportunity increase. In addition by being open minded you are likely to considera wider range ofg opprtunities which previously you dismissed.
Taken over a working lifetime in a busy Western country/city the weak form of the L of A is going to be very powerful.
It would of course be wonderful if this could be tested against a placebo or deeply held religous beleif as controls.
When I read L of A books I always replace positive thinking/social networking effects when I see the words magnetic field/univeral energy.
Byt he way one more thing I have noticed that teh difference between new age theoroes like cosmic ordering, angels etc is one of language only you can replace the new age words with unconsious mind and get the same result.
By the way there is also scientific support for release therapy and sedona method so there!!!!
No support for many other theories like FS, crystals etc.
I am a firm believer of manifestation breeds fulfillment of your intention. Thought affects Attitude, and Attitude affects Action which in turn affects the Result you get. So the thought creates the results.
I have benefited from the teaching of Bob Procter and the Law of Attraction.
I find this resources at http://www.thelawofattractionmoney.com helped me tremendeously. Check it out…
From my understanding, it seems required not merely to think about something in a conscious fashion but that it must resonate at a deeper level, so that it becomes naturally embedded in your subconscious. It is about re-programming your brain. Merely thinking with your head is less likely to trigger a result, if your heart’s not in it. So it’s what you truly believe deep down in the depths of your soul about the world, yourself and everything else is reflected back to you, even if you pretend otherwise on a surface level. A friend’s explanation resonated with me:
“Going back to thoughts – we have to make a disctinction between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. And our higher self.
This is probably better described as a spiritual distinction rather than a scientific one.
Our conscious thoughts are the ones that we know about.
Our unconscious is a completely different kettle of fish – this is the area of self sabotage. You can say something but really, because of something that happened years ago that influenced how you feel, you’re only saying what you think you ought to say, not what your unconscious is thinking. Consciously you don’t know this – but it can and is played out in the events and the scenarios that you frequently find yourself caught up in.
And our higher self has got an agenda of its own – the higher self reminds us of the bigger picture of our life. It’s there to keep us on track – reminding us of values and achieving something worthwhile. This can also ‘apparently’ sabotage us if we are off track.
So, there are three levels of consciousness, each likely to be saying something different. The teachings offered by teachers of personal and spiritual development, of which the law of attraction is one, aim to bring the three different levels of consciouness into alignment. When that is achieved, you reach what might be described as a ‘flow state’. This flow state is healthy and balanced.”
So therefore, it is not about someone getting what they deserve ie: positive or negative but what they may have chosen to learn, experience or overcome, willingly or unwillingly. Not necessarily good or bad but all part of the learning experience, the journey of life, death and re-birth. Maybe you are forced by your higher self / soul to keep facing the same challenge over and over until you have sufficiently overcome it and are able to let it go. And maybe connections and relationships are formed between people who have something to teach each other in the grand scheme of things, even those that seem unproductive or hostile.
In summary, I think I would choose the term ‘theory of attraction’ to law. But I still prefer an expression like manifesting reality. And am in agreement about people taking such theories / techniques and using them to promote ‘get rich quick’ schemes. I am all for empowerment and personal responsibility / development but not if it’s purely about becoming rich and successful, taught by someone who cares nothing for other human beings. Remember seeing someone giving ‘millionaire’ seminars on Louis Theroux. All charm to the cameras, while treating his staff dreadfully behind closed doors. People like that aren’t part of the Hippie / New Age movement. They don’t promote peace, wellbeing and spiritual enlightenment.
Very interesting!
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http://thesecretgathering.com
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