Today’s guest post comes Sean Platt, the man they call Writer Dad. Sean is both a writer (and copywriter) and a dad so the name is very fitting indeed.
Women swoon over him, men want to be him and cute furry animals queue up to bask in his saintly glow by sitting at his feet. Fortunately for us, he’s also a very gifted writer and that’s the reason he’s here today.
I’ve talked about the Law of Attraction here before, but today Sean takes a look at the movie that kicked off the multi-billion dollar industry, ‘The Secret’.
I’m amazed that every person I ever talk to about the Law of Attraction was ‘into it’ before ‘The Secret’ came out. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge they were swept along on a tidal wave of Oprah-generated get rich quick fervor.
But enough of that because it’s time to let Writer Dad wax lyrical and do what he does best, and that’s write >>
About two and a half years back, a good friend of mine came over to my house. My wife and I hadn’t seen him in a couple of months. He entered the house excited; arms busy in the air with a present he wanted to give us. In his hands he held a DVD. I’ve heard of this, I thought as I took “the Secret” from him and slipped it into the player.
I was dumbfounded. Truly, deeply, fully flummoxed.
I’m not going to address the Law of Attraction. I think the law is an interesting theory without nearly enough evidence to prove a point in either direction. I think viewing the Law of Attraction through the lens of a mindset that casts an individual as the author of their own story by focusing on their desires and working hard to achieve them… well, that’s perfectly reasonable. But this post is about “the Secret” and the way it articulated the Law as some sort of supernatural voodoo that attempts to convince the viewer that if we could only find it in ourselves to want a little harder, rewards will rain from the sky.
There is no evidence to support these claims, and anecdotal doesn’t count. Just because someone has unloaded a pallet of money while claiming to believe in the law of attraction, doesn’t mean the Law is any more responsible than the four leaf clover in their left pocket or the rabbit’s foot in their right. Good luck charms lead to a placebo effect; people’s fortunes all too often falling in step with the mindset they create.
The law of attraction isn’t at play when you take the sugar pill and it works, it’s your brain doing a puppet dance with your internal defense systems.
The loudest cheerleaders for “the Secret” are those with something to gain from its celebration. You do not see people who poured ten years of hard work into building their business, rinse a decade of effort and let it circle the drain while exclaiming, “I just kept doubling my energy into thinking about it until all my dreams came true!” No, the people who are saying “the Secret” worked for them are the same people selling books or seminars shilling the subject.
Unfortunately, these are the same folks spouting that if the law of attraction is failing people, it’s because those sorry folks simply aren’t believing hard enough. How is this different from a faith healer?
Almost the entire cast of “the Secret” was comprised of people who directly benefit from “the Secret.” Every time a caption came up with their credentials, I thought the LCD screen was making a joke. My favorite was the “visionary.” What? The rest of the professions all involved “thinking,” though not critically and not to any metric with an iota of accountability. Basically, these were people in the business of selling this particular “secret.”
I can imagine the legions of physicists muttering under their breath, (assuming they had happened upon “the Secret” out of sheer indulgent curiosity). The Secret actually had the audacity to misrepresent quantum physics by implying that the act of observation can have a physical affect over quantum particles. Sorry, Empty Air Productions, but the act of observation doesn’t give you the power to control quantum particles. Just because a few of the X-Men can do it doesn’t make it true. I can’t help but feel “the Secret” is something we’re going to wake up from in a few years with a giant collective hangover. “We said what? Really?”
To each his own, but my problem with “the Secret” is that it seemingly takes advantage of people at their most vulnerable. The best way to get from point A to B is to draw a map and get going, but “the Secret” ignores all that. It does nothing to help a single soul seriously struggling with money issues. Instead, it teaches them to embrace a consistent pattern of wishful thinking with nothing tangible to power their sails.
In a world that is already bloated with instant fixes and an almost disturbing amount of convenience, it doesn’t seem prudent to endorse the removal of work ethic as the single most essential ingredient to success.
Sean Platt is a dad and ghostwriter.
Addendum: I admit that I agree wholeheartedly with Sean’s main premise about ‘The Secret’. Having said that, I have mixed feelings about the LoA in general and I’d welcome somebody offering an intelligent well reasoned counter-argument as a guest post. I also have a niggling feeling that observation actually can cause changes at a quantum level resulting in scientists struggling to get accurate measurements with certain experiments. Can anybody help me out with this?
Tim Brownson is a Certified Life Coach and has been unsticking people and helping them reach their true potential since 2005. If you would like to know how he can help you
[...] Russell Small posted a noteworthy aricle today onHere’s a small snippetSteve earns a lot of money (not long ago he was charging $500 per hour for coaching) and lives in a home valued in the millions. I suspect he could continue to do his newsletter if he really wanted to unti the end of his days. However, it does beg the question; is it fair to expect him to do so? I’ll NEVER ask for donations on this site … Related Posts: How To Become A Life Coach · Self Development For Smart People · Is The Law of Attraction A Con? Subscribe today … [...]
This is a great post and I share Sean’s view of The Secret and the people behind it. All of them have concepts to sell, now they are “better than the Secret”.
Law of Attraction only works if you follow the idea that Attraction = Attract + Action.
WD wrote “The law of attraction isn’t at play when you take the sugar pill and it works, it’s your brain doing a puppet dance with your internal defense systems.”
That. I have not seen nor read any compelling evidence that proves the Law of Attraction. I do believe that what happens is that we use laser focus when we are attracted to something. And by attraction, I don’t mean just an “I like money” attitude, but rather the type of attraction that borders on addiction without the negatives. I believe a better word for it is “passion”.
The things that we are most passionate about are the things that we tend to excel at doing or achieving. Those who like to earn vast amounts of wealth through stock trading will do so because they are passionate about it. Those who wish to impact our children in a positive way through better education will create schools and curricula to achieve that goal.
So yes, I think there is some proof of the “Law of Attraction”, but the law is misrepresented in popular culture. It’s not about thinking so hard about success that you make it come into existence in your life. It’s about chasing your dreams so hard that you cannot help but achieve some of them along the way. And once again, the only ones that we will push hard enough to obtain are those that we are passionate about.
I’ve rambled on long enough. Good post, WD.
Tim,
You know my thoughts on your site, but I think micro-sales is an interesting idea. I do have a note of caution, however. I think a nominal monthly fee is just fine, but some of the first things I cut from my budget when trying to save money are monthly subscription fees because they are easy to cut and add up to a substantial amount over time. I suspect other people may do the same, so in these difficult times, it may be hard to maintain a subscription model. But that’s just my opinion.
Be well.
@ Bengt – How come I’ve never heard it worded like that before? It seems I should have done!
@ Ian – I can understand why some of the genuine followers of the LoA got frustrated by ‘The Secret’ and it’s get rich quick feel, but it’s weird for a movie that sold 198 billion copies, nobody actually acknowledges liking it any more.
It is highly unlikely that I’ll start charging anytime soon, I was just trying to make everybody feel guilty so they go and buy a copy of one of my books ;-)
Somebody just e-mailed me this:
w/r/t “changes at a quantum level” see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenberg_uncertainty
In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain physical quantities, like the position and momentum, cannot both have precise values at the same time. The narrower the probability distribution for one, the wider it is for the other.
So, not having read the secret or watched the movie, my take is that the movie claims that you can push “matter”, i.e. quantum particles in a direction and that is clearly BS, so Sean is correct.
What Heisenberg says is this: You influence the particle through observation. You can determine a finite position, but won´t know *exactly* how fast it is going and vice versa.
What I find most disturbing about the Law of Attraction and its taken-to-absurdity levels in The Secret is the way it makes people feel wrong when they don’t get what they want.
Second-most disturbing is the emphasis on material stuff.
The popular view of the Law of Attraction tends to me leave me feeling slightly ill. While I do think that what we value most in life tends to be what shows up in our lives, it’s FAR from simple, and involves a whole lot of usually deeply-buried beliefs about how the world works. Disinterring those beliefs isn’t as simple as just deciding that you want to manifest a Mercedes.
I could go on – but I won’t. :) Thanks, Tim, for posting Sean’s thoughts!
Graces last blog post..Taming the email monster
Tim,
To address a minor point: the quantum-physics effect that you’re looking for is the observer effect. Sean falls into the same trap that the Secret’s proponents do with respect to the observer effect and quantum mechanics, but he does so in the opposite direction. Sean applies the rules of macro physics to quantum physics: he assumes that because, say, seeing a car on the street doesn’t affect the car’s path, thus seeing an electron doesn’t affect the electron. However, despite Sean’s protestations, it’s generally accepted that the act of observing, in certain situations, must affect the object observed, because of the nature of the observing instrument. The Wikipedia article gives the example of a thermometer absorbing some of the heat given off by the object measured, and of how in order to observe an electron with visible light one must first bounce the photon off the electron, which can alter its path. To return to the car example, it’s as though the only tool you had to observe the car was a series of speed bumps: you’d have to alter the car’s path (by making it go over the speed bumps) to determine what the car’s path was.
However, the Secret’s proponents take it too far in the opposite direction. They make two fatal assumptions: first, that the macro world works like the quantum world (it doesn’t); and second, that since there’s an observer effect, we can consciously control how we affect what we observe (we can’t, at least not just through the act of observing).
I hope that helps. (It turned out a lot longer than I’d intended!)
-Chris A.
Tim,
You posted the email about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle while I was writing my comment. :) To clarify: Heisenberg isn’t talking about the observer effect. His Uncertainty Principle is strictly concerned with measurement and probability; it doesn’t deak with affecting the particle at all. (Pinning down the particle’s position doesn’t change the particle’s momentum, or vice versa; it just reduces the accuracy with which we can measure the momentum. Think of it like changing exposure time on a camera taking a picture of a runner; with a very short exposure time, we get a sharp image of where the runner is, but have no idea of how fast he’s actually going; with a long exposure time, we can tell better how fast he’s going – by how far the image blurs compared to how long the shutter was open – but we can’t tell as well exactly what position he was in at a given time.) It’s a common misconception, though.
-Chris
I’ve never seen the Secret but from what I’ve heard of it, it seems to be a lot of woo woo. I don’t know a lot about the law of attraction either, so I can’t say too much about it either way. What I do believe is that there is great benefit from acknowledging openly what you want and working hard to reach that goal. I haven’t figured out a way to dress that up so I guess I won’t be writing a book.
Tim, I’d pay $2 a month for your blog gladly, but I must be honest and say if you’d asked me several months ago before I knew you and became a regular reader, I’d probably have said no. I think it takes a while to become devoted enough to a blog to pay. I think what you offer does have value and it’s very generous of you to offer it for free. I know I’m not the only one that appreciates it and I’ll continue to do all that I can to help promote you, especially once your new book comes out!
Tracys last blog post..You can’t touch this
Although I will have to unsubscribe if this blog continues talking about physics! ;-pthhh
Tracys last blog post..You can’t touch this
I agree – the worst part of “The Secret” is the slimy, kitsch, stereotypical American-hype, pseudo-scientific wrapping that the whole thing is wrapped in. I tried hard to ignore that and consider just the message. But not sure I’ve been able to succeed at that. The presentation just clashes with my values too much for me to be able to consider it. For me, it’s all summed up in that one guys saying “I use the LOA to get parking spaces close to the store and it works all the time!” If it’s really that powerful, is that what you want to use it for????!
I do think that our thinking defines our reality though – but I don’t buy “The Secrets” version of HOW this happens. I think our thoughts determine what we notice, and how we feel, which in turn impacts on how we behave, what action we take and how others respond – and ultimately creates the results we get.
CathDs last blog post..Future Directions: Who Decides?
Good post Sean.
I believe positive thinking is powerful. And it can fuel us to make the kind of choices and actions that will get us to where we want to go.
But the whole idea that everything that happens we created, is in my mind: foolish. Humanity has free will. And as a result, negative things can happen to others and to harp on it being something they created is as heartless as it is foolish.
The one thing I do like about the Secret is it tries to encourage people to really contemplate the act of controlling their mind.
Bamboo Forest – PunIntendeds last blog post..The Art of Artery Clogging: A Recipe
Bengt: Exactly! Action is a root word in there somewhere, but entirely missing from the smoke and mirrors that was the Secret.
Ian: Hey there, Ian. That’s right: the Law of Attraction totally works if you consider it as a prompt to help us find our passion, but as something that allows us to simply sit back and dream of untold wealth, WOW, is it totally bogus.
Tim: First, thanks for the opportunity for me to swat at the Secret, that was a lot of fun. Second, thanks for the link to the quantum physics stuff. I have to go check that out!
Grace: EXACTLY – people feeling bad because they weren’t thinking hard enough?!? Not cool at all. It is only the cohesion of all our previous moments and all our previous ACTIONS that drive us toward our future, not all our preious thoughts.
Chris: Wow, I had to read that comment twice! See, this is why the Secret leads to interesting debate. Whether you agree that it’s bogus or not, it certainly leaves us with a lot to discuss.
Tracy: woo woo is well said. Telling people that actions are less important than idle thought is woo woo indeed.
CathD: Our thinking does define our outlook, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Secret. LOL at the parking spaces, that was my exact thought during that part of the “presentation.”
Bamboo: I agree that we should be more mindful of our thoughts, but to expect our thoughts to move us from A to B is absurd.
Well, Sean, yes AND… our THOUGHTS are what drive our ACTIONS.
No matter how much I may want something, if my deep, conditioned belief structure says that – for instance – I’m not supposed to have it (unworthy, issues about vulnerability, money is bad and evil – whatever the thought might be), then you can be pretty doggone sure I won’t get it, whether “it” is something material or experiential (great relationships with others, for instance).
But to make someone wrong for what they think and feel is violent and abusive, and that, to my mind, is what much of current Law of Attraction thinking does. Instead, it’s a matter of compassionate, yet relentless, inquiry into what the underlying beliefs are, so that we can see them as untrue and open ourselves to – yes! – action that has much greater effect because it’s rooted in reality.
Does that make any sense? :)
Graces last blog post..Taming the email monster
I totally agree with you Sean. I was telling my hub about the LoA just yesterday. My hub is working on putting some shelves up in my office. He started imagining the shelves up on the wall ready to go then he exclaimed, “SH@# ! I imagined the shelves on the wall crooked! I’m sunk!”
Oh well, better imagination next time I guess. When those shelves pop up on the wall, we’ll be tearing them down to start all over again!
@Tim- I think charging for the blog would limit your new readers. Are you worth 2 bucks/ month? Absolutely BUT if you are going to charge, I would write more on coaching stuff and less on the other things you care about like patriotism and God even though those are fun to discuss.
My thoughts on this whole Law of Attraction thing: there seems to be at least two interpretations for it.
1) You can reach whatever goal by thinking and wishing really hard: This is wishful thinking, of course, and will never work.
2) No, no. You don’t just think really hard. Your actions need to be aligned with your intentions.: Okay, I’m more convinced that this will work. But did you just say “be passionate and work very hard”? I don’t really need them to tell me THAT.
So yeah, I think it’s just clever marketing for the same old thing. However, I don’t deny that it helped some people think about what they do if they wouldn’t normally do it otherwise.
Kelvin Kaos last blog post..Editing Tricks in Ernie and Cookie Monster Madoff Scandal Video
I forced myself to sit through The Secret when I was fed up with people asking me if I’d seen it. And their reaction that I could be a Coach and not have seen it was funny. Anyway, I hated the movie. Talk about misleading!
The guy (Joe Vitalie?) who says the Secret and the LoA was causing cheques to turn up in his letterbox every day? If I had cheques turn up unexpectedly in my letterbox I’d be wondering why! And so would the tax dept!
My biggest disappointment though was Jack Canfield. So he wrote $100,000 on a banknote and it was the first thing he saw every morning. And he made that much that that year. Do people really think that by focussing on the amount on the note that that money just came to him? Or do they realise that he went out and he worked harder than ever before to bring in that income? Strange how all that work wasn’t mentioned in the DVD.
I have to admit that I’m not a fan of LoA. Unless it’s the way someone wrote it earlier in the comments – Attract + Action. And a lot more action. With no guarantees. Just because I want something desperately doesn’t guarantee that I’ll receive it.
That sounds very negative doesn’t it? It’s not meant to be, I do believe in focussing on what we want and working hard to achieve it. The rewards are great. However it’s not going to happen just by thinking about it.
Melindas last blog post..Do You Have Blogger’s Block? Coming up With New Content Continuously
Tim, on monetising your blog, have you seen http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/19/should-legal-blogs-be-monetized-if-so-how/ on problogger? Interesting discussion on it. And check out the links on Direct and Indirect income in the post.
I see your blog (and my own) as bringing in indirect income. We charge a lot, people need to be educated in what we do. Clients need to know, like and trust us before handing over their money. We know we give great value for that money and that the worth of what we do is so much more than the monetary value, however how does someone visiting the blog know that?
I see blogs as a way for people to start seeing what I do, what I’m like, how I work. Then (hopefully) they’ll buy some products (not up there yet) and move on to one-on-one coaching. I really don’t think that I could get the clients I do without the blog as an introduction tool.
I don’t expect my blog to make me a lot of income directly. However it pays for itself by bringing in clients that I wouldn’t have reached otherwise. I’m more than happy to leave my blog free to browse and read.
Melindas last blog post..Do You Have Blogger’s Block? Coming up With New Content Continuously
I believe the power of positive thinking and the law of attraction are very useful tool assuming they are followed by ACTION.
Stacey / Create a Balances last blog post..Authentic Happiness Series – Part One
@Stacey- If you have to follow up with ACTION, then is it really LoA that is doing anything? Isn’t it you? How is LoA then a tool? Just asking….
It’s movies like The Secret that make me shy away from the idea of “Cosmic Order” all together.
I agree with this article 100%. In fact, I wrote a related piece over this past summer: http://www.nuhabits.com/blogs/entry/Karma-s-Like-An-Object-Traveling-Through-Space
I am going to lay in bed tonight and truly believe that I will wake up looking like a 1981 Guvuna Schwarzenegger. I plan on waking up ripped tomorrow, just don’t poke fun at my disproportionately puny calves.
Derek
Derek @ NüHabitss last blog post..I’m a LEED AP now! (Habit Archiving Coming Soon…)
[...] Tim Browson’s blog, is a guest post by Sean Platt, Writer Dad and Ghostwriter Dad. The post The Secret Is, You’re Busted. It is a great post with many great comments (mine [...]
My all time favorite argument against LoA:
1) All men think about sex all day.
2) Some men are not getting laid.
Tada~~!!
Kelvin Kaos last blog post..Editing Tricks in Ernie and Cookie Monster Madoff Scandal Video
This is great…
For the posts I want to leave comments on, it seems that I’ve written a post about them a long time ago. :D
I wrote about how we should evaluate ideas, and I used The Secret as an example, where people were convinced of an argument that didn’t make much sense.
The blog post is here:
http://www.afilsforyourthoughts.com/blog/2007/12/29/evaluating-ideas/
My main objection to The Secret is that it makes you feel responsible for things outside your control. You got into an accident because the person who hit you was drunk? Oh, don’t blame the poor guy, it’s your fault for attracting this incident into your life! Be more responsible next time, dammit!
Very well written… Thanks for sharing… :D
Haiders last blog post..Understanding the Seven Life Areas
I cringe every time I hear somebody who knows nothing about quantum physics (most writers on success who say “quantum physics”), say “quantum physics prove…”.
I will tell people that you should do what Jack Canfield suggests you do about writing your goals and visualizing them etc. I tell people Bob Proctor is great and I listen to his stuff over and over. I tell them to take the actions these successful people tell you to take because I agree with them that they work. Bob Proctor is incredibly motivating. Jack Canfield has great ideas on how to succeed (he worked his ass off). But their claims of science are naive. They don’t know.
Quantum physics is very difficult and the phenomena being observed can be explained with varying interpretations by physicists. Not one of them being what the success movement claims. The observer affect can be explained without claiming the observer has an effect. I believe Victor Stenger does it very well.
I don’t knock the LOA even though I don’t believe it. I encourage everyone to listen to Bob Proctor’s Success Series audios. They are incredible. Jack Canfield has a 500 page book called the Success Principles. Here are some chapter titles:
“Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life”
“Take Action”
“Lean Into It”
“Be Willing to Pay the Price”
and so on
Quote from “Be Willing to Pay the Price”:
“If people knew hard I had to work to gain my master, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all.” –Michelangelo
That’s Jack Canfield quoting Michelangelo on what it takes to succeed.
Here is a subtitle from “Be Willing to Pay the Price”
“PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE”
An there he quotes Steve Alford:
“When I played with Michael Jordan on the Olympic Team, there was a huge gap between his ability and the ability of the other great players on that team. But what impressed me was that he was always the first one on the floor and the last one to leave.”
Hmmm… What do you think Jack really thinks about how to succeed?
The power of positive thinking is real, but it is not because your thinking affects the universe. It is because your thinking is real physical activity inside your own physical brain and the power of your physical mind to affect YOU is incredible. There is a real science that studies this and it is called positive psychology. I’m reading a book called “Positivity” by a scientist named Barbara Fredrickson right now. It’s too early to tell for sure but this scientific book may change my life.
Follow the ACTION and VISION advice of Jack and Bob because their ideas work. They just don’t work for the reasons they think. I don’t want to discourage people so I don’t get into pissing contests about why positive thinking works.
“Success takes time, effort, perseverance, and patience.” –Jack Canfield
Stephen – Rat Race Traps last blog post..How to be Successful by Practicing Resilience
@ Stephen That’s why I was so disappointed in them. What they said in The Secret was so opposite to everything else they’ve said and written.
I found out later that they were all paid to appear on it. As in, a fee for speaking, not profit sharing on sales as is normal for a movie. I feel like they sold themselves out.
Melindas last blog post..Do You Have Blogger’s Block? Coming up With New Content Continuously
I’ve always found the ‘Secret’s’ take on the law of attraction to be laughable, but thought there was at least some truth to the LOA. Bengt hit the nail on the head with ‘Law of Attraction only works if you follow the idea that Attraction = Attract + Action.’. That blows the smoke and mirrors away so we’re just talking intention and following through.Bengt should burn that thought onto a DVD and sell it for 29.99 :) .
Attraction is more about how YOU present yourself to those around you. It’s more about being fully present (i.e. not dwelling in the past) and not dealing with issues that will make you appear unattractive. An example of someone unattractive would be a needy person fixated on a past hurt.
If you are attractive you don’t have to push or “sell” yourself. You attract people who are successful, fulfilled and exciting.
With this attractiveness comes all sort of opportunities to create what a person says is most important to them.
That is how attraction works and if you want to call this a law, then it can be called that because like invariably attracts like. You can’t fake it because it eventually comes to the surface of who you REALLY are and people around you can sense this.
Thomas Leonard, one of the founders of CoachU http://www.coachinc.com/CoachU/default.asp?s=1
built a whole course around this concept and it is called “Irresistable Attraction”. It’s a very effective method of working your way up to what YOU feel is success for yourself.
Dave wrote: Bengt should burn that thought (Law of Attraction only works if you follow the idea that Attraction = Attract + Action) onto a DVD and sell it for 29.99 :)
Great business idea! Maybe I should expand on it a bit and then sell it as “The Ultimate Secret”.
Bengts last blog post..Dale Carnegie Golden Rules
Because you are focusing on the movie, and not the law of attraction in and of itself, I must beg to differ. I loved the movie “The Secret.” I can’t remember the last time I laughed that long and loud at a movie – it is high on my list of all-time favorite comedies.
Watched it with friends, and we had to pause it every once in a while and rewind, to hear what we missed while we were kibbitzing / laughing. It didn’t take long to start predicting what people on the screen would say before they said it. (Next time we need a drinking game for that, for certain.)
Can’t wait till they come out with the Mystery Science Theater version. Bring on the shots!
@Rachael- :-) I am still laughing at your comment. You are invited to my next party!
I thought I’d take a couple of days off from my blog and let you guys get on with it. And a brilliant job you’ve done keeping the conversation going, thanks!
Gotta say LMAO @ Rachel and @ Kelvin!
@ Melinda – Thanks for the advice. To be honest I think it’s doubtful I’ll make any changes in the next few months, if at all. I have some other stuff going on aimed at pulling me out of the gutter ;-)
The Law of Attraction works in the same way as all the other wishful thinking crap like horoscopes and religion. People want something to believe in and they’re prepared to clutch at straws to find that belief no matter the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Listen, just be careful what you wish for. I knew a guy called Tom who had just the tiniest little dick and he spent years wishing that one morning he’d wake up with a big fat ten inch penis. It eventually came true, unfortunately the penis belonged to some guy named Harry who’d managed to get him drunk in the Blue Oyster Bar.
Grace: That’s an excellent point, and it’s true. If our subconscious doesn’t want us to have something, there’s no way we’re getting it, unless it’s by complete accident. That’s funny, I hadn’t thought of that before, but I guess I believe in the Law of Attraction if it’s reverse engineered. I believe by not wanting something you are probably blocking your chances of achievement for sure.
Laurie: Just the other day I imagined that my gas tank wasn’t on empty. Alas, after picking up my children from school I still had to stop at the gas station and fill it back up. I imagined, manifested, and hoped around the block and back, but none of it seemed to work.
Kelvin: As a basic structure to keep us mindful of our thoughts and actions, the Law of Attraction lays a solid scaffolding, but “the Secret” adds a lot of hocus pocus and minimizes any truth of the Law, in my opinion of course.
Melinda: I don’t think you sound negative at all. I think you sound dead on. Wishing about stuff until it happens will never breathe life into our machinery. We must be mindful of our actions. Dot. Period. End of sentence. You can visualize a $100,000 check, but without a string of actions to support the thought, it is empty at best and limiting at worst.
Stacey: Exactly!
Derik: I’m going to lay in bed thinking about how jealous Stephen King is of my amazing successes. : > )
Kelvin: LOL!!!
Haider: My pleasure. Yeah, it’s funny that in order to make their arguments work they have to also say that the bad stuff is brought into people’s lives by negative thought. That’s just bogus beyond belief. I’m sorry, but I’m a super positive guy. Bad stuff happens to me sometimes because that’s just how the Earth orbits.
Stephen: I think your comment was better than my post! It’s true. I really like what Malcom Gladwell was saying in “Outliers,” that what separates the prodigies from everyone else is 10,000 hours of practice.
Dave: LOL. Totally. Isn’t much of a secret, right?
Maureen: Yes, but that’s not what “the Secret” was shilling. They were basically saying that thought was enough to change the events in someone’s life. Simply not true.
Rachel: You are AWESOME, and totally right! I think I know what my wife and I are watching tonight. The series finale of Battlestar can wait!
Phil: Too funny. I don’t know about the LoA, but “the Secret” certainly seems like something that, “people want something to believe in and they’re prepared to clutch at straws to find that belief no matter the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”
EVERYONE: Fantastic discussion! Thanks so much for everyone sharing their voice. Sorry I never made it back on Friday. A whole bunch of life happened and I just could not seem to manifest myself out of it!
A happy Sunday to all.
Writer Dads last blog post..An Ode to My Daughter
Maureen wrote “like invariably attracts like”.
Tell that to a magnet where opposites attract.
Bengts last blog post..Everything is amazing, nobody is happy
I think LoA gets the motor started, but if you don’t take action you will just sit there with a started motor. We can’t move a car, however, unless we first start the motor.
Stacey / Create a Balances last blog post..Carnival of Personal Development – March 23, 2009
I actually tried Law of Attraction some time ago. I was in the World Othello Championships, representing my country. (Othello is a board game. Similar to chess.)
So, for a month before the championships, I wrote down 16 times a day: “I, Vlad Dolezal, will win WOC 2007.”
Long story short, I ended up 8th. Out of over 70 participants. So, I placed a lot higher than I would expect, based on my skill level and international playing experience (or, rather, inexperience :p). But I didn’t win either.
Thus, here’s my testimonial for LoA:
“Law of attraction works. Sort of. Sometimes. But taking action towards your goals is more important.”
Vlad Dolezals last blog post..IR Goggles
I haven’t actually seen The Secret so can’t comment on that. However, the kind of scam implied here is nothing new. The Internet is rife with such cons. I don’t think we should be surprised really. I guess the Secret is a triumph of hope (or stupidity) over experience.
On the LoA, I have a (more positive) view. I think to a very large extent we do create our own reality. I have seen that so many times in very practical contexts.
It’s a complicated thing though, and tied in to belief systems. If you don’t believe you can be rich, you never will be, if you don’t believe you can make a living as an artist you never will. If you believe you don’t have the ability you write a book you won’t.
I think it was Henry Ford who said “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” That sums up the LoA quite well for me – if you don’t have the belief you won’t do the activity required to manifest it.
I’m all for the Law of Attraction and have successfully put it into conscious beneficial practice in my life since learning of it, but it sure wasn’t because of the Secret. In fact, one of the most surprising things about the Secret was that, as “Law of Attraction 101″ it made not even a mention of the oft-described father of LofA, Neville Goddard. In fact, I don’t think anyone in these comments has mentioned him either. Most people have never heard of him.
About six months or a year (can’t remember) before The Secret went mainstream a spiritual teacher recommended I read The Power of Awareness by Goddard. Most of his books are out of print and hard to find, but I got my hands on a copy and read it. For me, that got the ball rolling. When I finally saw The Secret I, like many, was disappointed at the focus on materialism and wishful thinking. The movie misses the mark on three key LosA essentials, and this first is a huge one:
* Detach from the outcome. Goddard teaches to “set and forget” your intention. That’s pretty difficult for someone trying to manifest a paid-off mortgage or luxury car to do, let alone someone living on their last $1. The lost lesson is the more you obsess about what you want, the more resistance to it you create because YOU are trying to control the process vs. letting the natural flow of the universe deliver. So too much “wishful thinking” actually undoes the LofA. Surrender is a key element I found missing in the movie.
*The law of proportion. A mere conscious thought about an open parking space might manifest one in a few seconds, but it won’t make a Porsche appear out of thin air or heal a damaged relationship overnight. Bigger things take not only more time, but more action, the third missing piece. The laws of physical reality still apply. The matrix is complex and many parts may need to shift into place before “bigger things” can manifest in the physical day-to-day. In short, the Secret gives equal weight to all intentions which is not only misleading, but ridiculous.
*The critical importance of action. Others said it in spades here, wishful thinking won’t cut it. “Set and forget” doesn’t mean sitting back and sipping a pina colada while you wait for your wish to be magically fulfilled by doing nothing. If you don’t follow intention with action the universe has no visible signal that you really want it to deliver. It doesn’t matter which action you take toward your intention/goal as much as it matters that you take consistent action toward it. You don’t even have to know what the “right action” (a la Eckhart Tolle) is, just try stuff. Without movement FROM YOU how can anything move FOR YOU?
Most people can’t or won’t master the LofA before going through a surrendering process and learning how to persist in the face of their inner critic, self-doubt, lack of evidence and fear. It took me a couple of months, a few personal disasters and a huge surrendering process to get the hang of it all, but when the tide turned it was palpable. Even so I consider a couple of months lightspeed. Still, an inner transformation was needed, mere knowledge and awareness of the principles wasn’t enough.
Shame on The Secret for barely skimming the LofA surface. My belief is, of course we create our own realities – we manifest them moment by moment. Those realities might stem from a thought but there’s plenty that goes into manifestation between thought and physical reality. The Secret implies you can move from “A” to “D” through intention alone and conveniently skips over “B” and “C” – yeah, those parts where the real work gets done.
I’d sure like to see some decent, grounded teaching on the LofA that makes it to the mainstream like The Secret did. But you know how people are. Everyone loves the quick fix!
The guy in The Secret who raves about using LOA to get parking spaces close to the store just started following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/davidschirmer)! He even calls himself “the car park guy”!!!! After my earlier comment on this post, is this the Law of attraction, Murphy’s Law or just google alerts… what do you think?
Think I need a shower now… aargh, all that slime!
CathDs last blog post..Future Directions: Who Decides?
Its attraction all right but not a secret LOL
Stacey: Exactly. We don’t just sit in our car at a red light with the motor idling. We have to lay our foot down if we expect to go anywhere.
Vlad: Action is the common denominator in success, I believe.
Tony: “I think it was Henry Ford who said “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” That sums up the LoA quite well for me – if you don’t have the belief you won’t do the activity required to manifest it.” Beautifully said, Tony. Beautifully said.
Karen: Wow am I glad I finally got to your comment, Karen. Wonderful information and Goddard just made my swipe file as something I need to research further. Thank you.
CathD: LOL. That’s just too funny.
Writer Dads last blog post..Petals Papered Our Lives Walls
The law of attraction seems to me a more physiological tool rather than an actual mystical universal set of laws. I am a clinical hypnotherapist by trade and one tactic we use to help people achieve their goals is for them to visualise already achieving them. This then persuades the subconscious mind to regularly make decisions which support this aim – eventually leading you down the path of meeting this goal. But the real difference here is that hypnosis does not pretend that it is some universal thing that will automatically bestow a gift of whatever you want. No, you must make it happen by having sight of the end, AND on how you will get there. The law of attraction seems to largely forget about the journey, and can fool some people in believing they will get what they want with little or no effort. The law of attraction can work, as you must first know what you want before you can set out to get it. However I feel that it is not enough. In 10 years time when it is no longer so fashionable, I’ll wager that people will look back and laugh at this fad!