Law of Attraction: Change Your Life

I have been feeling challenged over a problem I had for a long time, the challenge is to not think negatively which I have been. As usual life provides support in interesting ways. I felt to go for a long walk to think and reflect. I ended up walking and found a sign to ‘library’ so headed that way. I decided to join up and walked through the public library. Now it was interesting I was heading for the DVD stand and saw some kids playing violent video games. I just stood strategically so I could just observe. It was a split screen and two kids were playing where they had a choice of guns: revolvers, pump action, lazer etc. The way the video was designed was that you feel you are the one with the gun moving through the game. You can even see them re-load. Anyway, I watched and thought I will ask the kid what he gets out of it. I could see he looked a bit uneasy at the question. Anyway he said it was fun and he talked about the joy stick rather than the meaning of the game. I tried to get him to tell me about the game. He described killing other people as ‘cleaning them out before getting to the checkpoint’. Apparently getting through the check point scores more points. He referred to the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’, as do the military people. I heard Scott Ritter talk of the enemy in this way. Of course they are the good guys. In the video game all the enemies are all males and big fellows. Yet no-one can convince me killing is good when its objective is war. I observed this whilst at the same time thinking about how the SAS (Special Air Services) are trained using simulated games. I also wondered about the mother, nowhere to be found and the library staff, I wondered what they thought. They are allowing children to play games where they kill other people in the game. I find it truly astounding that society sees it as simple fun. Seldom do you see females playing, mostly it is boys identifying with the archetype. My personal feeling is that if kids play with videos that make violence fun, it sets up a subconscious acceptance of violence. Moreover, they don’t use their thinking skills to work out problems, they just shoot to kill. Today it is more sophisticated then cow boys and indians and we see more guns, we see the characters stealing cars (doom) and defying the police. In effect encouraging crime and making it ‘cool’. I find that is not in alignment with the vision of the future I see. Although it is a possible future they may create if they focus on the world in this way.

Today I want to share with you the Law of Attraction. It works on the theory that all thoughts are electromagnetic and they attract. So if we keep reinforcing in our minds that we kill the bad guys, and identifying with the character in the video as tough, superior and the winner. I wonder what it attracts into people’s lives.

I went and saw the Secret, an Australian film depicting the Law of Attraction and filtered throughout the film were physicists, metaphysicans, mystics, business people etc. I was on radio at the time and interviewed the Directors of the film. I also just found the book on The Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks, so am looking into it. I found it fascinating to use thought to attract what you want into your life. People like Anthony Robbins spoke of positive thinking, but this is actually having it with you, feeling it in your hands. Although having said that I also like the concept of just allowing life as it comes. That is the direction I will go but I will monitor my thoughts, if they are negative I need to change the thinking. Otherwise I might get what I ask for.

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition

The Law of Attraction is a metaphysical New Thought belief that “like attracts like”, that positive and negative thinking bring about positive and negative physical results, respectively. [1] [2] [3] [4] According to the Law of Attraction, the phrase “I need more money” allows the subject to continue to “need more money”. If the subject wants to change this they would focus their thoughts on the goal (having more money) rather than the problem (needing more money). This might take the form of phrases such as “I will make more money” or “I will find a job that pays very well”.

The principles of the law of attraction have also been interpreted in the realm of medicine and illness. The law of attraction has some parallels with the Placebo effect. In 1990, Bernie Siegel published a book, Love, Medicine and Miracles, which asserted that the threat of disease was related to a person’s imagination, will, and belief.[6][improper synthesis?] Siegel primarily advocated “love” as the source of healing and longevity stating that “if you want to be immortal, love someone.”[11][12] Siegel’s description has been rejected by some from within the medical community.[13]

The New Thought Movement, 1904–1910

Thomas Troward, who was a strong influence in the New Thought Movement, claimed that thought precedes physical form and that “the action of Mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form.”[15]

In 1906, William Walker Atkinson (1862–1932) used the phrase in his New Thought Movement book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World, stating that “like attracts like.”[16] The following year, Elizabeth Towne, the editor of The Nautilus Magazine, a Journal of New Thought, published Bruce MacLelland’s book Prosperity Through Thought Force, in which he summarized the principle, stating: “You are what you think, not what you think you are.” [17]

The book “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles espouses similar principles[improper synthesis?]—that truly believing in the object of your desire and focusing onto it will lead to that object or goal being realized on the material plane (Wattles indicates in the Preface and later chapters of this book that his premise stems from the monistic Hindu view that God pervades everything and can deliver that which we focus on). In addition, the book also indicates that negative thinking will manifest negative results.[18]

Richard Weiss explains in his book The American Myth of Success that during the New Thought movement, the “principle of “non-resistance” was a popular concept taught in conjunction with the Law of Attraction.[19]

In 2006, a film entitled The Secret (2006) based on the “Law of Attraction” was released and then developed into a book of the same title in 2007. The movie and book gained widespread attention in the media from Saturday Night Live to The Oprah Winfrey Show in the United States.[1] The same year Esther and Jerry Hicks (who provided much of the original source material for The Secret)[29] released The Law of Attraction, which was on the New York Times best seller list.[30]

The Law of Attraction’s modern interpretation, as presented in The Secret, is that physical reality is a reflection of inner (subjective) reality, summarized in the quote from The Secret, “your thoughts and your feelings create your life.” Author and business man Kevin Trudeau produced an audio compact disk program called “Your Wish Is Your Command” which deals with the same subject of thoughts manifesting reality.

The success of the film and various books led to increased media coverage, both positive and negative. Oprah Winfrey devoted two episodes of her show to discuss the film and the law of attraction.[3][4] Talk show host Larry King also discussed it on his show with Bob Solis but criticized it for several reasons. He pointed to the sufferings in the world and asked: “If the Universe manifests abundance at a mere thought, why is there so much poverty, starvation, and death?”[citation needed] A common response to this question from those who subscribe to the Law of Attraction’s philosophy is that one’s unconscious thoughts (which are more difficult to control) are attracting as well as one’s conscious thoughts.

King’s remark is similar[improper synthesis?] to a criticism that the law of attraction only works because most of the anecdotes cited in books and movies are about people who live in a culture that has paths to allow people to overcome adversity, while this is not true for much of the world.[1]

In August 2008, Esther and Jerry Hicks’s book Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.[31]