The Law of Attraction
The Law of Attraction is becoming the new age buzz word with the release of the movie “The Secret” and the many teachers of the law of attraction that have come out of the woodwork along with it. The thing about the movie “The Secret” is that it is a really hyped up marketing message and it plays on people’s desires for new flashy cars and mansions. The law of attraction isn’t about getting these things in my opinion. It is about becoming aware of the unconscious thoughts that you have that keep you from getting what you truly desire which may or may not be a flashy new car or mansion. It really should be called the law of unconscious attraction and of course it isn’t really a secret. It is really just in depth psychology and a search for our true selves or source or God as some may call it.
People get turned off and even offended by the idea that they could have all that they desire. People think that desire is bad and something to be frowned upon. The love/hate battle over whether desire is an evil or a necessary part of living is the source of conflict especially for Christians.
The law of attraction is quite simply what you think about you attract. The thing is that so much of what we think is unconscious – like driving a car. How many people think about putting the key in the ignition and putting it in drive and pressing on the gas? You don’t have to anymore unless it is your first time driving. It becomes wired into our brain and the physical actions that driving demand just occur without you having to think about it. The same is true for most of our lives. We live them unconsciously because from an early age we are taught that to question our thoughts will bring up pain.
When you are born you are in a precious state of being. Our needs for food and nurturing are provided by our caregivers. We cry for food and to be relieved of messy diapers. We cry when we are afraid. When our cries are not answered as quickly as we would like we start to get the idea that our needs are not important. We set aside those needs so we won’t be further hurt. Our personalities are formed to protect ourselves from pain and hurt. We give up our desires and are taught that we are not worthy or good enough to have our needs and desires met. We develop defenses and ways of being and we live our life trying to continually prove that we are not good enough. (Study Attachment and Bonding if you want to know more about how our early attachments or lack of them create our personality and our self esteem.)
So with each event in our lives we start setting aside things that are too painful to acknowledge in order to just get on with our lives. It is ingenious actually and runs much deeper than any of us can even really know. Each life situation brings with it an opportunity to uncover these unconscious beliefs. It actually requires that you have enough ego strength to be able to look at such things like this because the process can be easily devastating without it.
So the law of attraction is about challenging those unconscious beliefs and thoughts that you have all day long. The way to become aware of your unconscious beliefs is to start paying attention to your feelings. Your feelings are your emotional guidance system and can help you become more aware of all of those little thoughts inside that are always criticizing and telling you that you are not good enough or whatever your story is.
The history of the law of attraction/The Secret.
The law of attraction isn’t really anything new and it isn’t a secret. “The Secret” the movie/book actually mentions briefly where it all comes from. There are many early authors and explores of the law of attraction but the most popular is Wallace Wattles – author of a book “The Science of Getting Rich”. He also wrote a few others such as “The Science of Being Well” and
“The Science of Being Great”. His basic message is really what drives this whole law of attraction concept. The thing is that he was talking about in in about 1910. So this isn’t anything really new or unusual.
The basic premise that Wallace Wattles talks about is how thinking and acting in a ‘certain way’ can bring you whatever it is that you desire. He says:
If getting rich is the result of doing things in a certain way,
and if like causes always produce like effects, then any man or
woman who can do things in that way can become rich, and the
whole matter is brought within the domain of exact science.
He further goes on to say:
A persons way of doing things is the direct result of the way
he thinks about things. To do things in the way you want to do them, you will have to acquire the ability to think the way you want to think. This is the first step toward getting rich.
And to think what you want to think is to think TRUTH, regardless of appearances. Every individual has the natural and inherent power to think what he wants to think, but it requires far more effort to do so than it does to think the thoughts which are suggested by appearances. To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure
of more power than any other work we are called upon
to perform.
The basic problem is getting to the truth because we usually have so much unconscious programming that we see things through our own filters of experience.
Studying the Science of Getting Rich in detail and learning to become aware of your unconscious programming that gets in the way of your desires is a process of learning, reading and questioning your thoughts until you can have a “clear mental picture” of what it is that you desire. It has to be so clear though and we often don’t know it isn’t clear because again of our unconscious.
There have been many other authors in the past speaking of the same thing. Catherine Ponder, Napoleon Hill and his “Think and Grow Rich” and many others. You can read some of the old texts for free now online. I have posted as many as I can on my website www.workless-playmore.com
Current teachers of the law of attraction include the many people who were in the movie “The Secret” like Bob Proctor, James Ray, Michael Beckwith, Joe Vitale and others. There was also a key teacher left out of the movie from which most of the concepts of the movie come from and are explained much better and that is through Esther Hicks who channels an entity she calls Abraham and her husband Jerry Hicks writes down the sessions. After I read her books everything made even more sense.
The Law of Attraction by Esther/Jerry Hicks explains how your emotions are the guidance system that can help lead you to your unconscious thoughts. They have many wonderful books on the topic and I have found their works to be the best at explaining how to uncover the unconscious thoughts through paying attention to your feelings.
Then there are programs like the one Bob Proctor has put together called the Science of Getting Rich Program
Leave a Reply