GROWING DEBATE: The Secret, the "Law" of Attraction and Wishful Thinking?
There's growing discussion today about The Secret and the "Law" of Attraction on Brother Blair Warren's blog at http://blairwarren.com/blog/item/calling_john_stossel/
And here's my take:
“Successful marketers allow people to tell themselves a story they want to hear…” - Seth Godin
Too true, eh?
Now, promoters of "The Secret" are cynically milking this phenom for all its worth, IMHO.
As a lifelong student of market psych I gotta respect the explotation of the human foibles here, placing those ageless hooks into the ongoing vulnerabilities of blind human desire. So, as a promotion, both "The Secret" and "The Law of Attraction" seem to be working well: Lotsa buzz, lotsa sales, lotsa believers.
But as a compassionate humanitarian, I'm repulsed by the cynical framing of states of mind as scientific "law". For shame…
Sure, as a meme the "law of attraction" seems to be popular, yet in practice it is flawed, because attraction is not a LAW (like Gravity). It is a PRINCIPLE or a STATE.
When promoted as a law, serious damage can ensue as innocent "true believers" (a la "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" by Eric Hoffer) act on the principle as if it were law.
Yesterday, Blair told me about a 24-year-old who lost $12,000 to "presenter training" for "The Secret", only to have his wishful thinking create zero revenue. Sad…
Ethical promoters must consider Brother Seth's FULL quote:
“Successful marketers allow people to tell themselves a story they want to hear. Great marketers then do work that they're proud of, using their leverage to create outcomes that people might not appreciate fully in the short run but are delighted in later on.” - Seth Godin
The way I put it at immersiversity.com, the ideal offer will issue "Value Worthy of Devotion(TM) for the highest good of all concerned", and it's the last part that best puts the checks on our greed glands, something "The Secret" and "Law of Attraction" promoters may have forgotten in their fest for cash.
Always consider the psychic ecology, baby… and maintain the highest possible moral ground, so you can sleep at night and leave this planet a bit better off for your having passed though.
FYI, add:
I'm known as a pretty upbeat guy, and I support optimism and positive thinking, for sure.
Yet I live with some very real issues, and my 10 years of radical positive thinking has not yet seemed to affect my advanced multiple sclerosis much at all in terms of healing or remission.
Also, 40 years of dedicated optimism and devout Christian Science practice did not prevent my mom's early death from cardiac arrest.
In any case, I will maintain my upbeat attitude come what may, simply because it feels so much better, and this is good enough 4 me…
And I appreciate your support.
Who luvs ya?
- Clay Cotton
"The passion-crazed pianoman who would not sleep with Janis Joplin"
The CD: http://cdbaby.com/claycotton - Buy TWO
The MUSIC: http://claycotton.com - Dig it
Been following Blair's blog posts this weekend too. Your article is on target Clay. Bullseye.
"In any case, I will maintain my upbeat attitude come what may, simply because it feels so much better, and this is good enough 4 me…"
What is it in the human psyche that drives us to complicate our thoughts to the point of confusion about something as simple as feeling good?
Thanks for the share.
Comment by Mark — @
Clay, old friend….
I respectfully disagree with your contention that the Law of Attraction is not in fact a law of nature. While it certainly is a different kind of law from the law of gravity in that empirical testing is elusive at best and impossible at worst, experientially for me, it is quite literally relilable and predictable.
When we experience outcomes that seem to us to fall outside the realm of what we think we are or have been attracting, it is, I believe, almost always (perhaps always) a result of the unconscious limits and qualifiers we put on our thought process. If we affirm, "I have all the money I need" or even "I am now attracting all the money I need," for example, all the while hearing a stil, small voice of "reality" chiding us for our Polyanna attitude, then we should not be surprised when we don't attract what we say we want.
Too, it is important to remember that it is the feelings accompanying and driving the thought that carries the real power in intention, not the thought or the words. If you SAY "I am prosperous" and FEEL "Yeah, right", you aren't even acting as-if.
There's a lot more than wishful thinking and spiritual teaching behind this phenomenon. Check out Lynne McTaggart's "The Intention Experiment" and her earlier "The Field" for records of thousands of credible scientific studies supporting the theory that thought direclty affects the physical realm in accord with intention. You might also enjoy, if you don't already know it, the work of Abrhaam through the good offices of Jerry and Esther Hicks (http://www.abraham-hicks.com) who have been teaching the Law of Attraction for decades.
We really do create our own realities, if in no other sense than that we create our experience of those realilties. I don't always like all aspects of my reality, but I recognize that much of what I create that I would prefer not to create comes from the unconscious part of creation that we all do more of the time than we do conscious creation.
Thanks for bringing up the topic here, though. It's one that needs airing.
Comment by Dan Shafer — @
thanx, dan - my beef is with the marketing angles of some proponents and the radical over-confidence which can ensue leading to some really stupid life choices by the softer headed among us
another supporting scientific piece is "The Biology of Belief" by Bruce Lipton
hell, today i'm ambivalent as they come…
/clay
Comment by admin — @