Was in Borders tonight, committing acts of economic stimulus (i.e. buying stuff),
when a woman asked me about a book (the science of getting rich - which is in the public domain, BTW).
The conversation quickly devolved into a “why don’t you…/yes, but…”
which I had no desire to continue, as I could sense that, if not checked,
she would completely drain me of patience and civility in a matter of minutes.
I referred her to some tome that had something to do with the Law of Attraction
in a way that conveyed my general disdain for the concept, which elicited her
curiousity as to why I wasn’t so keen on it.
The way she phrased her question indicated that her knowledge
began (and ended) with The Secret and didn’t include knowing
Katherine Ponder or any other previous exponents.
Here are reasons for my many misgivings about the Law of Attraction (LOA):
1) Occam’s razor -
(i.e. All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.)
There is a simpler explanation for “results” of LOA, especially the
“I perceive more X in my life, therefore I must be manifesting the X” variety.
These results more easily explained by Selective Exposure -
your brain’s gatekeeper process. The “manifesting” is no more that the brain,
after being told that X is now important, no longer screens X out,
thus increasing the amount of times Xis percieved.
Think of sensory input as emails sent to a GMail account where most emails
are archived without ever going to the inbox (your conscious mind).
Think of Selective Exposure as a collection of rules that send certain emails directly to the inbox.
Selective Exposure
(also known as selective attention and selective filtering)
determines what we actually notice
(refers to a process of self filtering)
Perhaps the best name would be selective filtering (The new car effect)
IN order to make sense of the world, we must block from consciousness
most of the stimuli that we encounter.
Perceptual filters do this for us.
Things get through our perceptual filters when they:
* relate to current needs
* are anticipated
* are very different from normal
So what you thought was “manifestation” was really just you creating a mental inbox rule.
2) The one and only problem -
The other problem manifested (pun intended) in the Law of Attraction is the problem
which occurs when more than one practitioner wants to manifest complete posession
of an item of which there is one and only one.
If you pose the question
“All other things being equal, how did one manifest possession of it while the other did not?”
to the person who doesn’t manifest the posession of it,
be prepared to hear a Clintonian level of statement parsing -
“it only appears that I didn’t manifest it”
“can anyone really have exclusive possession of anything?”
and, of course,
“I’m still in the process of manifesting what I originally percieved - i.e. the thing I didn’t get”
3) The problem of evil -
One of the strong appeals of the Law Of Attraction is that, in essence,
you believe yourself to have the Godlike power to manifest everything in your life.
The problem is that if you have this power over your life - it’s a blue plate special -
you get the good, the bad, and the unspeakably evil.
Your million dollar bank account,
your millions in debt,
and your murder.
some will accuse me of intentionally making that last statement
too emotionally inflammatory - and I understand.
I disagree, but I understand.
The point must be made.
Those are my misgivings, let the comments commence!
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