If manifesting were easy, we’d all be doing it. My guess is there must be a few safety switches…
so I’m listening to some young bloke on the internet going on about something or other and he’s talking about the Law of Attraction.
This phrase entered the common language with the book and movie ‘The Secret’, but the idea has been around for a long, long time.
In case you’ve somehow missed it, the idea is that like attracts like. So if you want money or power, or a new bike, or whatever, you need to focus your conscious energy on those things, and your soul will then become a magnet for whatever you want.
Through mantras, affirmations, vision-boards and those sorts of things, we can change our cosmic shape, and thereby, the things that we are attracting toward us.
Could it really be as simple as that?
Now if you know me, you know I’m a big believer in radical responsibility. We ‘own’ our lives and everything that happens in them.
I’ve also seen first hand the power of mindset – the immense power of attitude and belief. At times I’ve seen this get a bit freaky and ‘cosmic’.
But I also know that humans have a tendency to want to believe in fairies and that sort of thing, especially when the message is as easy and seductive as “think it and you will have it.” And I know in myself that even when things happen that are too good to be true, I’m just as likely as anyone to fall into confirmation bias.
So I hedge my bets. Attitude and belief are powerful allies, even if there isn’t a cosmic dimension to it. Positive thinking is worth doing anyway.
And the truth is that there must be more to the story. If it really were as simple as “thinking hard enough”, then it would be an easy experiment to set up. Get a 1000 people, thinking as hard as they can, and they should all become millionaires.
But as far as I’m aware, there’s no studies out there like that.
So, just for arguments sake, what else needs to be part of the picture?
Well, for one, I think there needs to be some sort of maturity measure. The ability to manifest whatever you want could be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.
Like a toddler. Their world would be full of boobies and gummy bears. A tweens would be full of Justin Beiber. A teenage boy… well. You get the point.
And you certainly can’t say that tweens and teenagers don’t want things ‘hard’ enough. They are incredibly passionate.
So conscious desire alone can’t be enough. Focus alone can’t be enough.
If it is real, then it has to be in the way our conscious and unconscious minds relate (or else its external and out of our control.)
This is where it starts to get interesting.
The Law of Attraction says that we can use our conscious mind to shape our subconscious beliefs.
Now I’m not sure if I was designing this system, that I would make the subconscious mind all that accessible to the conscious mind.
The way I think about it, we’ve got surface mind and deep mind. Surface mind is all the dazzling thoughts that flit about all over place, from pasta to cars to work schedules.
Deep mind is where the real work happens – from regulating breath to intuition. Perhaps, even, connecting with the cosmic mind.
Do you really want to give a monkey the keys to a bulldozer?
If the deep mind is accessible to the surface mind, then I think there must be a few safety switches involved.
I think one of those is probably maturity. The monkey has to prove it is trustworthy. It needs to demonstrate that it takes its responsibilities seriously, and that it can stay the course through squalls of emotion.
I think another is probably consistency. The monkey wants the same thing from year to year. Its not just chasing one desire after another. That’s not to say there’s no room for novelty. More, that the monkey has a clear idea of what it is about and what makes it happy, and it keeps it energies focused on that.
Third, I think there needs to be an alignment with inner truth. We might desire things that would actually inhibit our growth. We might want to become a millionaire so we can escape (or paper over!) our own inner worlds of hurt or painful relationships.
The monkey might think it wants a million bucks, but the deep truth is that the soul is looking to grow and looking to love.
If the monkey is going to take the soul off its true course, then no bulldozer for you.
Again, this isn’t knowledge. This is just theory and thought bubbles. But it seems to me that if the great creator was going to put something as powerful as pure manifestation in our hands, there would need to be some checks and balances.
There’d need to be a safety switch.
So I suspect, unless you can take on responsibility, unless you can demonstrate consistency, and unless you can do the deep work to reconcile and align yourself with your deepest truth, then the fullness of your own power will be kept hidden from you.
It means that your efforts to manifest your dreams will be frustrated and get mixed results at best.
The bad news of course is that while ‘believe it and it will happen’ sounds easy, getting past the safety switches of responsibility, consistency and alignment are actually quite a bit of work.
Still, work worth doing right? No matter who’s running the cosmic construction yard…
What has been your “real” experience around the law of attraction?
Worked for you?
If so how and in what ways?
kav says
Loved how you explained Freud’s psychoanalysis with the Monkey Metaphor. Totally agree with safety switches of responsibility, consistency and reconciliation but its real hard work. So wish I could take the plunge….will power is inhibiting….Loved reading your blog…Thanks Kav
Lawrence Anderson says
Maybe the Law of Attraction is over rated, however I believe Focusing the mind on something you wish to achieve will have results by providing a solution. Try putting it to the test as you fall asleep and ask for a solution to come to mind when you wake up. See if it works for you.
I am crazy and proud of it! says
I am rarely superficial or greedy and have always had my true desires and needs met. The Laws of Attraction has been over marketed (imagine that) and lost the depth of its meaning.
Psychology which has been exploited and corrupted by marketing plays with the unconscious mind of people. So I agree if you truly want more, then don’t think like a monkey. Think higher. Then your desires change and you are left with wants that are meaningful, but how do corporations and governments make money off you with that mentality? They dont. Which is why they manipulate the system to keep the sheeple in the dark and functioning at the lowest common denominator.
And when people do smarten up, they change laws, policies, make us all criminals, raise the cost of living and education, put people in debt more and raise the bar higher so the elusive ‘happiness’ is yet again out of reach.
People are trying to manifest a ‘better’ world, that’s why there is such a division at the moment. Cross your fingers that the 100 monkey experiment sways to the ‘smarter’ monkey than the ‘instant gratification, non thinking pokemon playing’ monkey. But seeing as porn is the most googled word on the internet, people like Justin Bieber attract millions, the city is now full of signs saying don’t pokemon and drive and people
still want a person like Hilary Clinton in power (even knowing she is
corrupt), I say their ‘stupidity’ campaigns are working. Dont think… Just live! Then when that doesnt work, have medication, an interest free loan for some feel good furniture, give a donation to a set up third world country or simply just be shit scared because of staged terrorist attacks. No wonder people are believing in fairies. Its easier than actually breaking down years of environmental conditioning and them actually starting to see the damage of their own ignorance or non action.
Bev Hogan says
I concur. Everything you said is bow i feel, but you are more eloquent then i could ever be. Well said.
Suzsi Welch says
I often find that if I concentrate on finding a car parking space, one opens up for me. Is that too trite? Should I focus more on World Peace???
However, if you focus on something you want, chances are that you think about it, then you strategize ways to achieve it, and begin training – just as an athlete would and an arm-chair wanna be, wouldn’t. So realistically, the positive thinking is the first step towards positive action, which is likely to result in the achievement of the desired goal.
Positive thoughts without a plan and a date are called Dreams.
Tom says
Wow Jon. Wow!!!
Humanity is like a cancer growing out of control in the body of Nature. Each of us is like a little termite in this giant colony. At conception, there are different attributes assigned or allocated to each ‘individual’.
Evolution applies pressures of varying types and those individuals endowed with the appropriate properties are the ones who appear to cope best and thrive, while still fulfilling a (hopefully) useful role within society. Imagine if we were all ‘Soldier Ants’. Who would provide the raw materials to the
colony? All the while, each of us is unique – and each has unique skills, aptitudes and attitudes. For instance, artists and musicians, to fulfil their position in society are only ‘happy’ (working
effectively with their given attributes), when their particular skill set is being expressed effectively within and for the community. Besides that skill set, there are also limitations and inbuilt shortcomings. None of us are perfect in every way. Fortunately, not all of us are narcissistic bullies who want to head up the UN. However each will only be ‘happy’ when we are fulfilling functional roles at the varying levels within the community.
Our primary obligations are to our family unit, then to our social group, then to our local community and so on out to humanity in general. That is why education, particularly of the young, is so pivotal. ‘One size fits all’ leads to mass wastage of talent. Teachers and parents need to guide ‘individuals’ not ‘classes’. Aussies have had it so good for so long that we have forgotten how to prepare our children for hard times – how to look after themselves in a dog-eat-dog world. Social welfare has a lot to answer for. It may be time to teach survival skills, while still nurturing skills required in our current social structure.
We are social animals and are hard wired to follow the herd. However, we are also individuals, not blind worker ants. Evolution has taught us about cause and effect – but beware, our senses can be fooled. Science has taught us that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Only in recent times have we become aware of the amazing possibilities carried around within our brains. Savants and Michael Moseley have opened our eyes to a hidden wealth of potential, buried within each one of us. Chinese awareness of the role of energy in human nature is yet to be incorporated in the Western scientific world.
Dowsing works. This has been known but ignored by our stunted, religion-dominated society. How can a clothes peg on a piece of thread tell us whether our leftovers are still edible? How can a forked stick tell us when there is water beneath our feet? Why do some twins feel what is happening to their fellow? How does a flock of pigeons or starlings know how to move as one? There is so much fascinating information waiting to be incorporated into our knowledge bank. As our glorious leader keeps telling us, it is a wonderful time to be alive.
The children’s Pokemon hand-held device is more powerful than the old Z80 chip computer which took Neil, Buzz and Michael to the Moon and back. Computers in development will dwarf even the
best around today. The mind boggles.
What is the potential of humans with embedded computers? The boggle boggles!