No, it isn't. Yes you're right, and no, you're wrong.
In a very important sense, there is no difference between:
(a) altering your perceptions such that you notice certain things or opportunities that you otherwise would not notice; and
(b) manifesting your intentions such that you attract certain things or opportunities into your own life.
Either way, the practical result is probably going to be exactly the same.
I will offer you another perspective, by comparing IM to basic traditional meditation.
In IM, you manifest your intention. You then expect certain opportunities to arise to support that intention. And they will (or should).
In many forms of meditation, you do not manifest any intention. Quite the opposite - not only do you not manifest any intentions,
you seek to think no thoughts at all.
For example, many forms of meditation merely requires you to sit very still and pay attention to the movement of your own breath. Or to sit very still and observe a candle flame - simply observing it, without analysing it or forming opinions about it or letting your thoughts drft away.
One effect of meditation is that you will begin to experience synchronicities emerging in your everyday life. In other words, you begin to notice unusual "coincidences" in your life, and you begin to notice secret patterns, the meanings of which seem knowable only to you. These synchronicities guide you towards specific decisions, even specific places or people.
(For the religious, this is not very different from how - they would say - God gives them little signs to guide them as to His plan for them).
What is the difference between IM and meditation, as described above? In the IM model, you choose your thoughts and manifest your "reality". When the opportunities appear, you take them.
In meditation, you shut down your thoughts and allow a deeper, truer reality to reveal itself to you. It is a reality that was always there - just that you could not have noticed it if you had not meditated, because the endless chatter of your ill-disciplined monkey mind, with all its conditioned automatiuc responses and neuroses, would have drowned it out.
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I think that LOA is a genuine law. The problem is that people get too hung up on the "magical" parts of it.
I myself can move objects with my thoughts. I can also manifest a cup of coffee into existence, with my thoughts.
For example, I think to myself, "I'd like to move my chair over there," and then I get up and carry my chair to the new spot. I think to myself, "I'd like to have a cup of coffee now," so I call out to my wife, "Honey, could you please get me a cup of coffee?" and she replies, "Just give me one minute my dear," and she comes back with the coffee in one minute.
This sounds like dumb examples, until you recall that basically we are just a bunch of mostly hydrogen, carbon and oxygen molecules, and molecules are basically just a form of energy: E = MC square.
What has happened is that a bunch of molecules (which are slow energy particles) in my brain exhibited a thought -
"I'd like to move my chair over there" -
and caused a much larger collection of slow energy particles (my body) to move in a certain way ....
.... and to manipulate yet another collection of slow energy particles (the chair).
It's pretty miraculous too. And it happens all the time.
The coffee example is even more miraculous. The vibration of my thoughts caused certain collections of molecules (my lungs, voice box, tongue and mouth) to move in a certain way, causing an emission of sound energy, which in turn was received by another collection of molecules I call my wife, which then exhibited certain frequencies (the thought "yes, I'll get him a cup of coffee" which then caused a cup of coffee to be made.
I probably am rambling .... But think of it this way. If by generating certain electrical impulses in my brain (that is, by having thoughts), I could cause large collections of energy/matter in a different space and time to move and organise itself in specific ways and respond ..... well, in the final analysis, EVERYTHING is energy and matter, isn't it. So what CAN'T I do with my thoughts.
Car park space .... Well, basically you send out the thought, and the universe organises itself, such that one chunk of molecules (a driver) causes another chunk of molecules (his car) to move out of a physical space, at a certain time, allowing you to park.
It's not that different from manifesting a cup of coffee via my wife, is it.
The key difference is that we can understand how I communicated the idea to my wife - I opened my mouth and said "Honey, could you please get me a cup of coffee?" and she heard it.
But we cannot understand how the thought "I need a parking space" could organise itself in spacetime, such that the other driver leaves at the right time, making a space available.
Still it's only about as mysterious as a large flock of migrating geese fly in a perfect pattern and never crash into each other in mid-flight. Or how a large school of fish - thousands of them - can simultaneously change direction - every single one of them - in exactly the same way, without collision or confusion.
In comparison, it should be fairly simple for the universe to organise one driver to get out of his lot, just as one other person (you) need it.