[John Freestone]

Touche, ALG! I guess that neither of our philosophies is watertight. That thing about waking people up was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I suppose behind it is my concern that people may be very easily persuaded of things that aren't true, especially when it is either dangerous in some way or manipulation by someone else. Of course, you're right that I can't wake people up in the sense of making them see a great truth I can see, but I might still wake people up from that kind of susceptibility.

I guess you (and many here) are positive - some evangelical - about the Loa, perhaps having discovered it after holding more conventional "objective reality" views first, and some must post on the net in order to wake people up from their illusion of objective reality.

I made that transition myself about 30 years ago, and became a subjectivist. The following 30 years has been my experiment and contemplation of that 'mentalist' philosophy, Vedanta, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.. You suggest that I got lost in abstractions, while here you are doing hard life experiments, but believe me I played with reality a fair bit. Let's just say that at this time I'm reassessing the validity of that "life is what you make it" message. I can't dismiss it altogether, but I certainly don't trust it like I did.

I'm not really trying to lead you anywhere. But I do believe that I see logical errors in arguments like yours (and I am using yours as an example - there are dozens I've come across on this site I could use instead, and I respect your willingness to discuss it with me). You asked if I didn't also think your quarter of a million from zero is "weird", but this really raises a whole heap of questions. Obviously there are ones like "how weird is weird", which you mentioned above yourself, and you said that the "correct strategy" was to experiment with increasingly bizarre intentions. What is interesting is that you could, quite simply, devise something so utterly ridiculous that it would have a very high level of persuasiveness. I challenged Steve to do it - instead of this wishy washy manifesting a million dollars over who-knows-how-long by whatever method might happen, just manifest one single coin in the palm of your hand, now. Go on, if you're so magickal. What we all do is immediately collude with the automatic assumption that that kind of challenge is asking too much of the LoA and unfair. One day, when we're masters at it maybe... Why? If it's all subjective...

...but then if it were, you could jump off a cliff and not hit the ground, which is another reason I worry about these kinds of ideas being promulgated. Some people may take it too "literally", or not get "advanced enough" and actually jump off a cliff, believing it's gonna be fine if they just belieeeeee...splat. There's another great mantra, that we need to overcome fear. Yeah. Like it had no purpose.

But one of the things I find rather worrying is this experimentation itself. When I read Steve Pavlina's writings, I see two absolutely different kinds of text. One describes the ancient philosophy of mentalism (perhaps in a new guise, but absolutely ancient) - All is Consciousness, and there is nothing else (except that there is some physical plane on which thoughts manifest, so that consciousness can experience itself returning to perfection or I can enjoy the good life or whatever) ... the other, an obsession with turning his whole life into an experiment and preaching about it.

And I ask myself what is the purpose of this experimentation, but to gather evidence for a theory which, by conducting it, demonstrates at least some doubt as to its validity. If Steve knew that it was true, he'd not bother experimenting. If you knew it was true, you wouldn't bother experimenting. You'd just imagine and be...whatever you imagined. In fact, if what Steve says was true, none of us would exist in objective reality, and all his preaching would be self-talk, vain and pointless. There is only his consciousness, hence no-one else's conscious to raise.

Now, you can answer this by saying that we aren't perfect yet - that kind of knowledge and freedom are the goal we strive for. But I am more cautious these days, and my alternative explanation is that really our powers - even our ultimate, potential powers - of manifestation are extremely limited, but our powers of self-hypnosis are embarrassingly huge. Seriously, I've been there, waking up and so embarrassed at what I believed - like people never went to the moon, for instance, because flags don't flap like that in a vacuum...(yep, they do).

And everywhere I look on the internet there is one conspiracy or another being blown up beyond the limits of reason, or some guru pronouncing that we don't need anything at all, and please don't forget to click here to donate.

And my alternative explanation is that the baseline of human understanding, which is pretty limited, is terrifying, and we will do just about anything to prove that we have control, and believe anyone who tells us how to gain more of it. What is LoA? Control philosophy. It says you can have life free of risk and doubt and danger. All your most wonderful dreams and desires will be yours, including freedom from death. You can get rich, grow tall, have fame, fortune, sex and spiritual greatness. It's particularly appealing now there's no fronteer left and we're destroying the planet's capacity to sustain human life. Just remember - you can think it otherwise and it all goes away! Lovely.

People who preach this tend to make money. Why? Because of the Law of Attraction? Well yes. They attract people who want to know how to get happier and wealthier, and those people buy the product the guru is selling. And don't tell me they're not making money out of it, or you really do need to wake up. These days just having a small blog about growing cabbages can bring in a bit in google ads. These guys have corporations. Then they tell us it's a miracle that wishes come true and hey presto they manifested their riches. Laughing all the way to the bank, some of them, though a good deal of them believe their own spin.

That's the point. We're all believing our own spin. Weird, that's what the LoA is saying too. If you believe Steve's on to something then by god he isn't half. Only what he's onto is pyramid selling, spiritual consumerism: read enough of his advice to get free.

How frightening would it be to imagine a world in which reality was out there and your thoughts only helped you navigate through it, a world in which you might have been born in an African desert instead of in the affluent West, and in which you might find love and success but be torn from it all in death anyway? Could it just be that magical thinking is a security blanket rather than an advanced state of spiritual awakening to higher powers?

Ask your boss for an in-depth explanation why you were told your bonus was going to be zero, and why it's so much greater than it was two years ago. Have you looked for "rational" explanations? Of course, I understand the predicament. When you're working at IM you can't let doubts in or they mess the whole thing up. Sorry, BTW - sincerely. I just have to explore these thoughts, not shut them out. And there's another worry - any philosophy that advises you to filter your thoughts, avoid "negative" ones (like to doubt the teaching or consider rational explanations), and also professes to be consciousness raising...well, I'd just take a moment there to...erm....reflect. I figure my critical faculty is there for a reason, and not just so God can know what it feels like to confuse himself.

Your views are not without merit, either, and I think there's a lot to be gained by positive thinking and practising peace and love. I believe strongly in mind over matter, where that matter is one's body, and - in non-magical ways - intentions do tend to manifest in reality. I respect your right to make your experiments and come to your conclusions.