[John Freestone]

Alegro, thanks for clarifying the difference between different versions of LoA - with and without action (i.e. physical, non-mental action, cylon). However, there seem to be some who see LoA meaning a phenomenon that is purely psychological or parapsychological (as you define it), and others who see it as the use of deliberate intention, thought, etc. alongside normal means of achieving a goal.

Originally Posted by alegro

As far as I understand it, the LoA does not require action. You may or may not be right that on this forum most people who believe to use the LoA successfully are taking action besides using the LoA. However, at least to my understanding in other sources (e.g. the movie "The Secret") the need to take action is not emphasized.

I think that this question is the source of a great deal of misunderstanding and antagonism. If someone argues against LoA, meaning the magical variety, they might get shot down by someone who sees the LoA as working through thought and its influence on action. I have absolutely no problem with the latter explanation (normality), but see a great deal of the former type (superstitious magic).

For example, people who try to manifest winning the lottery simply cannot take action other than buying tickets. There is no activity that can increase their odds. They *cannot* take action.

And that seems to agree with the circumstantial evidence - people can't win the lottery by this method (which kind of clinches it for me). If they could, even at a ridiculously poor probability-rate, they would bancrupt the house in no time. Ask lottery comapanies what they think about parapsychological wins - their whole livelihood depends on it not being possible.

If you take action, how can you claim that your results come from the LoA? I believe this is a crystal clear test of the LoA vs. the other more "scientific sounding" explanation: Don't take action and just wait to see if your wish manifests or not!

You sound like a sceptic, and I would agree with this. I do think you perhaps dismiss the middle-ground, however, the people who believe that thought is very influential, perhaps even has a magical power, but they know they still need to take action in the world. I argue that these things probably only really manifest because of a chain of action, and the thought is just as the usual neuroscientist would have it - an interior, personal brain function. LoAers' belief is often accompanied by many appealing ideas from religions, particularly about non-local mind, astral planes, and hence all sorts of parapsychological phenomena.

I also agree completely with the observation that the pysical, active intermediate cause of 'manifestations' (changes) happen unconsciously - a much greater effect than is commonly known. The power of the unconscious is massive in all of this LoA nonsense (the magic bit). So much so that I suspect that believers are actually unconsciously programming their brains to forget non-magical explanations for their successes, and forget that they've forgotten. This is one reason why scientific rigour is so important - the sceptic is as prone to unconsciously fixing the results as the believer, but the scientific method is designed to eliminate these biases as far as possible, and often completely (depending on circumstances).

It's amazing how much psychics, when asked to participate in these tests, cling on to the action bit - but like you say, if they can take action to influence the results, it's not a fair test of parapsychology.

This is why I wrote that any meaningful definition of the LoA *has* to exclude taking action since otherwise it won't be the LoA anymore, but something different with a firm foundation.

I would just say that it could be meaningfully defined to include external action in some way, but I agree with your implication - it won't be possible to tell whether it has anything to get weirded out about, go off to study in a course in miracles to develop, or that can be proven to be any different from normality (oh that boring n-word again, sorry). It would be what I called earlier (or on another thread) the Weak Law of Attraction. Actually, that was probably unhelpful, because the important features of the phenomenon are 1. that it is not weak, but very powerful, and 2. that it is not some kind of mystical law of mental functioning or magic or parapsychology, just unconscious processes (hypnosis, placebo, positive/negative thinking, etc.). Generally people do not understand or make enough use of these features of the mind - and it is disappointing that they are so often popularised under the mystical guise of the LoA, spiritual consumerism, 'the secret' and such. It turns what could be a genuine enlightenment into a new trap in superstition and muddled, self-delusive, self-hypnotic stupidity.

The difference between this and the LoA is that all those positive things and opportunities had been there before, I was just unaware of them because I didn't allow myself to see them.

Yes.

You are not talking about the type of LoA that I understand some people are talking about. Some people are talking about thoughts manipulating matter. And there is a difference between walking past a hundred dollar note lying on the street because we can't see it and manifesting a hundred dollar note on the street.

So do I take it you're a sceptic about the magical explanations, Alegro?