[JHL]

I don't think it's quite correct for you to suggest that LOA is an invention of modern-day marketeers.

Absolutely, I agree with you here. I didn’t mean to suggest it was a marketing invention - like you, I believe it to be a valid, timeless principle. Rather I meant to voice my consternation with what I see as the commercialism of a principle that people and publishing companies are exploiting for self-gain by leveraging off the general populations lusting for superficial bells and whistles. When I see book covers by venerated “spiritual” authors that trumpet “Get Anything You Want Now!” I see it as a deliberate attempt to exploit this misguided consumerism. But thats how an awful lot of money is made these days

And that is all the authors will say about it. In other words, they know about the Law of Attraction, but they frown on its use for materialistic or mundane purposes. They will teach nothing else on it. They go into great detail into many kinds of meditation practices, but they will refuse to elaborate on things like how to use meditation to "attract the perfect soul-mate, become prosperous, or fulfill some other personal desire".

Thats encouraging to see, I should probably read this particular book before I comment further on its veracity!

and I really don't think that Abraham, if real, had gathered their knowledge by reading books purchased from Borders or Amazon.

I dont know, Acting, Amazon's got pretty big distribution these days... For me, I think its prudent to maintain a healthy skepticism about people who claim to channel spirits. I accept the possibility that it may be true...but I'd rather focus on the content of the information and see if resonates with me.

Ironically...for a couple of years I had a spiritual tutor who taught the Lazaris material (Lazaris was also a channeled spirit, in case you haven’t previously heard the name). I'm uncertain if Lazaris actually was channeled or not (I've read several descrediting articles, but who knows), but the content was very useful and empowering. Incidentally, it included a meditation on "The secrets of manifesting" which I tried and, as far as I'm concerned, successfully so.

There is one ancient school of thought in India which says that the manner and time of your death in this life was already fixed, before you commenced this life. Between birth and death, you do have free will (or the potential of it) to do what you like, but when you die, and how, is already pre-determined.

Yes I'm familiar with this line of thinking. Its a bit of a contradiction in terms, of course. How can your free will not impact when you die? It seems preposterous. I could choose to kill myself anytime I want. Or adopt a healthy lifestyle to extend my life. It would seem that everything I do, leads up to when and how I die. It might then be reasonable to conclude that if my death is predetermined that everything I do leading up to it is similarly predetermined (the stoic philosophy?) and I only have the illusion of free will. With everything I do, it was always true that I was going to do it.

Question: assuming you succesfully manifest $1 million (or anything) without physically working for it, or earning it (through the lottery, say). Do think that this causes a vacuum or sorts that has to be filled? In other words, you've attracted energy to yourself that you really didnt earn...might there be some sort of energy repercussion for this?