Garbage, all of it.

[Acting Like Godot]

One more point I wish to make. It could well be the case that:

there are many Extremely Successful People in the world who got that way by using LOA (or some version of it - eg TAGR or Master Key System or Silva Method);

BUT

they simply don't want to go very public about it, because they don't want to be viewed as superstitious, unscientific or mad.

I talk to my wife, parents and brothers about the LOA quite freely. Over time, they've all come to accept it in varying degrees. But the point is - offline, I certainly don't talk freely to just ANYBODY in the world about LOA. (Or if I do, I dumb it down to the level which I think that the specific person can accept, eg just pitching it as 'positive thinking' or conventional goal setting).

Joe Vitale himself writes in "Zero Limits" about his own nervousness, when he first started going public about LOA. What would people think, about a very successful business consultant who suddenly starts spouting metaphysical mutterings about thoughts creating reality?!

[Lil Chris]

Quantum Healing with Dr. Lo

I'm not too sure why I keep posting these video links, hopefully someone will enjoy them (this is the last one, I promise)

[pc99]

Originally Posted by Technicolor Tim

The movie "The Secret" has been around for a couple of years now. Everybody and their brother seems to be going wild about it. And Law of attraction books have been around, and sold well, for a hundred years or more. God knows how many copies of Think & Grow Rich have been read all around the globe by enthusiastic folks eager to improve their lives.

Where are all the millionaires?

Where are the millionaires?

I was using LOA before I even knew what it was. I was about a third of the way there before I understood it properly, and now I'm well over a half way there. I know within 2 years I'll be there. So, to answer your question, we're everywhere

[RT Wolf]

Its kinda weird to see similar poster-types popping up here and again. There's the Max Power-style posters, there's the gurus of manifestation (like ALG and Paul), there's the people who are learning and making genuine headway (liek cylon nad myself) there's the doubters (like Shamou and Mrs Cougan), there's the people for whom things are hell and they're trying to improve it but they're wayyyyy too attached to the outcome of everything (Like...that poster, can't remember and Floridagirl), there's also compassionate people like Angela. Perhaps I'm over-categorizing Every coupla months someone starts a new thread sayin LoA is garbage, and since this is the IM home turf, they usually disappear in front of the barage of posts.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Aha, Wolf, you missed one guy out.

Bill Gates was a teenager studying at Harvard University. Then he read "The Master Key System" by Charles Haanel. Bill Gates promptly dropped out of Harvard, founded Microsoft and the rest is history.

Of course, the above could be an urban legend. And it probably is, in the subjective realities of those who refuse to believe it.

Is Bill Gates a psychic that could pass that million dollar Randi? challenge? I guess I was thinking of the extreme case of a sage healer manifester avatar person and not the super stars that are in the public eye.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Is Bill Gates a psychic that could pass that million dollar Randi? challenge? I guess I was thinking of the extreme case of a sage healer manifester avatar person and not the super stars that are in the public eye.

There are two separate lines of discussion that are going on here - one is about James Randi, and the other is about millionaires.

For an outright example of "Sage healer meets Randi", simply google Matthew Manning and James Randi, and see what really happened.

For several YEARS in his earlier life, Matthew Manning willingly performed endless experiments for scientists in their labs, demonstrating a wide range of psychic abilities. None of them ever said, "Matthew is a fraud."

In fact, one of these scientists, Professor Brian Josephson, was a Nobel Prize winner for Physics who still lectures at Cambridge University, and was sufficiently inspired by Manning, from their meetings several decades ago, to continue to research telepathy etc.

But all Randi can say about Manning is, "He's a fraud, he's a fraud". Go google and see.

Randi isn't a scientist; he's won a Nobel Prize for nothing; he doesn't lecture at a world-class university; he hasn't conducted experiments with Manning in a science lab -

so on Manning, between Brian Josephson and Randi, it seems logical to me to believe Brian Josephson.

BUT in Randi's subjective reality, Manning probably IS a fraud - Randi's beliefs have manifested that.

As for Manning's reaction to Randi, well, google and see for yourself.

Now PERSONALLY speaking, if you were Jesus, would you go around:

(1) healing people and helping people; or

(2) performing tricks to engage and entertain Randi and other skeptics?

I know what I would choose. I may do some experiments with genuine scientists, especially those with an open mind and who aren't going all out to besmirch my reputation and paint me as a fraud, or a madman or whatever.

But clearly I wouldn't waste my time with Randi.

A million dollars? Poooi. People have a sense of integrity, you know. There are many ways to make that money without offending that sense of integrity.

[RT Wolf]

^ That's an interesting point. It reminds me of an article I read recently on psi phenomenon:

Dr. Susan Blackmore

To me an open mind means this - that you are prepared to change your mind if the evidence suggests you should. This sounds simple, but is not. It is a balancing act between having a mind so open that it changes every time the wind blows, and so closed that impossible standards of evidence are required to change it. It is a world away from the kind of ‘open mind’ that critics love to flaunt - the kind that really means “If you agree with me you have an open mind - if you agree with scientists you don’t”.

Sound like anyone we know?

Skepticism is the focus of many skeptics’ lives. Some have committed their careers to promoting skepticism and to debunking paranormal claims. Would they find it easy to change their minds if good evidence for the paranormal came along? I think not. The problem in making this comparison is that there is, as far as I can tell, no good evidence for the paranormal. Nevertheless, some skeptics display just the same reluctance to change, and tendency to biassed interpretations, as the most ardent believers do. In skeptical books and magazines we can read again and again authors who prefer to accept even the feeblest and least well-founded skeptical explanation of a claim, rather than consider the possibility that the claim might be true. Yet if we are going to study psychic claims at all, we must always consider the possibility that they are true.

We're all human, and we're all just trying to find our own truths.

She also wrote about "The Elusive Open Mind" here. The Elusive Open Mind: Ten Years of

[cylon]

<goofy alert> so I am craving a large pepsi. I go to the drive-thru and order my food. For a split second I thought "do I want pepsi or dr.pepper?" but I figured, I came for the pepsi. So the words that came out of my mouth were "fattening food and a large pepsi" and her words through the drive-thru box were "dr pepper or pepsi"? The chick picked up on my conflicted desire. I know it.

Stuff like this trips me out. That had to be a matrix ripple. Or actually it's all one big matrix ripple and I'm only perceiving what I can handle. </goofy>

[ken nubo]

Hey dave,

Sounds like some got duped into some expensive "the secret" seminar. I watched "the secret" for free online, I thought it was too hype-ish.

Next time, tell your friend that she should look into a seminar where there is money back gurantee if she feels that she didn't learn anything useful from it.

[blazer1]

You guys are putting too much 'mystical' bs on the whole IM thing. The observation is as simple as Karma.

When you are constantly thinking about, lets say .. a desire ... then you are constantly reminded to take actions that help you achieve that desire.

It is everywhere in nature, why do you think when you feel hungry, you think about food? Or when you feel like taking a piss, you are constantly reminded of taking a piss?


It is how our body and mind functions - there is no magical law of attraction like the media portrays in a very subtle sense.

And for those people who don't believe it ... you probably don't believe in Karma also --- it is not some magical force out there. It's just logic in a sense.

[cylon]

Actually karma would be considered magic by a lot of people.

Originally Posted by blazer1

It is how our body and mind functions - there is no magical law of attraction like the media portrays in a very subtle sense.

prove it.

[RT Wolf]

Wow, its weird how oblivious people are to the thousands of years of intellectual ground that they cover in a few sentences.

To be fair, we don't know what we don't know, however its a capital mistake to simply assume that you know all there is to know. Things that we take for granted like private property was actually something that had to be argued for at one time:
Mind-Manual » Beliefs, Beliefs, Beliefs, Beliefs

In the same way, Descartes' and Hume's philosophical postions heavily influence our society today, but we just don't consciously recognize that. I don't think most people can even point out the name for their philosophical position (usually its empirical skepticism, or empirical positivism), so they probably haven't studied it. I'm a pragmatist. If it works well enough to get me the results I want, I'm happy. I care about whether its the truth only in so far as knowing the truth can make osmething work better for me. IM appears to be working just fine for me so far. There could be other factors at work, sure, and alternate explanations, but that doesn't change th fact that I'm getting results.

Its like those randomized studies on weight loss products (and other pharmacuticals). There's usually a control group that is given a placebo, and the other group (s) is given the drug. The thing that a lot of people don't know that is that people who are on the placebo ALSO lose weight. There are usually some alternate explanations for this, but that doesn't change the fact that placebos often work better than the weight loss products. What does it matter if its a "real" medicine or not.

I dunno why I wrote this post. Perhaps I'm trying to change my sleep schedule and I'm just cranky. Its certainyl full of holes. Yar.

[Acting Like Godot]

Those who understand, will understand. And those who don't, won't.

Contrary to what Blazer suggests, the want/need does not always lead to the thought. Very often, it is the thought that creates the want/need. This is a core principle on which the advertising & marketing industry operates.

When you are hungry, you think about food. But have you ever thought about food (say, while watching a cooking show on TV) and then felt hungry?

Why do many people overeat? Why do they take the action of eating past the point of hunger?

Do you want sex because you have an erection? Or do you have an erection because you want sex?

Do events which you perceive as positive make you happy? Or does being happy make you perceive events as positive?

Do you believe what you see? Or do you see what you believe?

Does anything ever mean anything, if your mind did not attach a meaning to it?

[Kylark]

Originally Posted by cylon

<goofy alert> so I am craving a large pepsi. I go to the drive-thru and order my food. For a split second I thought "do I want pepsi or dr.pepper?" but I figured, I came for the pepsi. So the words that came out of my mouth were "fattening food and a large pepsi" and her words through the drive-thru box were "dr pepper or pepsi"? The chick picked up on my conflicted desire. I know it.

Stuff like this trips me out. That had to be a matrix ripple. Or actually it's all one big matrix ripple and I'm only perceiving what I can handle. </goofy>

A similar thing happened to me at Caribou Coffee (gawd, this is so trivial, but I have to relate it).

I was thinking really hard about getting a decaf mocha, but when I arrived I asked for a hot chocolate, because that is my habit.

"Whoops," said the cashier. "I just rang you up for a small mocha."

"That's okay," I said, "that's what I really wanted."

So I happily left the store, decaf mocha in hand.

[Angela]

Interestingly, Daveangeles, the OP, has not checked in here since the day after he created the thread! He has missed all the wonderful things people have had to say in response to him. Looks like maybe he was just casting an over-the-shoulder head toss venting at us, not interested in hearing what others had to say. oh well!

[cylon]

Thanks for reminding me of that Kylark, having a rough morning and it reminded me I'm not powerless, lol.

Yes I'm surprised the OP left, with a title like garbage all of it I expected a well-thought out discussion with him to follow.

[Stormcaller]

Originally Posted by daveangeles

Hahaha, what angers me is the common response that I am creating "resistance" and that somewhere I secretly don't believe I deserve to be all right financially.

Trust me, there is no resistance. I would love to have prosperity in my life and I deserve it as much as the next guy. It just isn't coming. I would do a rain dance right now if I thought it would change anything.

If it's working well for you, then I'm glad to hear that. Maybe it is just dependent on the individual. Makes sense: not everyone can be a master pianist, for example. Why assume that everyone can use LOA?

Hello Dave. I feel your frustration. When I started asking questions in my life, I turned to "self-help" books new age etc. This began my quest. There have been significant pitfalls on my journey and most of what I have tried has not worked. I find that for me a lot of it is hooplah, but that it does work for other people and Oprah… a select fewer methods seem to work for me. My problem is that (concerning some methods of self-help) I don't know how to do the first step. Like how I can actually get motivated to try the seemingly pointless activities suggested in various books.
I think that different things work for different people and that disconcerting people like us put up more resistance and that’s why it is more difficult for us.

Now I remember reading that you said hearing that you cause your own suffering by putting up “resistance” makes you mad. Oh can I ever relate to that. That's one of the reasons I turned from self-help, I felt I was getting blamed for everything. I didn't want the responsibility of taking all that on. After all, I feel like a victim which is why I turned to self-help... and now these self-help books are telling me I'm victimizing my own self... Sheesh

I know the frustration. And yet, I somehow see at least a shimmer of unpleasant truth in it all these ideas about self-creation or free will. I think you do too, or you wouldn't be still questing to find answers. At the very least, if we create our own victimization, we potentially have the power to empower ourselves too. That's the good news. Good Luck finding a technique that speaks to you and leads to your empowerment. P.S. borrow or buy the book "Dark Night of the Soul" by Thomas Moore. I have a notion you may enjoy this book. It’s pleasantly not over optimistic, realistic enough that it has been the best “self-help” book I’ve ever read. I may be wrong, but if you get it from the library, it won't cost you anything if I am wrong.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Angela

Interestingly, Daveangeles, the OP, has not checked in here since the day after he created the thread! He has missed all the wonderful things people have had to say in response to him.

You know, sometimes I think that this is just another example of how the LOA works. Like this:

1. you say something;

2. other people offer advice, comments, opinions, suggestions, explanations etc

3. HOWEVER, everything in your reality is attracted by your thoughts, and nothing enters your reality unless it's been attracted by your thoughts.

4. Therefore if your thoughts are very inconsistent with the advice, comments, opinions etc, then either:

(a) somehow you just won't see them;

(b) even if you see them, you won't understand them.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

You know, sometimes I think that this is just another example of how the LOA works. Like this:

1. you say something;

2. other people offer advice, comments, opinions, suggestions, explanations etc

3. HOWEVER, everything in your reality is attracted by your thoughts, and nothing enters your reality unless it's been attracted by your thoughts.

4. Therefore if your thoughts are very inconsistent with the advice, comments, opinions etc, then either:

(a) somehow you just won't see them;

(b) even if you see them, you won't understand them.

Hi ALG - I don't know quite what prompted me to reply to this. Someone at the forum emailed me a while ago and I've been lurking a little.

I was going to reply with some other possible scenarios. Like with me, for instance, it sometimes happens that I join a forum that looks interesting and start posting, but then something in my life distracts me and I forget to go back.

Of course, your proposition makes a lot of sense. Critics or doubters are much more likely to vanish after posting than people who already believe the prevalent philosophy of the forum, or are ready to adopt it. And at the other end of the scale, forums have those habitual posters, who dedicate a good deal of their time to 'educating' others in the philosophy, or just enjoy the community as a normal part of their life, or - there must be some - use their involvement as a substitute for other activities that might provide them a more rounded life, those who are addicted in some way. I'd bet that a rigorous DBRT (double-blind, randomised trial) would support such a hypothesis.

But there's something else about your explanation that makes me wonder if the LoA applies to itself. Your explanation - or any hypothesis about relationships between events - is a thought or a set of thoughts that is yours alone, and maybe its validity therefore only applies to you. Surely the LoA (if taken as the law of nature) spells the end of science and rational philosophy and all sentences of the kind "X happens because Y happened", since it says "X only appears to have happened because Y happened because you think so" (or at least "X only happened for you because Y happened, because you think so").

I'm pretty convinced of the fact of placebo, the objective viewpoint that our subjective beliefs tend to shape our reality to some extent, which is roughly what the LoA, IM and SR theories are all about (but are dangerous when taken as the only laws of nature). The problematic side to it is that we are extremely prone to superstitious, irrational thinking.

I have given a few examples last time I was in a phase of posting here (I think), like the tourists who could "feel" the evil at a site where torture had taken place, and the peace and love at an ancient holy site, only to be told by the embarrassed guide later that day that he'd got mixed up and the locations were the opposite of what he'd told them. They'd been cooing and wow-ing all day about how you could actually feel the "energies", and came up with theories about vibes being left in the earth and stones...theories many people still believe despite (apparently) absolutely no rigorous scientific evidence to support it (and a great deal of scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that such beliefs arise out of self-hypnosis, placebo, wishful thinking).

I meandered the other day to a website where someone was selling a week's camping (bring your own tent, food and equipment) and new-age 'education' for £330 for the week (not forgetting to tell us that 330 is a 'master number' - ooooooh!), the purpose of which was to make final alignments to the spiritual energies of humanity and the Earth so that Ascention could come about (and we'd all live or die happily ever after, I guess).

Now I might have sent him a critical email asking whether he actually believed his esoteric, ego-massaging nonsense or had any objective evidence that he could alter the history of the world by holding rituals in a field in England, whether he considered his business to be manipulative spiritual consumerism at all, that sort of thing - a kind of "Garbage, all of it" email - but I would probably not have bothered to continue the conversation for long.

I suppose I'm not ready to hear his message. My energies aren't refined enough. I'm too closed-minded. I'm creating my own reality in which things aren't just automatically the way I decide they're going to be because it would be really cool that way.

Sometimes I feel that our susceptibility to self-hypnosis and mumbo-jumbo and magical thinking has been our worst problem though all human history - we believe what people tell us and what we hope or fear is true (and slaughter those who are convinced of different truths) - and I'm tempted to spend a master number of pounds to go to such events to try to wake people up. Of course, I would probably be asked to leave for disrupting the proceedings with my "negative" energy. Of course, the value of recognising self-hypnosis (LoA) is that it also helps us to see the relativity of our views, and thus is one of the most useful things to help humans stop slaughtering each other, too. It's just a matter of balance, I think. Denying objective reality altogether is just another dogmatic position, another entrenched view, of which the believer tends to try to convince others.

Basically, does it matter if you're right or wrong when you say "everything in your reality is attracted by your thoughts"? Doesn't it mean there's no point in telling people what you think? It's only what you think, after all. It has no objective validity whatsoever (?).

Don't people believe in the LoA simply because they believe in the LoA? I suspect that there is an objective reality as well as human thought. It is not equally true that daveangeles has left because he's not interested anymore and that he's reading avidly in between sessions of channelling Venusian emperors.

Peace and Love
John

[Acting Like Godot]

May I be quite blunt and tell you what I think?

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I'm tempted to spend a master number of pounds to go to such events to try to wake people up.

You would do a horrible job at this. And that's because for all these years, you've searched and searched and all you've really done is spin yourself dizzy round and round in thick clouds of religion and philosophy and existential meanderings and profound musings, none of which feel solid enough for you to trust.

That's what I gather from your posts.

You would do badly trying to convince anyone to take any particular view of reality ... because you don't even remotely feel sure of your own reality.

But of course. Look at your thoughts! (As shown in this thread). And remember - thoughts create reality.

---------

This thread commenced in December 2007 and ran actively until end January 2008, and then it basically became dormant.

But in the five months since then, I have systematically continued doing my personal LOA experiment - the same one that I commenced in October 2006 (as I had mentioned earlier in this thread).

The basic methodology is still the same - I record my intentions in writing, promptly after I've done them; and I record the ongoing events in my life, promptly as they occur; and I track the results. Wherever it is possible to use objective measures, I continue to use objective measures.

And what kind of experimental results have the five months, since this thread went dormant, produced? Plenty. It just gets better and better! Let me give you one example - just one - from February 2008, one month after this thread went dormant. I hate to use money as an example again - but you kept talking about "magical thinking" and "objective reality", and well, money is a highly objective and quantifiable measure - either you have it or you don't.

Click here and here and here, it's hard to argue with a quarter of a million dollars.

Perhaps it is all, as you might say, just a crazy string of random coincidences. But then it would be ridiculous or me, to draw such a conclusion at the present time. There is just too much objective evidence, for me to behave so illogically.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

May I be quite blunt and tell you what I think?

You would do a horrible job at this. And that's because for all these years, you've searched and searched and all you've really done is spin yourself dizzy round and round in thick clouds of religion and philosophy and existential meanderings and profound musings, none of which feel solid enough for you to trust.

That's what I gather from your posts.

You would do badly trying to convince anyone to take any particular view of reality ... because you don't even remotely feel sure of your own reality.

But of course. Look at your thoughts! (As shown in this thread). And remember - thoughts create reality.

I am wise and humble enough to admit that I do not understand the nature of reality. I am old and experienced enough to feel pretty confident that there are about 5.6 billion of us, but about 5.4 billion pretend they do understand the nature of reality. It's a very powerful drive humanity has, to make sense of the extreme complexity and usually deeply hidden causation of events, and has been since we first imagined that the wind and rain were sent by gods.

It's true I've spent a lot of time philosophising, and it's true that I have had to accept defeat in terms of finding a final, absolute certainty, although I have learned a good deal and trust a good deal of what I've learned, so you have described me rather incorrectly here.

Click here and here and here, it's hard to argue with a quarter of a million dollars.

Perhaps it is all, as you might say, just a crazy string of random coincidences. But then it would be ridiculous or me, to draw such a conclusion at the present time. There is just too much objective evidence, for me to behave so illogically.

On the contrary, it's very easy for me to argue with a quarter of a million dollars. All three links, BTW, lead to the same fact. One of the ways perhaps that you convince yourself of the LoA, by the way, is called "amplification". The fact they lead to is that, as you put it yourself: "my annual bonus has increased more than 5 times within the approximately 20-month period that I have been actively using LOA," to which you add, "WOAH!!"

Unfortunately, you do not know by what factor your bonus would have increased had you not been practising the LoA. Nor does it tell you how much of your bonus increase whilst practising arose from your increased confidence, harder work, smiling at the boss more, or any other non-magical factors.

Perhaps it is all, as you might say, just a crazy string of random coincidences. But then it would be ridiculous or me, to draw such a conclusion at the present time. There is just too much objective evidence, for me to behave so illogically.

You misunderstand me. I don't say it is a crazy string of random coincidences. I don't know what caused it. I am big enough to admit that I don't know what caused it. You are the one who has drawn a conclusion, which is that you magically caused it by imagining yourself wealthy while you had a massage.

[Acting Like Godot]

Your points are not entirely invalid, John. In fact, I had made exactly the same sorts of observations much earlier in this thread.

I had pointed out that the correct strategy was to experiment with increasingly bizarre and unusual intentions - events which the person would consider extremely unlikely to occur under "normal" circumstances.

Of course, the difficulty is defining what's "bizarre" or "unusual" - once again, a subjective question. But it just goes to show how elusive a truly "objective" reality is. Who knows, perhaps it doesn't exist in any meaningful way.

In the end, it's my experiment, so I have to make my subjective judgment. I consider it bizarre and unusual, that an employee should be told at his official appraisal that he would get ZERO bonuses, and yet, two months later, receive a quarter of a million dollars (exceeding by far any other bonus he had ever received in his life). Just wondering if you would answer me honestly - would you personally not consider such an event bizarre too?

But I cannot stop here - I still have many more intentions to play with. Last year with LOA I cured a chronic skin problem that doctors told me was incurable; this year I'm wondering whether I should make myself grow taller, just for the fun of it. Sounds absolutely crazy, but I've just seen a Harvard Medical School study on how hypnosis can accelerate new bone growth in adults. So who knows?

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I am wise and humble enough to admit that I do not understand the nature of reality..

That's indeed wise and humble of you. What I found perplexing is that you already KNOW you do not understand the nature of reality, and yet you say things like you feel inclined to go to some place or event to make some loud proclamations and "wake people up". What makes you so sure that they're wrong and you're right? Or do you just plan to go there and say, "You're all wrong ... And I haven't got a clue myself ... But trust me, you're wrong."

Well, they could be wrong. But as I said, you're not going to do a good job convincing them, because "I haven't got a clue myself" just doesn't sound that persuasive. If I'm blind and so are you, then maybe it's better for you to let me stand where I like, instead of leading me round and round.

[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.

[Acting Like Godot]

Personally I do not mind the implication that LOA practitioners are wrong. I do mind the implication that LOA practitioners are illogical.

I am a highly logical person. In my opinion, it's entirely incorrect to suggest that LOA and logical thinking are mutually exclusive. I could elaborate in detail. But the more pertinent point is that when discussing the LOA in these forums (especially threads with a "Is the LOA genuine?" theme) I am careful to present arguments in a way that is very logical, REGARDLESS of whether the reader believes in the LOA or not.

For example, I have often proposed the following kind of logical approach:

1. Either LOA is genuine OR it is not.

2. If it is genuine, it is potentially an extremely powerful tool for improving your life and the lives of those around you.

3. If it is not genuine, then you are entirely free to conduct your life as you did before you ever heard of such a thing as the LOA.

4. Because of the implications of Point 2, it is not sensible to not investigate the LOA.

5. However, if the LOA is not genuine, the process of investigating it is potentially harmful, to the extent that you have wasted time, energy etc on the investigation process, or made bad decisions concerning your health, career, family etc which you otherwise would not have made.

6. Therefore the logical conclusion is that you should investigate the LOA in a way which cannot cause you any loss or harm, even if it turned out that LOA is not genuine.

7. Furthermore, you could investigate the LOA in a way that would potentially yield benefits, even if it turned out that LOA is not genuine. For example, even if LOA is not genuine, it is useful to set your goals; manage your emotions; think creatively etc - all of which are matters which could easily form part of the investigation process.

I think that the approach outlined above is very logical. As for the investigation process itself, I have also often outlined possible experimental structures for readers to follow, whereby one can incorporate safeguards, control measures etc to reduce or eliminate the risks of cognitive biases; magical thinking; and logical errors leading the person to wrong conclusions.

As for this:

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.

Essentially you are asking for "miracles". And essentially the world has no lack of examples of "miracles". For example, there are numerous accounts of Sai Baba doing exactly the kind of manifestation you just mentioned; there are levitation examples by Yogi Pullavar and Daniel Dunglas Home; there are Russian videos of Nina Kulagina performing telekinesis on small objects; there is matthew manning killing cancer cells in a petri dish by meditating on them; and in China, qigong masters performing paranormal physical feats are a dime a dozen. Furthermore there is a huge range of scientific experiments & theories that concern the effect of consciousness or thoughts on physical reality.

The point is - whatever "miracle" is offered as an example, it is always possible to reject it and say:

1. it is a strange phenomenon, but it has nothing to do with thought
2. there is a rational explanation, it just hasn't been found yet
3. it is fraud

Etc. In other words, whether the "miracle" is performed or explained by Jesus or Albert Einstein, it is still possible for a person to say, "Jesus is lying" or "Einstein is lying". Similarly, whatever "miracle" I may actually be able to perform at your request, you may say, "It's a lie ... It's a coincidence ... It's a mistake ... It's anything, but a miracle."

That is why I have often said that everyone should do their own experiments. You would not lie to yourself, would you. Not deliberately, anyway. And as I have already said, it is possible to design control measures to reduce your own cognitive biases, wishful thinking, logical fallacies etc.

If you knew it was true, you wouldn't bother experimenting.

My original experiment (to determine whether LOA is genuine) commenced in October 2006. I actually ended it on 22 February 2008.

I still conduct experiments, but the purpose is different now. I am now experimenting to find out more about different ways to use the LOA.

Among other things, I am studying magick, witchcraft and occult practices on a cross-cultural basis around the world. I was fortunate to come across an encyclopaedia on the topic, written by an anthropology professor at Cambridge University who happens to be a witch herself. The book serves as a useful starting point.

I am also experimenting with self-hypnosis. You use the term in a way that is synonymous with "self delusion" - that is your understanding, not mine. Hypnosis, and self-hypnosis, has an extremely wide range of applications, some of which could fairly be described as paranormal. This again is of interest to me. I had found this book:

Amazon.co.uk: Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis: Robin Waterfield: Books

.... extremely enlightening.

I believe strongly in mind over matter, where that matter is one's body

Then you might be interested in this:

Wow My Wife Is Pretty Good At This Stuff Too « The Magickal Mind

It concerns a psychic diagnosis performed by my wife on me, with subsequent confirmation from a doctor.

(My wife does her own mind experiments too, although her specific interests in this area are different from mine.).

As usual, it is possible to say that this is yet another coincidence, lucky guess, amplification, magical thinking etc, and how bizarre or unusual is this one incident anyway etc etc? This is the kind of erroneous thinking which dismisses the totality of available evidence.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I suspect that there is an objective reality as well as human thought.

You could be right. If so, a good definition of objective reality might be as follows:

"An infinitely large field of subatomic particles blinking in and out of existence at rapid speed."

On the other hand, any suspicion you may have is precisely that - a suspicion - which is a subjective thought.

Whatever you think objective reality might be, it is merely a thought, filtered through your own beliefs, conditioning and sensory perceptions etc.

And your sensory perceptions basically aren't terribly trustworthy. You could be right next to a tree, and so could a grasshopper, a snake and a dog. But you, and the grasshopper, and the snake, and the dog would all perceive the tree quite differently. What then is the most objective reality of the tree?

As you stand next to the tree, you may even think that you're standing still next to the tree. Objectively speaking, it's more precise to say that actually you are moving at great space through outer space, as the earth rotates. Just another one of those things which your senses don't really tell you.

[John Freestone]

Ok ALG. I see we're coming to an impasse here. It looks to me like you're saying that people like me dismiss each single case as explicable by material science and fail to notice the great mass of cases being reported, and hence wrongly dismiss magic. I, as a sceptic, say that people like you accept single cases irrationally, ignoring materialistic explanations (such as the possibility that someone given a diagnosis might contract the diagnosed condition psychosomatically, for instance, which, if true, could turn "psychic healing" into something more like linguistic harming, which could be the basis of "cursing" people), and fail to notice the vast amount of evidence that the world is out there and immutable by will power.

I accept, of course, that the LOA could only be provable to oneself. I'm just astonished that you say so blithely "You would not lie to yourself, would you?". That is my whole point. You seem to trust your subjective impressions and have faith that you don't "lie" to yourself very readily...but you then use the opposite argument to question my relative confidence in objective reality: "sensory perceptions basically aren't terribly trustworthy".

If you can use self-delusion as a reason to doubt the material, objective world like that, I don't see why you suspend it when it comes to miracles, and for every claim that those kinds of phenomena are proven, there will be dozens of logical rebuffs, as you recognise yourself. You claim that you put in sufficient experimental controls to determine that you have psychic powers, but the thing you are studying is not discernable from self-delusion. If you think a blue feather and it appears, and then have to descend to the realms of rational, material science to establish whether it exists in the real world or not....well, it's moving outside your own cosmology as soon as you do that. A blue feather would be, like everything else, just your subjective creation, a thought, surely?

It seems to me that when you decide to believe in magic, it means suspending rational judgement, because rational judgement belongs to a "wrong" mindset, an illusion about reality. Reality is just what you're creating in your mind. Hence some of the resistance to sceptics like me - believers don't want to have their "positive" thoughts interrupted by my doubts. As a well-educated person on such matters, you must see that, and it's common in many religions. You have to give up doubt altogether, immerse yourself in faith. Maybe that's what I'm struggling to understand about LoA - so many believers seem to want to do experiments to prove that it works, as if it wasn't a religion, but a hidden science waiting for the world to discover it. When someone asks believers for evidence, they get told they can't have objective evidence, but must prove it for themselves, whilst also being sent off to websites where the proof is documented rigorously.

What you describe as a logical approach above beginning "1. Either LOA is genuine OR it is not..." is only one side of the logic, to me. You demonstrate your subconscious desire to believe this stuff when you say that the benefits of LoA would be so wonderful if it were true, then that this makes it imperitive to do experiments to ascertain the truth. We could invent hundreds of pleasant cosmological fictions to investigate. But your logic from this point only concerns what problems you might cause yourself if it's not real. By this time, you have departed from the kind of logic I was criticising, concerning the philosophy, actually discerning reality from illusion. The risk is not so much that an individual experimenter harms themselves by making silly decisions, but that they - and whole communities of like-minded folk - end up moving further and further from checks and balances (as their confidence in the Law increases), and recruit more believers with their blogs, when in fact they are what ordinary folk call "away with the fairies". I get the strong feeling here that believers are more fearful of making wrong career decisions and ending up less well off if their basic philosophy is wrong than that their basic philosophy might be wrong. It's like the ultimate materialism, ironically, that I come across here - "Look, I must be right. Look how much money I've got!" Is wealth the measure of the true believer now? At one time it was poverty. There's a good challenge. See if you can lose all your money by thinking it away. If the LoA is real, you can always get it back again.

Surely one has to decide between rationality, logic, science, removing subjective errors and all that, on the one hand, and belief-makes-real on the other? Testing belief-makes-real with solid science and rigorous logic... I don't get that at all.

[Acting Like Godot]

This is getting rather boring. Either you're genuinely misunderstanding me, or you're deliberately misunderstanding me - but either way I think that any more time I spend explaining my perspective to you is just wasted time. Neither do you need to waste any more time explaining your perspective to me; it is a rather common one in society generally, and I understand it very well although I do not agree with it.

I suggest that you go inhabit your reality and I'll go inhabit mine, ok? My framework clearly accommodates the idea that your reality will seem convincing to you. Whereas your framework probably accommodates the existence of fools, idiots and superstitious villagers etc that you didn't manage to educate. So you can just regard me as one of those.

Hilarious, to think that once upon a time you earnestly immersed yourself in Buddhism, Hinduism etc, and yet now the idea that an objective reality might not be so objective is so appalling to you. Well at least once upon a time, we had something in common - you were a superstitious villager too.

In May, I manifested for my book to be published. In three days, I secured a publishing contract. The book will be out in 2009. In the near future, I'll start manifesting for it to be critically acclaimed and award-winning when it comes out, and a national bestseller in its genre.

if you're interested to read it, PM me your address and in 2009 I'll send you a copy together with reviews, if available then. Don't worry, the book has nothing to do with LOA or magick.

Another interesting experiment I plan to do is an old twist on the famous experiment (on the little kids) by harvard's professor robert rosenthal. I plan to use LOA to manifest an extraordinary increase in my 1Q and not only get into Mensa, but be rather extraordinary even by Mensa standards. I think this will be quite an interesting experiment, and goodness, there will be an external tester, Mensa with specific methodology to quantify the result of my manifestation (it's called an IQ score).

I'm sorry if you don't find any of the above particularly bizarre, unusual or miraculous. I have other intentions but they're even more mundane in nature - health, family, finances, social contribution, career etc - although the actual range of the ambition probably greatly surpasses that of the average man in the street. Yet the common feature is that the intentions are quite practical; that's just my personality. If I could, I'd walk on water for your benefit, but I'm just not that good yet, and besides you'd just accuse me of wearing special anti-gravity shoes from NASA.

Goodbye, my ex-fellow superstitious villager.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

7. Furthermore, you could investigate the LOA in a way that would potentially yield benefits, even if it turned out that LOA is not genuine. For example, even if LOA is not genuine, it is useful to set your goals; manage your emotions; think creatively etc - all of which are matters which could easily form part of the investigation process.

I think part of what can cause skepticism about the "magick" of LoA is that all this may actually be personal development on steroids. And maybe there's no difference between the two.

Some amazingly positive things have happened in my life since I started with all this, even though most of what I've written on this forum is questions, expressions of frustration, and so on.

And even though some months ago I truly felt like only a miracle could solve my problems, now that so much progress has been made, I'm thinking well, maybe it was personal development on steroids. Because I came to a point where I absolutely had to solve the problems.

So your manifesting that giant bonus doesn't necessarily seem "bizarre" to skeptics, or getting a publishing contract -- these are big events, but certainly along a continuum of progress and goals you had already been working toward. On the other hand, these events do seem miraculous to you (and others) because the events happened so quickly once you set an intention in a certain way.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

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.

That's a mantra too: human understanding is too limited. That in itself is a limiting belief. Why believe that? I tend to say this too, though. Maybe we are expecting the mind to do more than it need to but our wholeness doesn't have a limit.

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?

It's not frightening to imagine an objective world - we have all been raised to believe that. Magical security blanket thinking is probably closer to a real view of all this, imho. As fear is created falsely in reaction to what we think is "not us". When all of it is us, in a way. Of coarse, who actually lives this way - fearless of everything.

Magical - I am on the kick of saying, we have greatly forgotten the magic of life as it is. We've lost our awe about how it all fits together and stays together and what we can sense and experience. It's magical already.

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.

Why does it stop and the body? Or why assume your body is where your mind stops? Yet, how many actually are using their mind to heal their bodies? We all should be able to at the drop of hat, but I don't think so with how many sick people there are.