Garbage, all of it.

[Frans]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

If you unfortunately have an illness that you created (and bear in mind that all illnesses in your reality are created by you), then be grateful for the resources that you have created in your reality for dealing with illnesses - such as doctors and medicines.

So use these resources. You created them, after all.

ALG, you talk from a point of view of a person in good mental health.

A person with a severe depression, with ultimate despair cannot think logically anymore, so he cannot use the resources you talk about, because he even doesn't know they exist.

Such a person cannot help himself and unless somebody helps him, chances are it ends with suicide.

[MrsCogan]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Oh, sorry. I did get your PM earlier, but you didn't give your email address, and I only have the paper in PDF format (the private messaging system on Steve's forum doesn't allow me to upload PDF files).

Anyway, I've now printed out the paper and here are the scanned images:


IMG_0001.jpg (image)
IMG_0002.jpg (image)
IMG_0003.jpg (image)
IMG_0004.jpg (image)

Well, Mrs Cogan, I don't think I will be discussing with you or responding to your comments any further in this thread. I don't mean to be rude - it's just that our respective belief systems on reality etc are just too far apart for engagement, so we would just be wasting each other's time. Whatever meaningful discussion we could have, we've probably already had.

(And I do believe that for many readers, this has actually turned out to be a very interesting thread - certainly you contributed to that).

Ok. Here's how this trick was done.

TK led the group that prayed for bottles A & B. TK was also the person who photographed the frozen water droplets. He didn't send ALL the photographs to DR. He preselected the ones to be sent. He sent 12 of A, 12 of B, 7 of C and 9 of D. (For those of you playing along C & D were the un-prayed for control bottles.) In other words he sent 24 good ones and 16 bad ones. That alone tells me he knew which bottles were which. Even if evaluating the crystals produced random results (which I think it did), there was no way the experiment could turn out the wrong way. Heads I win, tails you lose.

It's all still garbage.

[Acting Like Godot]

Sigh.

Originally Posted by MrsCogan

Ok. Here's how this trick was done.

TK led the group that prayed for bottles A & B. TK was also the person who photographed the frozen water droplets.

No, M.E led the group that prayed. Not T.K.

T.K took the photos.

He didn't send ALL the photographs to DR. He preselected the ones to be sent. He sent 12 of A, 12 of B, 7 of C and 9 of D. (For those of you playing along C & D were the un-prayed for control bottles.) In other words he sent 24 good ones and 16 bad ones. That alone tells me he knew which bottles were which.

No. Neither T.K nor M.E knew which 2 of the 4 bottles had been "treated" with thought. This is one of the crucial points of the whole experiment.

But of course, if all this is just way too inconsistent with your beliefs, you'd just say that in fact this experiment never happened at all; and all 4 researchers just made everything up from total scratch. Totally dishonest, fraudulent, can't-be-trusted-at-all folks. Right?

Anyway, let me explain a little about how it turned out that there were more photos from A & B.

Masaru's early research already indicated that the number of crystals that show up in water samples subjected to his freezing/thawing process varies a lot, depending on where the samples came from.

For example, pure, distilled, boiled water yields very few crystals; compared to water taken from natural, unspoiled sources (eg deep in the mountain areas, away from urban human populations).

Water subjected to a lot of intense human thought also yields more crystals, compared to water from the same source but which has not been subjected to such thought.

Etc etc.

Now, back to our experiment. T.K has four bottles; he does not know which two has been subject to "thought" and which two are the controls. His job is to subject all four bottles to the freezing/thawing process, and to take photos of whatever crystals he sees.

It turns out that he ends up taking more photos from A and B, than of C and D.

Oh well. Hardly surprising.

Even if evaluating the crystals produced random results (which I think it did),

Huh? Photos from A, B, C and D were all jumbled up and given to the judges to rate. There were 100 judges judging 40 crystals, yielding 4,000 ratings.

The stat analysis reveals P at 0.001. The chances that this was NOT a random statistical fluke is therefore 99.9%.

there was no way the experiment could turn out the wrong way.

Huh? How it could have "gone wrong" -

(1) the average ratings of the C and D photos are higher than those from A and B

(2) the average ratings of the C and D photos are equal to those from A and B

(3)the average ratings of the C and D photos are lower than those from A and B, but the difference is statistically insignificant.

Those are the three ways that the experiment could have "gone wrong".

[RT Wolf]

Thank you for your comment ALG. I really do appreciate it.

Re the depression and excersize thing. Link:
Study: Exercise Has Long-Lasting Effect on Depression

Excersize just as effective as drug therapy. More research must be done on the matter of non-drug treatments for depression, considering that the WHO estimates 1 in 5 adults have it. However, if you think you might have clinical depression, go see a doctor. When it is a medical illness, it should be treated with medically (with a little help from visualization, or self-hypnosis, at worst, it can't hurt if done in conjunction with medical treatment).

I'll comment on my last post a little later, when I've had a chance to think on this more.

[MrsCogan]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

No, M.E led the group that prayed. Not T.K.

T.K took the photos.

you are correct. My bad.

No. Neither T.K nor M.E knew which 2 of the 4 bottles had been "treated" with thought. This is one of the crucial points of the whole experiment.

I agree it's a crucial point. They SAID they didn't know. But DR and GK new so the test was not double blind. Nobody--not nobody no how--should have known which bottles were which. All four should have been stored in identical conditions and randomized in such a way that none of the four experimenters knew which was which until all the data was collected. TK should not have preselected which photographs were to be evaluated. He should have submitted every single photograph for evaluation and taken the same number of photographs for each bottle. Also, there should have been 100 bottles and not just 4.

But of course, if all this is just way too inconsistent with your beliefs, you'd just say that in fact this experiment never happened at all; and all 4 researchers just made everything up from total scratch. Totally dishonest, fraudulent, can't-be-trusted-at-all folks. Right?

I don't like for people to pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. The experiment was so poorly designed, they might as well have saved the trouble and just written a work of fiction.

Anyway, let me explain a little about how it turned out that there were more photos from A & B.

Masaru's early research already indicated that the number of crystals that show up in water samples subjected to his freezing/thawing process varies a lot, depending on where the samples came from.

For example, pure, distilled, boiled water yields very few crystals; compared to water taken from natural, unspoiled sources (eg deep in the mountain areas, away from urban human populations).

in other words water that has a lot of minerals in it forms better crystals.

Water subjected to a lot of intense human thought also yields more crystals, compared to water from the same source but which has not been subjected to such thought.

that is the claim. However, that doesn't explain why he didn't submit every single photo for evaluation and submit the same number of photos for each bottle. Or why there were only 4 bottles. Such a low number of test subjects would yield any results insignificant.

Now, back to our experiment. T.K has four bottles; he does not know which two has been subject to "thought" and which two are the controls. His job is to subject all four bottles to the freezing/thawing process, and to take photos of whatever crystals he sees.

It turns out that he ends up taking more photos from A and B, than of C and D.

Oh well. Hardly surprising.

yes, especially since he knows in advance how the experiment must turn out.

Huh? How it could have "gone wrong" -

(1) the average ratings of the C and D photos are higher than those from A and B

(2) the average ratings of the C and D photos are equal to those from A and B

(3)the average ratings of the C and D photos are lower than those from A and B, but the difference is statistically insignificant.

Those are the three ways that the experiment could have "gone wrong".

(1) and (2) are the "wrong" answers and this experiment was arranged so that only (3) could be the result.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by MrsCogan

But DR and GK new so the test was not double blind.

The test is double blind because:

First Blind

TK, when taking photos, did not know whether samples were from treated bottles or control bottles.

Second Blind
The 100 judges did not know whether the photos were of the treated bottles or control bottles.

---

Now DR and GH knew, but they have nothing to do with the process of taking the photos or rating them.

However, DR did raise in his own paper the possibility that his own intentions and GH's intentions may have affected the water samples in some way (that is, the effect is not due, or not exclusively due to, to the effect of the 1,000 praying people in Tokyo, but possibly to DR's and GK's own intentions).

Frankly, I can't see why you would worry about it, since your own position is that the thoughts of no one, (whether DR or GH or TK or ME or the group of praying people or the 100 judges or you or me) would be able to affect the molecular structure of the water samples.

Neverthelss, DR does seem to be concerned about it. DR has mentioned that he plans to do a triple blind experiment, to see if the results can still be replicated; see the last line of this article.

My guess is that for the triple blind experiment, another person will be asked to place two bottles in Room X, and two bottles in Room Y, and that person will be asked to do the labelling later, but the person won't be told at all that two bottles will be prayed over.

TK should not have preselected which photographs were to be evaluated. He should have submitted every single photograph for evaluation and taken the same number of photographs for each bottle.

Good point, Mrs Cogan. If I had not previously watched the footage of how the photography is done, I would have made the same point as you.

Basically, during the thaw process, the crystals start forming out of nothing (ie they are very, very small, and they start growing). First they have a simple structure, just a few specks really, and as they grow, they may develop a more intricate structure, like this:



or they may just "freeze" in their development like this:



You don't know how much each crystal will grow, or what shape it will ultimately attain, and very importantly, exactly when they will stop.

Therefore you've just gotta keep taking photos periodically, until the crystal stops growing. Then you'll submit the last photo you took of it.

Also, there should have been 100 bottles and not just 4.

Each water crystal is grown out of one petri dish, where you only need a little water. So, yes, 4 bottles is enough for a few hundred petri dishes, maybe more than a thousand.

in other words water that has a lot of minerals in it forms better crystals.

Possibly. However, your point is irrelevant in the present context because all four bottles used the same kind of water.

yes, especially since he knows in advance how the experiment must turn out .... (1) and (2) are the "wrong" answers and this experiment was arranged so that only (3) could be the result.

Sure, Mrs Cogan. Now you quickly go think of new reasons to substantiate your claims above, then let me know, ok?

[RT Wolf]

Moonrambler, you raised a number of points.

1. To gain friendship, you give friendship. Similarly, it has often been suggested that to gain money, you have to give money (or other forms of value). It has also been suggested that it is best ot think of money as just energy, and to gain energy, you have to give energy.

2. Try The Power of Now. It is not what is fact, but what is your feelings about that fact. By all objective measures, your finances could be going all to hell, but it is still possible to feel good. Would you feel good if you went two weeks without eating? Victor Frankl might be interesting for you to look up.

3. I dunno how much reading you've done, but I suggest that you read at least a few of these books:
THe Law of Attraction by Michael Losier (very basic, b ut good overview, too)
The Law of Attraction by Abraham-Hicks, and other books by them
Seven Spirtiual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
Steve's posts on IM. Inspired Money Maker - How To Make Money Doing What You Love, impaul's site is also good. Especially look up, "The mental virus that is keeping your broke" and "believing is seeing"
The little money bible by stuart wilde (and other stuff by him)
The Trick to money is having some by stuary wilde

4. The feeling like lying thing is interesting, dig into that a bit more.

5. Think about why attachment (ie feeling like you NEED it) is so important to you. Perhaps you have been taught that detachment is really not caring (it isn't, its just not being attached to the outcome), or you've been taught the only way you can know something is important is if you feel strong emotions regarding it.

Yar.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

4. The feeling like lying thing is interesting, dig into that a bit more.

The "feeling like lying" thing stems from a lack of understanding of how much of our opinions about our daily lives are really, well, opinions.

Suppose you have $100,000 in the bank. Should you feel rich? Or should you feel poor? This is a highly debatable question, because in that situation, some people would feel very rich; some people would feel very poor; and some people would not feel particularly rich or particularly poor.

You can break this down into a more detailed, objective analysis. For example, you could say:

"Well, considering that:

(a) I am X years old;
(b) I have Y kind of career;
(c) I have Z kind of family background; and
(d) I live in P country,

I should feel rich/poor about having $100,000 in the bank."

But if you go one step further, you'll realise that even among people who are x years old, have y kind of career and z kind of family background, and live in P country,

some would feel very rich, some would very feel poor, and some would feel neither particularly rich nor particularly poor, about having $100,000 in the bank.

And if you go another step further, you'll see that your so-called "detailed", "objective" analysis is really quite subjective, after all, because whoever said that those factors (a) to (d), are those you should use? There are any number of other factors that could arguably be used.

Now, once you begin to realise that a very high proportion of the "facts" about your life eg:

"I am quite poor"
"My health is not very good"
"My marriage is unhappy"
"My mother gives me a hard time"
"I hate my job"
"My home looks terrible"

etc are really just opinions, you see that there could be potentially plenty of room to change your opinions.

And of course, as a LOA practitioner, what you want to do is change your opinions for the better, as far as you can (because doing so will manifest events, circumstances etc that will really change your reality for the better).

Now if you examine the above statement, you may say: "Ooooh ... but if we go that way, how do I know whether my reality has really changed for the better, or whether I just perceive it to be that way? The line between my reality, and my perception of reality, would really be a very fine one, wouldn't it?"

Yesssh, sir, that would be correct too, and you never really had a choice - It's not a question of whether you want to "go that way". Your current reality is already what you perceive it to be; and what you perceive your current reality to be is already your current reality.

There is no escape! What do you think Steve meant, when he wrote about subjective reality. It's all in your head.

[moonrambler]

Thank you for answering my concerns, RT Wolf. I have read Deepak's book (a long time ago), and others by him. I've read The Power of Now. Along with Steve's posting, impaul's site, and more. I'm new to this site, but I'm not new to much of this information. The big impetus for me was reading Richard Bach's Illusions about 25 years ago, and that changed everything. I don't know if you can get the sense here from my postings, because I started posting here in a definitive (and frustrated) search for an answer, that I am a ridiculous optimist, and tend to look at things from a "going with the flow" attitude, that I believe we attract what we are and what we think about and by the way we think/feel about things.

Right now, I have a very practical problem that needs to be solved.

I have read so much lately that I can't even keep track of where I read certain things. There is a website where a woman talks of how she saved a bunch of money when she was a kid, and one day her parents came and asked her for it because her dad was gambling away all their money. After that she made sure never to save any money and always stayed in debt.

I see some of that in me, although it isn't that my dad was gambling away money, but rather that my parents were very fixated on money even though they had plenty of it, and they used it to excuse other bad behavior, such as if my dad drank too much and let me down, he'd tell me I had no right to gripe because he "paid for everything around here." I know I "programmed" myself as a kid that money was unimportant, that I didn't like it, that I wanted to be a hippie and ride around in a van and live off the land. Me & You & a Dog Named Boo. Well, now I'm in my 40s and that is the life I have created, and it has really lost its charm! And it is one gigantic struggle to make the breakthrough to get me out of this situation.

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who also doesn't have any money and isn't having any success in making money doing what he loves, so he has to do something he doesn't even like very much to make a paltry income, and it is really dragging him down. I was telling him about how I had wanted to be a hippie and ride around in a van, and he said he had wanted to be self-sufficient and homestead.

There are keys here, I think, in our attitudes about money, but neither of us has figured out how to circumvent that and move forward, particularly since we want to do it in unorthodox ways.

Honestly, I know and understand all these points about attitude. That I have more than lots of people (particularly when looking at other countries), and so on. That I actually have so many personal items that I could probably clear up all my debt just by selling all my own stuff. That I can be (and typically am) happy in my current situation.

Howver -- I want my business to make a quantum leap in income generation, NOW. I don't want to be broke anymore. I'm tired of the constant struggle! I want some freedom again.

Although I'd be thrilled beyond words with a $5,000 lottery win this week, I would really rather have the business generate that income, because I want something ongoing and consistent.

Now -- reading the forums here has been fascinating, and I think valuable for me, but also very frustrating, because I continually run across the attitude that, if the LoA didn't work, it's because the person had doubts or did not believe in it or did some other technical thing wrong, or else because the IM was not "meant" to happen and the person should just go along with that like it's perfectly fine. Then you get Napoleon Hill talking about persistence in the face of any adversity. So which is it? It wasn't meant to happen, or you just didn't persist long enough?

Those aspects can be contradictory and especially the first one I don't think is true.

Something like 80 percent of small businesses fail within five years. That isn't attitude -- that's a fact. Can you really say that the 20 percent that make it are mainly because their owners were certain the businesses would be successful and the other 80 percent didn't? I truly do not believe that.

Most musicians, actors, athletes, authors, artists, do not make a living or a very good income with their work. There simply is too much competition.

I have doubts that belief and certainty in an intention manifesting are essential for the law of attraction. I also have some doubts that doubt drives away something a person wants, though this makes more sense to me.

I've been struggling to move my business to a next level as far as income generation, and nothing I do is working. This is why I began immersing myself so much in PD, looking at myself psychologically/spiritually to see where I need to make a breakthrough. I've begun to take a look at situations where I've been very successful, and it has taken a very different stance than what I often see here.

For instance, I was a terrific college student. All I asked for from God/the Universe, at 17 years old and beginning my freshman year, was that I would like all my classes. I loved that semester. Over the next several years there would be classes I didn't like, but I loved the entire experience very much. I occasionally went back and took more courses over the years too.

It didn't take any meditating, visualizing, IM procedures, or anything, to be a terrific student. All it took was loving it. That to me makes the most sense as to what LoA is.

Despite that, it also takes some degree of intelligence, persistence, self-discipline, and study skills, to be a terrific college student.

And I'm really, really, good at that, but it's tough to make a career out of.

You look at people who are the best at what they do, and so often it seems it is happening out of a combination of spectacular talent, and love for what they do. Look at Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Joe Walsh, Eric Clapton, Loretta Lynn, Meryl Streep -- people who excel so completely.

About doubt. Sometimes I had serious doubts about my possibilities of success in certain classes. Once I was so strung out about an upcoming exam I nearly skipped it because I felt so sick to my stomach. I did just fine on it anyways. This is completely opposite of what I read around here. If I had failed the test and come to the forums here, people would say, "it's because you didn't believe you would do well!"

Applying for jobs is another case in point. I can be stressed and worried and anxious about the result of applying for a job, figuring there's no chance in the world they will offer it to me, and get it anyways.

I'm a good writer. Once I won a big-time writing contest, and I didn't do any visualizing, IM'ing, or anything . . . I do think I went into a very intentional flow state which energized me to write an excellent story that was good enough to win. Again, that was loving it, a way of being, that attracted success. Did I think I would actually win that contest? Not really. I was completely shocked that I won. I had acted on the possibility, but there certainly was no certainty.

The reason I am writing all this here is because during the past three months of immersing myself in all this IM'ing, my business is making even less money than it was in September. I don't think this is because of doubt, lack of certainty, or any of that . . . though it may be that my focus on lack is attracting more lack, and that my being strung out about money is making it hard for me to think and thus work effectively.

I do believe in LoA -- and I see it at work in the way I go about things. I work in resale. This means what I do is the legwork so other people don't have to. I go out and find things of value that other people want, and they buy them from me. This can be really fun. And it's also been fascinating to me that I tend to do much better at this when I'm feeling good. That doesn't make any sense at all, because if I go to a thrift shop and I'm feeling lousy emotionally, why would there be a lack of quality items there for me to buy? One day I was all bummed out and I was traveling and went to several stores and found basically nothing, and I told myself I was going to have to haul myself out of that state of depression or I would not find anything. So I played some music on the radio and turned my attitude around, and by the time I got home I had a wonderful carload of things for people to buy.

Nevertheless, the quantum leap has not happened, and I am at a loss (those words!) how to manifest that.

I tell you what, I have believed, completely and totally, that I could/can make an on-line business be very successful, or I would never have invested this amount of time and money and effort into it.

[RT Wolf]

The last manifestation session I did was on Jan 9. One of those intentions was to have five grand in near-liquid assets by the end of this month. I had a few thousand to go.

I had checked either that day or a few days before that but found out that I would not be getting any more student funding this term because they had assesed my file and said that I'd already received all of it in the first term. After meditating, I had this feeling to check my status again, and they had reassessed my file and decided to give me an extra 2 grand in grants (don't have to pay them back, free money, essentially). That and a few other things will put me way over 5 grand. I'm going to be investing at least some part of this. Last time I invested, I ended up with a 64% return over almost a year, which is not bad, not bad at all.

My example is a little less dramatic than ALG's, my intention took a few days to manifest, and a smaller amount. I even made a note when I recording my session at the end of entry to make myself open to all possibilities, "Who knows, maybe [loan/grants] will come through." And that's exactly what happened.

moonrambler, I'll discuss what you said a little later.

[fellowtraveler]

I know it works for me, and for some pretty big stuff - I have posted several instances. Anyhow...

Not to get the various belief systems mixed up, but in my case I believe in reincarnation, and possibly that we pretty much get to choose our life-circumstances beforehand. With that in mind, is it not possible that if we are attempting to manifest something which is not in line with that plan, it won't happen? If I have pre-chosen to live a life of poverty in order to learn the lessons I need, it's unlikely that I'll be able to manifest a million dollars.

Of course I don't know that's how it works, but it is something to throw into the mix. Just a thought.

[cylon]

RT--Right on! This is weird. They said you didn't qualify anymore and you qualify. This is like that other post where the person went to the home depot and ended up having gift card that was twice what the parents who bought it paid for.

Damn. This sort of thing trips me out.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by fellowtraveler

I know it works for me, and for some pretty big stuff - I have posted several instances. Anyhow...

Not to get the various belief systems mixed up, but in my case I believe in reincarnation, and possibly that we pretty much get to choose our life-circumstances beforehand. With that in mind, is it not possible that if we are attempting to manifest something which is not in line with that plan, it won't happen? If I have pre-chosen to live a life of poverty in order to learn the lessons I need, it's unlikely that I'll be able to manifest a million dollars.

Of course I don't know that's how it works, but it is something to throw into the mix. Just a thought.

I think that way too, that there's a best plan for everybody along their path here on earth and IM works when you are aligned with that plan. But then I don't think the plan is so rigid and karma bound so that abundance is actually part of everybody's plan and the difficulty is realizing that and not getting hung up on karma of whenever, including karma of this life time. All the letting go of blame and judgment brings one's vibe up and let's one find abundance without needing to force it along (which impedes it anyway).

[fellowtraveler]

I agree Wolfgang...and I would posit further that when one says "abundance" one might ask..."of what?" There are many poor nations where the happiness quotient is higher than the U.S.

I think part of the secret is being happy with what one has already. When my kids occasionally showed that they were unappreciative of what they had been given, I was a lot less likely to give them more. So it may be for us. Not a case of "deserving" or not...more like, "if you ain't going to use what you have, what's the sense in giving you more of it?"

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by fellowtraveler

I agree Wolfgang...and I would posit further that when one says "abundance" one might ask..."of what?" There are many poor nations where the happiness quotient is higher than the U.S.

I think part of the secret is being happy with what one has already. When my kids occasionally showed that they were unappreciative of what they had been given, I was a lot less likely to give them more. So it may be for us. Not a case of "deserving" or not...more like, "if you ain't going to use what you have, what's the sense in giving you more of it?"

Some of the LoA material says to tag your intentions with "and this or something better" which goes with what we are saying - to leave it open for the universe to provide the particular abundance that is in your best plan.

I like that analogy about the kids - that's a good one to keep in mind! Of coarse LoA material also talks about being grateful as one of the basics to getting into the grove with IM.

[John Freestone]

I've been loving this thread. I've been telling myself to absorb it. I've been telling myself to practise patience and not rush to contribute. I managed to get half way, and gave up waiting. I hope I'm not intruding too much on the flow, as things are likely to have moved on a bit. I don't want to lose my own mental thread.

I began to wake up from the reductionistic delusion of science a long time ago. I dropped out of a geology degree because I realised everyone else round me was putting the world in conceptual boxes and committing their life to disecting them further, rearranging them and reaffirming their reality to each other. One kind of rock has these properties - another kind of rock has these, different properties - oh, and if you stick around long enough, somewhere it says that they are considered different rocks and given different names because their chemical composition is one side or another of an arbitrary line in the sand.

Everywhere, the same thing; another example from a biology lecture: species are defined by their inability to mate with other species - except that occasionally they do, or occasionally there are 'ring-species' where a population can mate with its near neighbours who can mate with some other near neighbours, but the more dispersed populations can't mate.

And fundamentally, in a lecure about using statistics in science, the penny dropped. The whole of science is based on degrees of confidence, not proof. There's the deceptive idea of 'statistical significance', which until then I always thought of as philosophically pure, rigorous. Someone must have worked out a fool-proof method of deciding what is significant, I assumed, and statistical analysis allows us to put the findings of our experiments on one side of the line or the other, equating to scientific proof. What amazed me was how reluctant lecturers were to acknowledge the falsity of that, and I never really bothered to dig into it myself. I had an intuitive grasp of the falsity of it from one lecture, and quit.

I am fairly confident, however, that I am right in saying that significance is not something given in nature or discovered in any absolute sense by mathematics. We simply decide how much doubt we're prepared to ignore, and then, if we are really bad philosophers, we call a hypothesis proven. Please let me know if I'm barking up the wrong tree here. This was the first and final nail in the kind of faith I had in science that MrsCogan seems still to enjoy. In the intervening years I have learned that science is a faith, a religion, a fact that most scientists will get all steamed up refuting. It is hard to deny that science is a very useful method and has brought wonderful human abilities, but there is a difference between science and the search for truth, philosophy.

So I've been steadily chucking out any assumptions I discover I'm clinging on to. On the other hand, I'm not prepared to take on LoA and IM because people say it works for them, but I am prepared to accept the possibility that it does. MrsC reminds us of the danger of magical thinking, but is not philosophical about the possibility that the world might just possibly work magically. She uses the term 'wishful thinking' as if it contained an intrinsic, undeniable refutation of itself, whereas a philosopher would recognise that error of logic (in other words, that may be exactly what it is!).

I have two main difficulties with LoA-IM (and I'm sorry I still haven't investigated their original description if that is significant). They are difficult to explain. The first is something to do with the idea of subjective reality, or the unified field, or Oneness, and my problem is to do with the morality (or just the wisdom, if you prefer) of the small self or ego imagining that it is creating realities via its (imaginary) thoughts. As I posted in another thread, the spiritual tradition we are talking about is so old that it has been called the Perennial Philosophy, and the warning features very highly amongst its greatest minds not to be self-centred and wish for things. The Buddha warned against desire and considered it the source of all suffering. It would seem that IM is a developed or 'supernatural' [edited] power, according to those teachers, but one that is not there for us to suck goodies out of thin air with, congratulate ourselves on having achieved, or brag about.

If thoughts create reality, rather than thinking, oh good I can be rich, perhaps we could think, oh **** I'm too rich already (as Jesus might have told most of us). The opinion of some IMers is that reluctance to experiment or embrace the idea of attracting abundance to ourselves comes from a kind of pathological refusal to let ourselves have good things. I am just pointing out the possibility that it may also arise from a different understanding of subjective reality and the nature of the self. If we see through the illusion of the separate self that can acquire things, there is no sense in purposely intending wealth. One might argue that there is if it is to do good work with, to spread the word, or to give away again, but there are many teachers who would disagree, and I find the argument suspiciously convenient. [Edit - now that I've read a bit more, I see others are saying similar things]

It is strange, however, how the two ends of my self-argument on this can merge. If I am God (pardon the short-hand message here), I do not need anything, so to make myself rich or anything else is nonsense [edited]. But if I am God, there is nothing I cannot manifesat for myself and no sin or error to be committed. I'm just a little scared the way some folks round here seem to be ahead of themselves. I keep trying to choose gratitude and selflessness (I accept that I'm no saint, however!). I don't mean to suggest that other decisions are wrong.

One other thing that's been burning at me, which relates to this perhaps, but might deserve a new thread, is the presupposition in IM-LoA that you have free will to decide what to think and manifest. Acting like Godot said:

At a rather mundane level, we say that "thought affects reality", in the sense we can, for example, cause our hands or feet to move, just by thinking about it or deciding to do it. At this level, the proposition is uncontroversial and I discuss it no further.

Uncontroversial? My personal meditations suggest to me that this might be an illusion, and I also came across mention of an experiment which seemed to show that when we intend to move a muscle, there is activity in the brain, the beginnings of the process that results in movement, before we are aware even of the intention (although, perhaps there is an error caused by the fact that subjects have to also report the moment when they are intending to move). Given my trust of science, the jury is out, of course, but I wondered what people make of that. However, put in context of Oneness, maybe it still makes no sense to talk about intention of the self. 'There isn't one (“Why are we unhappy? -- Because 99.9% of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself – and there isn’t one.” Wei Wu Wei, quoted on Introduction --- Thanks for that, Jasper Solomon). Whew!

xxxj

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

If thoughts create reality, rather than thinking, oh good I can be rich, perhaps we could think, oh **** I'm too rich already (as Jesus might have told most of us). The opinion of some IMers is that reluctance to experiment or embrace the idea of attracting abundance to ourselves comes from a kind of pathological refusal to let ourselves have good things. I am just pointing out the possibility that it may also arise from a different understanding of subjective reality and the nature of the self. If we see through the illusion of the separate self that can acquire things, there is no sense in purposely intending wealth. One might argue that there is if it is to do good work with, to spread the word, or to give away again, but there are many teachers who would disagree, and I find the argument suspiciously convenient.

Well said and I am one to not experiment with IM but someday I could see myself wanting to. However, like you say, once the illusion of separateness is dropped I really don't have to want anything. And I think that is a message that is missed a lot with people attracted to IM. Some are wanting to use LoA to fill in some sort of feeling of not being whole and then one of the ideas of LoA is to feel whole already. It's an old paradox the seeker that seeks does not arrive.

It is strange, however, how the two ends of my self-argument on this can merge. If I am God (pardon the short-hand message here), I do not need anything, so to think myself rich or anything else just demonstrates I ain't there yet. But if I am God, there is nothing I cannot think myself and no sin or error to be committed. I'm just a little scared the way some folks round here seem to be ahead of themselves. I keep trying to choose gratitude and selflessness (I accept that I'm no saint, however!). I don't mean to suggest that other decisions are wrong.

One other thing that's been burning at me, which relates to this perhaps, but might deserve a new thread, is the presupposition in IM-LoA that you have free will to decide what to think and manifest.

Yup, this thinking has started me wondering about free will and that free will is actually the ego being clingy. I try to think that my "little ego will" can be aligned with some "divine will" and then from that state there is wholeness anyway.

Acting like Godot said:

Uncontroversial? My personal meditations suggest to me that this might be an illusion, and I also came across mention of an experiment which seemed to show that when we intend to move a muscle, there is activity in the brain, the beginnings of the process that results in movement, before we are aware even of the intention (although, perhaps there is an error caused by the fact that subjects have to also report the moment when they are intending to move). Given my trust of science, the jury is out, of course, but I wondered what people make of that. However, put in context of Oneness, maybe it still makes no sense to talk about intention of the self. 'There isn't one (ref to follow!). Whew!

xxxj

Yup, there are planning neurons that fire before the rest of the brain parts fire that will light up the spinal nerves to actually make the movement. Some are reflexes and the neuron-scientists can map those. But then the ones that are voluntary - and we think they are free will - I start to wonder that the brain is responding to our soul that isn't in the brain in that case and we can try to align with the spirit and let our actions be divine.

Intention of the self is to be backed by spirit, I'd say. And maybe there is a lot of wiggle room for that alignment. Then we do get free will to wiggle around and still be divine about our actions. So then to intend some "thing" that the ego may want might work when there is enough spirit behind or with that intention. And then we can use our awareness to activate that alignment. I wonder.

[cylon]

Yesterday, my Dad asked me what the keyboard shortcut was to make a bullet point, and I told him. I remembered it because that's sort of an advanced question for my Dad to be asking.

Just now someone at work called me and asked me what the keyboard shortcut for a bulletpoint was, and I told him.

Meaningless coincidence? LOA? Hit? Lol.

LOA is the big stuff, and the really, really small stuff. Now just saying this someone else will probably say "bullet point" in my office.

•

[John Freestone]

Hi cylon. I wonder, though, whether you have learned much about magical thinking and how it works. My previous post criticised the sceptical MrsCogan for dismissing it as impossible, but there are soooooooooooooooooo many reasons (yes, as many as that!) to believe untrue things, particularly if they're exciting, make us feel safe and powerful and are portrayed as secret knowledge or The Answer.

The classic example is believing that you're 'psychic' because people appear to phone you just at the moment you're thinking of them. It seems persuasive to me that we often make the mistake of ridiculously overestimating the number of times this happens, and if we tested it scientifically (notwithstanding earlier criticisms) we would discover our gift to be utterly fictional. First of all, we get excited about it when it happens. We file that effect away in our memories and remember someone down the pub who was ranting about it for several hours. We forget. Then it happens again. We remember the first time, and the bloke in the pub. Maybe he had something after all, even though we thought he was a nut at the time. We get more excited. We file that experience in memory too.

Meanwhile, we do not get excited about the times we think of Molly (don't ask) and Molly doesn't phone. Can you remember the last failed IM? Probably not, or you won't remember many. Perhaps that is because you have programmed your brain to look for positives, not negatives. In fact, your brain is hardwired to look for patterns in all experience, and if it can't find any it will regularly and habitually invent them. Starting to 'believe' in whatever - Aliens, IM, psychic abilities - turns up the gain. People hear voices of 'ghosts' in white noise on tapes and radios. We hallucinate apparitions in dark corners. Not only that, this phenomenon increases with arousal states, so people see ghosts in corners more often if they're scared - for instance because someone has told them there's a ghost in the corner!

Here's an anecdote that will illustrate the point. I don't remember the reference to share it with you (or many of the details either, but you'll get the drift; if anyone knows more, please could you post it). It was the story of a tour-guide who took his tourist group to two places one day. The first he said was the site of a terrible attrocity. Everyone shared their feelings of creepiness and pain seeping from the very stones. Then he took them to the site of a religious shrine, and everyone felt uplifted and shared their feelings of peace and tranquility. Everyone amplified each other's faith in the idea that you can really feel the mood left in places from events that have happened there. It was one of those really great, 'deep' nights of insight sitting in the pub. Until, that is, the tour guide realised he'd got his notes mixed up: the hell-hole felt like heaven and vice versa.

There are ENDLESS experiments that demonstrate such phenomena, and they add up to a human mind that is extremely good at making pattern where there isn't any, or making the pattern it expects. Put us together in excited states and we can invent anything from WMD programmes to alien invasions.

Now, I'm fine with people giving me profound explanations as to why that might be so, despite accepting that it is so - things like "If we start to believe we can predict people phoning, the nature of reality is such that that ability does in fact begin to increase - you need to give it more time", or "The universe is so bizarre that saying someone phones me at a particular time needs reassessing completely". I just don't fall for the pollyanna "My God, it says here in my horoscope that something brill was going to happen to me today, and, guess what.......". It's almost certainly pure codswallop.

The faithful here (well-chosen words, btw) keep inviting sceptics to try out IM and see. Well we're not idiots. Some of us have tried it. Or we have tried other experiments. I've tried reading other people's horoscopes, for instance, and guess what?!?!?....

Another thing you have to be wary of is the cold reading phenomenon, which if we're too gullible we can play on ourselves. A simple example might be that I think of Molly (feeling confident of my superhuman abilities). Nothing happens. Oh, I think. Hmmm. Can't be. What me, normal? Then, twelve hours later, Molly's daugher calls. Ahhhhhhh! The Universe was messing with my head for a bit of fun, probably. ...couldn't be that I'm not psychic.

If we're looking for a pattern, excited about finding it, we widen the net until we catch something. You're waiting for bullet points. You'll be watching tv and someone will fire a gun, and there'll be a slo-mo of the bullet. A moment later the victim's friend will gasp and point. You've got your bullet point. For all we know, you might not notice these phenomena and not add them to your so-called experiment, yet subconsciously your brain could file it away under 'hit'. Knowing the mind takes subtlety and time.

Does anyone know a Frank, by the way? I'm channeling now as we speak. Frank. Francis? Begins with an F. You see, there's an open mind, and there's letting your brain fall out. I don't mean to be insulting. Just I went through a phase of that myself. Another illusion some IMers have is that they must be more advanced than sceptics.

I think one of humanity's biggest faults is that we're so uncomfortable with not knowing. Scepticism has a bad name, but it's actually a healthy and quite beautiful philosophy. Most of us don't know really, but won't admit it to ourselves or others, so we swing from belief to non-belief, arguing desperately to convince ourselves and recruit others. Socrates admitted it ("I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance"), so we shouldn't feel too bad, given his reputation as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.

Now if you add me writing about bullet points as a hit, you really have lost the plot. On the other hand, you have proved IM - you thought about bullet points and the Universe (I) brought you yet another. Maybe the whole of the rest of the thread will be riddled with them.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

I had checked either that day or a few days before that but found out that I would not be getting any more student funding this term because they had assesed my file and said that I'd already received all of it in the first term. After meditating, I had this feeling to check my status again, and they had reassessed my file and decided to give me an extra 2 grand in grants (don't have to pay them back, free money, essentially). That and a few other things will put me way over 5 grand.

Congrats, Mr Wolf and well done!

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

..... the spiritual tradition we are talking about is so old that it has been called the Perennial Philosophy, and the warning features very highly amongst its greatest minds not to be self-centred and wish for things. The Buddha warned against desire and considered it the source of all suffering. It would seem that IM is a developed or 'supernatural' [edited] power, according to those teachers, but one that is not there for us to suck goodies out of thin air with, congratulate ourselves on having achieved, or brag about.

That is a most excellent point, Mr Freestone, and one that I have often thought about. However I am not to sure where I should start sharing those thoughts, since the topic is huge.

If you go through the Buddhist teachings, you'll see that desire is not the source of all suffering. Attachment is the source of all suffering (this is the Second Noble Truth).

And if you go back to LOA/IM, you'll see that there is constant emphasis on the need for detachment. Ever wonder why?

It's important to appreciate that unlike certain other religions, Buddhism isn't based on the idea of a Great Big God in the Sky Who Will Punish You if you do or don't do certain things. Buddha was essentially very practical and utilitarian. All his teachings have one unifying theme - how to avoid suffering and find happiness.

Now if you use Abraham Hicks as a comparison, you'll see that the message is strikingly similar, except (as you might expect) the message is framed in more positive terms. In Book 1, Abraham is asked what are the ultimate best things one could ask for; what is the best measure of "success" -

and the answer is your own happiness. If you are constantly very happy, very joyful, very blissful, very peaceful etc, then there is nothing else to ask for. (Gasp, doesn't that remind you of the bliss of Buddha's enightenment? A state where desire has become irrelevant).

In fact, Abraham always emphasises that the more positive your emotions, the more powerfully you create. Love, happiness, wisdom etc represent the most positive emotions. And the act of reaching for more positive emotions is a fundamental aspect of the Abraham teachings.

Side note: the LOA itself does not tell you what to create. If you intrinsically feel that it is not to be used for "sucking goodies out of thin air", it is entirely open to you to use it to "suck baddies out of thin air" or suck any other sort of thing, which appeals to your values / morals etc.

And also, I think that IMer's ongoing intentions will change and evolve and develop, as more and more of the earlier intentions manifest. Using money as an example, if I continue growing rich as rapidly as I have been growing since I started using the LOA, I think that it will be a matter of time before I grow bored with the idea of growing even richer.

And then .... I will inevitably turn to create different things. (As it is, I am already creating all sorts of different things in my life).

I keep trying to choose gratitude and selflessness (I accept that I'm no saint, however!). I don't mean to suggest that other decisions are wrong.

Good choice .... I chose wisdom. I manifested for it, and I previously wrote about that on this forum, quite some time ago, and I do believe I recorded it on my blog somewhere too.

I do honestly feel wiser now than I did then. Insights now regularly occur to me, which somehow I don't think would have occurred to me previously. But since there is no such thing as a scientifically calibrated wisdom-meter, I shall not debate this point with Mrs Cogan.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

The classic example is believing that you're 'psychic' because people appear to phone you just at the moment you're thinking of them. It seems persuasive to me that we often make the mistake of ridiculously overestimating the number of times this happens, and if we tested it scientifically (notwithstanding earlier criticisms) we would discover our gift to be utterly fictional. First of all, we get excited about it when it happens. We file that effect away in our memories and remember someone down the pub who was ranting about it for several hours. We forget. Then it happens again. We remember the first time, and the bloke in the pub. Maybe he had something after all, even though we thought he was a nut at the time. We get more excited. We file that experience in memory too.

Meanwhile, we do not get excited about the times we think of Molly (don't ask) and Molly doesn't phone. Can you remember the last failed IM? Probably not, or you won't remember many. Perhaps that is because you have programmed your brain to look for positives, not negatives. In fact, your brain is hardwired to look for patterns in all experience, and if it can't find any it will regularly and habitually invent them. Starting to 'believe' in whatever - Aliens, IM, psychic abilities - turns up the gain. People hear voices of 'ghosts' in white noise on tapes and radios. We hallucinate apparitions in dark corners. Not only that, this phenomenon increases with arousal states, so people see ghosts in corners more often if they're scared - for instance because someone has told them there's a ghost in the corner!

I understand absolutely what you mean - and as I have said, one way of avoiding such errors is to keep a meticulous written log of your manifestations and what actually turns up in reality.

The other hypothesis I have - which I've previously mentioned in this forum as well - is that if LOA works, and you keep using it generally across all different areas of your life, then over a sufficiently long time frame, (eg 1 to 5 years), your life should improve sharply, relative to what it was before, and relative to people who seemed similar to you at that time (eg people of the same age, with the same kind of job, in the same country, same socio-economic status etc).

Illustration:

If you use LOA and your career improves sharply, then this may be a coincidence.

If you use LOA and your relationships improve sharply, then this may be a coincidence.

If you use LOA and your health improves sharply, then this may be a coincidence.

If you use LOA and your finances improve sharply, then this may be a coincidence.

If you use LOA and your achievements in whatever personal interests you have improve sharply, then this may be a coincidence.

But if you use LOA and your career, relationships, health, finances, personal achievements etc etc etc all improve sharply within the same time frame, well, finally you may be persuaded that this is no coincidence.

Or, as Deepak Chopra would say, that all coincidences are meaningful.

[cylon]

Intersting post John. Yeah, I'm very familiar with magical thinking.... I went through a period of several years where all I did was try to debunk (at least in my own mind) stuff like this, spent most of my time at atheist websites debating religious people, read books by Sagan, got into James Randi, Penn & Teller, Skeptic magazine, the infidel guy, dawkins, etc..... this was my reality for years.

So it's not like I just fell off the turnip truck. I'm very familiar with the mindset the skeptics have, because I was one. And I still am in many ways. You don't end up at a website like this without being fascinated by all sorts of different viewpoints about life, I'm sure you'd agree.

But I've experienced things in my life, that just can't be coincidence, so that's where I am. And there's stories like mine (and I've had more substantial things happen as well that I've talked about, I've been here awhile now) and all over this site there are amazing stories. It's much more than bullet points. I just thought it would be fun to share that little admittedly cheesy story, just for the hell of it.

Either LOA is real or it ain't I guess.

@ALG-- I do write them down. Sometimes I don't though because the more I do the more they happen and I'm still getting comfortable with it.

[cylon]

Here's another corny one. I was in the mood for an action movie, just a dumb movie with fighting and explosions and stuff , and then my Dad knocks on my door and hands me Running Man with Arnold "Schwarz"(fun to spell). That was in like two seconds.

I should have thought "GOOD action movie" lol.

That's a little thing, then you get RT with his grant money and that's a "big" thing. Maybe that's the point, there is no big or little, you draw it all in.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by cylon

That's a little thing, then you get RT with his grant money and that's a "big" thing. Maybe that's the point, there is no big or little, you draw it all in.

Well, according to LOA theory, it is not big or little - it is big and little. Its is everything in your reality, really.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

The classic example is believing that you're 'psychic' because people appear to phone you just at the moment you're thinking of them ..... Meanwhile, we do not get excited about the times we think of Molly (don't ask) and Molly doesn't phone.

As I said, I understand your point very well.

I do want to make a point which Brian Josephson, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics who researches telepathy, has made quite eloquently before. The point is simply this:

If a particular event is rare or difficult to observe, this does not mean that it does not exist.

For example, I walk into the forest 200 times and I do not observe the rare African blue-spotted butterfly. Then I walk into the forest on the 201st time, and I do observe the rare African blue-spotted butterly.

It would be ridiculous to say that since there were 200 occasions that I did not observe the African blue-spotted butterfly, and only on one occasion did I observe it, therefore the African blue-spotted butterfly does not exist.

Substitute the African blue-spotted butterfly with "solar eclipse"; "UFO"; "telepathic event"; "demonic possession"; "Siamese twins"; "Loch Ness monster"; "levitation"; "quantum entanglement"; "enlightenment";

and you see my point. This is not to say that all of these things are true or not true, but that if any of them were true, then it would be a logical fallacy to believe that they are untrue simply because they are rare and/or difficult to observe (based on our current ability to perceive).

---

Steve's wife, Erin, for example, claims to regularly converse and interact with all sorts of non-physical entities (spirits? ghosts? demons? angels? etc).

Assuming she is honest, it is safe to say that she has no doubt about the existence of such entities.

However, most of the rest of us are not able to converse and interact with non-physical entities in any way close to what Erin does, or claims to do. In other words, such entities, if they do exist, are not observable, or not easily observable, by us.

Therefore many of us would feel drawn to conclude either:

(1) Erin is a huge liar; or
(2) Erin is mentally ill

and those of us who do that may just want to take a moment to remind themselves that that which is rare or difficult, or rare or difficult for us, to observe, is not therefore necessarily non-existent.

[John Freestone]

ALG, I do appreciate your points and must admit that my attempts to find honest objections often flounder (plenty dishonest ones). I meant to say before how much I have learned from you and appreciate your explanation of various things. As you've probably understood, my position at the moment is sceptical, rather than outright dismissive. Of course, one of the central problems with this kind of discussion (and the argument I have with myself about it) is that there are two different models of reality at the bottom of them supporting the whole thing. When I 'see' mind-over-matter (as I often do, and certainly do at more local levels than are presented here), my 'intuition' is the judge and all manner of spiritual teachers are the jury. When I 'see' things more 'objectively' (I'm using the term loosely here; I know the objections to literally 'seeing' objectively), it's like the quantum state changes and if Jesus Himself were to walk across a lake towards me I'd probably conclude I'd walked too far on a hot day and good job I was having a nice rest.

Thanks for sharing your view that non-attachment is an important part of LoA. So it works better for freer, more loving people. I also understand that Buddha meant attachment, or that that is one of the common translations. However, that kind of leads back to my discomfort with some of what I see in the name of LoA: you might easily 'correct' (as you see it) my terminology and avoid mentioning how similar desire and attachment are in practice. You - or rather, a hypothetical IMer - might easily use whatever vague distinction they can't be bothered to analyse between 'desire' and 'attachment' as a reason to conclude that they are free, loving and on the spiritual path, despite taking endless notes of their financial gains and pretending, like so many before them, that there will probably come a time when they'll get bored making money. Tell me, how would you describe the difference between desire and attachment as it pertains to your own financial gains?

And if we're really going to start splitting Buddhist hairs, I think we should mention his inclusion in the causes of suffering attachment to pleasure, views, rules, techniques, vows and indeed self. One translation I have of something he is reported to have said is, "There are four kinds of clinging: Clinging to pleasure. Clinging to views. Clinging to rules, techniques and vows. Clinging to self." I guess that implies that if you are really, truly so enlightened as to be attracting money to no-self, you're as wise as you think you are. If you're enjoying the pleasures it brings in anything of a slightly clingy way, at all, perhaps, ... or consolidating your belief in the Law of Attraction and its techniques, perhaps you're deceiving yourself. Making vows may in fact be very close to deliberate attraction of conditions. Of course, all these things can be transcended by the commitment to freedom: lately someone asked me to vow something, for instance, and I thought 'That's against something the Buddha said, I should think carefully. I don't do vows". Then it occurred to me that clinging to something the Buddha said was daft, anti-Buddhist, clinging to a view! "Don't follow me! Work it out yourself" seems to be the perennial injunction, and we scurry off and tell each other what the Master said, how he wears his hair, what colour his sandals are.....

I'm glad to read that you are 'still skeptical', cylon. Keep it up. It is making our minds up that is so appealing, so desirable, such a powerful attachment, and where we begin to give up our freedom and lose sight of Now, This, Here, Reality. That is my 'considered opinion' (lol). Thank you both. I must return to page 4 and catch up. Must?! What am I saying?

[John Freestone]

PS - on the rare != nonexistent argument. Of course, that's true. Much of the argument again comes down to whether MrsCogan is right and there's such a thing as objective reality. However, a man can waste a whole life sitting by the shores of Loch Ness, endlessly not disproving the monster theory.

And Erin can attract the reality of a personal clutch of pet dragons for all I care. Just because something isn't impossible, you don't have to decide it's probably a safe bet. ........... except, yes, with a field of infinite possibility as ultimate reality. If my philosophy is based on the idea that anything is possible, no-one need bother dispute anything with me again. I may be lost to objective reality if such exists, but who cares, I have my philosophy that whatever appears to be happening around me is as flexible as I like it to be.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Thanks for sharing your view that non-attachment is an important part of LoA. So it works better for freer, more loving people. I also understand that Buddha meant attachment, or that that is one of the common translations. However, that kind of leads back to my discomfort with some of what I see in the name of LoA: you might easily 'correct' (as you see it) my terminology and avoid mentioning how similar desire and attachment are in practice. You - or rather, a hypothetical IMer - might easily use whatever vague distinction they can't be bothered to analyse between 'desire' and 'attachment' as a reason to conclude that they are free, loving and on the spiritual path, despite taking endless notes of their financial gains and pretending, like so many before them, that there will probably come a time when they'll get bored making money. Tell me, how would you describe the difference between desire and attachment as it pertains to your own financial gains?

First we have to take two steps back and establish our starting point in this discussion. You had suggested that:

(1) the wisest way to live life is along the lines of what Buddha taught (that is, we should pursue a truly spiritual path and seek to have no attachment / desire); and

(2) the potentially dangerous way to live life is constantly use, or try to use, the LOA to manifest our desires (because attachment / desire, we are told, inevitably lead to suffering).

What you have presented is, IMO, somewhat misleading. It suggests that we belong either to Category 1 or Category 2 - when in fact, the large majority of human beings on this planet probably fall into Category 3:

(3) they are not seeking spiritual growth; they are constantly filled with material desires; they have no clue about the mind/reality connection and regularly fail to fulfill their desires; and yes, they constantly suffer as a result of attachment.

Now, between Category (2) and Category (1), it may well be that Category (1) is the superior choice. However, between Category (3) and Category (2), I think that Category (2) is clearly the superior choice.

For Category (3) people who no longer wish to be in Category 3, I would also say that entering Category (2) is much easier than entering Category (1). I would further add that Category (2) may well serve as a transition phase to Category (3).

Not completely relevant, but it's also interesting to reflect on the life of Gautama Buddha. Before Gautama Buddha was Gautama Buddha, he was Prince Siddharta, and already enjoyed vast wealth, luxury and power, as well as the deep love of his royal parents.

Have you ever considered that this stage of his life could have been essential to his subsequent spiritual growth? Perhaps it was the fact that every earthly desire he could have conceived of was already satisfied, that he could turn fully to his spiritual quest.

As for myself personally - since you have asked - I am interested in the spiritual side of life, but if I do come fully to it, I think the path by which I come to it will most likely be the one described in this old blog post of mine (see especially the last paragraph):

Mr Wang Says So: How To Touch The Face of God

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

PS - on the rare != nonexistent argument. Of course, that's true. Much of the argument again comes down to whether MrsCogan is right and there's such a thing as objective reality. However, a man can waste a whole life sitting by the shores of Loch Ness, endlessly not disproving the monster theory.

Exactly - a man could well waste a whole life sitting by the shores of Loch Ness waiting to see if the monster will appear.

This is precisely why I had, somewhere earlier in this thread, referred to a range of science experiments whereby possible relationships between thought and reality might be tested ... and then I said that none of this really interests me.

Tiller has his experiments with manifesting long-lived fruit flies; Radin has his experiments with manifesting beautiful water crystals; Rosenthal has his experiments with manifesting high-IQ rats. These are all very interesting ...

... but personally I prefer to run experiments on my life, my own goals etc. At least that has, or potentially has, practical value for me. If it works (and it certainly seems to be working for me so far), then I benefit immensely; and if it does not work, I should find out soon enough, since I test it so much, and if I find out that it does not work, well, I can immediately wasting my time.

I have already completed my first full year of testing LOA. In 2008, I plan to be even more meticulous about recording my experiment; see how neatly I now entitle my records:

Creation & Other Adventures: Mind Session No. 1 of 2008
Creation & Other Adventures: Mind Session No. 2 of 2008
Creation & Other Adventures: Quite Awesome (Mind Session No. 3 of 2008)
Creation & Other Adventures: Mind Session No. 4 of 2008
Creation & Other Adventures: Mind Session No. 5 of 2008

So I have done 5 mind sessions in the first 2 weeks of the year. At this rate, if the LOA does not exist, the number of my "misses" should become terribly glaring soon; and if the LOA does exist, I should soon amass a large body of evidence indicating that it does.

To put it another way, I am not sitting by the shores of Loch Ness waiting to see if the monster will appear. Instead I am summoning a very large fleet of sophisticated submarines and ships and divers and helicopters, and I am going to comb all the depths of Loch Ness and catch myself a monster, if it's really there.