The Secret and The Law of Attraction Is A Fiction and you Should Not be Fooled for a Moment Longer

I 150% disagree with you, Mr Cox.

But...

To each his own.

May you have much success and prosperity in anything you do.

Pavon

Actually, my 'flimsy belief system' also means that I attach the 'LOA' label when things DON'T work in my favour.

I am responsible for my results, good OR bad.

Watching The Secret and thinking THAT is all there is to the law of attraction, is like reading a single post in this forum and thinking you know all there is to know about IM. And if you gain knowledge, but don't apply it or test it, what results can you expect?

Tosh? Not in my experience, but I don't need anyone to agree with my viewpoint.

Cheers,
M

Richard~

Interesting Post.

In my opinion, life is full of things you can control and things you can't control, but change is an ally to both. Often, people view life with one or the other instead of understanding life contains both.

The Law of Attraction explains how your thought processes can control the outcome of events in your life, which is very true. Do you agree with that part?

Still, there is chance and things you cannot control. Because this is also true, that does not discredit the Law of Attraction. Both Exist.

I like the "access' tool of 'all of life comes to me with ease, joy and glory'....that means everything...good and bad.
LP

you can not arrive to such conclusions by giving an example...

LOA is yeat a hyphothesis by it makes sence when you look to it from different points of view:

1. your brain and thought are in your body > therefore they must do some changes to it...
2. body and behaviour are affected, then it comes to your frind circle, social skills and most importantly actions> and it brings success or whatever....(i have a huge theory on that)
3. mind can not tell the difference between your thoughts and real events...
4. how can you know that this thing(you described) is not caused by LOA in some way
5. read some philosophy and phisics before criticizing and please stop making assumptions from one examlpe...
6 it seems that you are trying to mock everything... but thats just you...


P.S. i'm nottrying to protect anything, LOA makes sence to me and i have seen a lot of evidence in my own life.... but its still a theory that you cant prove scientificaly but we know 4 fact that science changes very quicly so we can not count on it too...

P.S.S. if energy does not dissapear ... where do you think the energy of a thought goes? (thats from phisics..)

gave a nice day...

Personally I believe in The Law Of Attraction in the sense that we "attract" the people and circumstances into our life that resonate with our dominant thoughts.

For instance a happy-go-lucky, friendly type of person is more likely to attract the same kind of people into their life. And a person who is focusing on all the beauty in the World will see evidence of that everywhere and that will be "attracted" into their life.

For me all of this happens because of proven psychological principles. I don't believe that vibrations are sent out to The Universe or anything metaphysical or supernatural is going on.

So keeping in mind that what you focus on you will "attract" into your life--because of the extraordinary power of the human mind--there's a lot to be gained from practicing The Law Of Attraction. (Even if you don't believe the mystical part of it.)

You wouldn't throw away a box of apples just because one of them is rotten, and you'd be missing out if you didn't practice certain principles that come under The Law Of Attraction umbrella.

For instance:






They also discuss developing an "Attitude Of Gratitude."

And this has also been scientifically proven by Dr. Steven Teopfer in a study where students wrote letters of gratitude for to people who had positively impacted their lives. After each letter the students completed a survey to gauge mood, satisfaction with life, and feelings of gratitude and happiness. "I saw their happiness increase after each letter. Meaning the more they wrote, better they felt" says Teopfer.

75% of the students said they planned to continue to write letters of gratitude even when the course was over. "We are all walking around with an amazing resource: gratitude," says Toepfer. "It helps us express and enjoy, appreciate, be thankful and satisfied with a little effort. We all have it, and we need to use it to improve our quality of life."

And I'm sure there's even more proven techniques in The Secret and Law Of Attraction material in general. So I basically apply the "take-what's-useful-and-leave-the-rest" technique when it comes to The Law Of Attraction.

I can say that I am fond of the LOA...
But there is another LOA that we marketers must exercise and stress more so:
The Law Of Action!


"...ideas are about the cheapest of all commodities... But the supply of men who can execute ideas and make money out of them is pitifully small." - Bruce Barton, 1936.

People can believe whatever helps them get what they want. If the LOA works for them great if not fine. Just be happy and be the best you can be.

Well, Mr. Cox, not very scientific as an argument, is it?

I have seriously examined both sides of this argument, and I have been forced to conclude that the LOA must exist - there actually is no alternative.

But, Mr. Cox, I wonder if you have read the scientific evidence that more than bears this out ... look up Dean Radin, Candace Pert, Amit Goswami, Deepak Chopra, Gregg Braden et. al. Forget "The Secret" - watch "What The Bleep Do We Know?" ... and then come back and say it's "tosh."

Still, you started a good debate, and I'm pleased to have attracted you into my reality for that purpose!

So thanks.

Trev.

I don't believe in pointing to other peoples work or videos etc to desribe what I know, so let me explain to you why you are wrong.

The LOA is irrefutable; here's why;

You consciously think about something in a certain way, and your subconscious guides you toward it, and maybe, it to you. Therefore, some of the stuff that comes your way, is a product of your thought. (Not to be confused with coincidence, as per your example with the guy answering the phone - which you claim to be a true story - unless you were one of the guys on the phone, you can't know that for a fact - actually, it sounds like something from a Derren Brown book, 'Tricks of the Mind' perhaps?).

This can be proven. Before you type out a post, you must first think about it. You must think (probably on a mid-conscious level) of each letter - if not, you can't type it, right?
The same is true for everything in your life - going to the shops, making money, driving a car....breathing, which you do on a subconscious level via instinct.

No-one can make a penny unless they have thought it previously. LOA isn't some wierd mumbo jumbo - it's just a fact of life, like photosynthesis or gravity, it's there, and undeniable. So it follows, that if you want something to happen, you first need to think about it in a certain way.

You cannot do anything at all, unless the thought of doing it has taken place.

Now whether you believe it or not is upto you. But whether you believe it or not, makes not difference to it's being real.

I can only talk on what I see as the LOA - this is why I don't like to quote others or hand out links to youtube videos etc.

Otherwise, it just gets into a joke with one side realing out their 'expert' and the other side seeing or raising with theirs...

So we agree that the basics are real - without the embellishments or fantasy that some people try to attach to it.

If you keep a closed mind, you won't see what kind of wonders happen in this world everyday. And i don't care if it is LOA of whatever. I believe that everything that happens in one's life is a result of the choices we are making everyday. It doesn't matter if you are a sceptic or a believer. The point is, to take responsibility for your own result that you get in your life.

What you are talking about here is confirmations bias, which humans are known to act on. We have an eye for things that support our beliefs, and tend to ignore things that go against our beliefs. Completely natural.

I agree that the LOA needs to be treated in a more scientific manner, but I disagree that science has somehow disproven it.

I would rather believe in something and find out it's not true, then waste my life not believing in anything.At least I have purpose. Just my Opinion.

When I changed how I thought about the world.... and how I felt... everything around me changed. My life changed dramatically. Everything in it did... I went from bankrupt to a thriving online business. I lost 100lbs... I overcame two so-called uncurable diseases..... my health improved dramatically.

It is easy to make statements like "the law of attraciton is not real".

It is easy to say "a lot of rich people say that it worked for them, but it's just a coincidence".

Words are always easy to come by.

ACTIONS.... actions on the other hand speak much louder than words.

Results like mine are not rare.... in fact, they are the norm for people who wholeheartedly consciously change how they think and feel... a shift from the negative to the positive.

Results speak much louder than words.

Enjoyed this post, don't know or care if the "Law Of Atraction" is ficitional or not but has shown me that I am in charge of my beliefs

Hi Richard,
If you have a strong belief and is prepared to give , you will receive back in life. If thats LOA, it works for me.

Quite a provocative title - superb headline copywriting!

Unfortunately, the sales letter is quite a letdown!

Fine, and it would be interesting to see the resulting conversation. However, you didn't do anything of the type:

• You didn't summarize or define what particular beliefs you oppose
• You didn't provide any evidence of weakness in those beliefs
• You had one anecdote followed by your conclusion by assertion - which is no more powerful against LOA then it is in favor of LOA

Please note that I've not given a hint about whether or not I believe in anything related to LOA concepts... I'm only pointing out that your headline oversells what you actually provided here! This is a mistake that results in a lack of sales, in either online marketing or persuasion!

Regards,
Allen

Here is an interesting fact of physics that has just been proven. Lab experiments have proven that the observer affects the spin of an atom. And that spin will follow the intent of the observer. This makes a quantum connection with matter. Fact.

Here's a conundrum for you all. The fact that the OP says that the law of attraction is fiction is evidence that the law of attraction is true! If you firmly believe that this law is false, then it will cease to work for you, because your belief in its falseness will dictate your actions in such a way to lead you to believe that it is untrue. You attract it not working for you by virtue of your belief.

The law of attraction works when you allow yourself to believe it! That simple.

The LOA (a hyped up term, no doubt) states that we attract everything we experience in our life - including diseases, bad weather, accidents, lottery wins, etc

This is so hard for people to believe because it can never be proven - like religion. There will always be people on both side of the fence and they can and will find evidence to "prove" their stand but these are never real proof.

What I believe is this : forget about LOA, just know that having a positive mental attitude all the time is the way to happiness, wealth and health.

Then it will not conflict with another thoughts of attracting terrorists, cancer, etc into your life. Can't prove it is true or false so why waste time on it?

According to 'wikipedia', some of the criticism stems from the mis-understanding of quantum physics! Mind blowing!

Hey Richard - this is quoted from Blair Warren - he posted it
here on WF a while back and I dug it out of his blog. Hope you
get a laugh

LOA - an impossible discussion. cannot be proven (yet).
law of extraction (as posted above) - hilarious, thank you!

here's what i think happens - that makes people believe in LOA:

1) the brain uses "beliefs about reality" to create perception filters.
2) those filters increase awareness and acceptance of things consistent with the beliefs, while blinding us to things inconsistent with the beliefs.
3) the person now experiences a bias in the environment consistent with the beliefs (even though an independent unbiased observer may be able to prove that no actual bias exists)
4) the person responds to the perceived change as if it were real, and gets results accordingly.

example from my busines:

when our sales people think "the market is tough", they filter their environment (and gather evidence) and alter their actions consistent with that beleif... and wow! our sales go down.

when our sales people think "the market is hot", they filter their environment (and gather evidence) and alter their actions consistent with that belief... and wow! our sales go up.

simple causality. no universal law, no quantum mysteries required.

does LOA exist on some metaphysical level? i don't really care.

my job is to influence the beliefs of my sale team, to cause them to believe things that result in them taking actions that cause sales to increase.

you can call that LOA - it certainly seems "mysterious" to many people - and of course it "works" so that solidifies belief. but that's why so many people "try and fail" with LOA; they expect some mystical power to deliver the results - forgetting that action (by you and the people you influence) that is consistent with the belief is vital, as my example shows. the author of The Secret gets that - "Ask, Believe, Recieve" - if you ain't receiving, then you asked wrong or didn't believe strongly enough... that makes it sound like magic, but...

...it's nothing more than the simple and well-documented cause-and-effect of human behaviour.

Either way, you can get on with using it to be successful. no need to wonder if you're "doing it right", it's neither magic nor rocket science.

good luck all.

The brain is a "sorting" machine... of sorts. There is a part of
brain function called the "reticular activating mechanism" which
basically sorts out all the stuff we aren't focused on seeing.

If you've ever taken heavy psychedelics basically they make
your sorting function go haywire and a lot more gets in and
it can get very confusing.

Autistic people have a lot more information "getting in" so they
develop ways to cope with the onslaught... the noise of it all.

If you buy a red corvette suddenly you will see other red corvettes
as if many more people have them... it's just your brain sorting for
what you are focused on.

I don't believe we "attract" things into our lives, but if we focus
on spotting opportunities, for example, we will see many more of
them.

No magical thinking required.

Man's greatest illusion is their own realtiy

"The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives" William James

I appreciate your opinion and think that the "Secret" takes it a little far. But I firmly believe that our thoughts are extremely powerful and capable of more than either you or I know. Who knows? Why does it bother you what other people believe, I guess there is no tooth ferry either. Live and let Live Brother!

Hello Richard,

Read the "Master Key System" by Charles Haanel.

Haanel explains what the L.O.A. really is about, (not like the rubbish in the "Secret" and some of the other crappy so called "selfhelp" books), and most important he explains WHY it works!

C.H. was the inspiration behind N. Hill and (it is said) Bill Gates. And reading and studying Haanel's work has helped little 'ol me make some nice money too !

If you want a text copy of the book send me a PM.

Prosperity to us all!

David

Loa and Lol - one letter difference.

I too find it amazing that otherwise rational people fall for this tosh.

If your talking positive thinking, that's another matter.

Now what was that I was reading about the Tooth Fairy...

Ray

I guess if you "attract" that the "law of attraction" doesn't work it actually is working.

So life is more fun not to have your own belief system? It is more fun to drop your faith to agree with someone who disbelives in your faith?

Listen if your bashing "The Secret" for going a bit overboard with the principles of the LOA, I'm with you on that 100%. But to try and bash the whole principle is also way off. If you want to enjoy a movie that in my opinion does a much more accurate job of depicting the LOA try "The Awakening" with Patrick Combs.

I think this is a much more down to earth prospective. I'd share a link but then that would probably be considered spamming.

Here's a story -

On Twitter the other day some dude I was following for no
particular reason Tweeted about "The liberals" - in a somewhat
derogatory way...

and I messaged him back saying "you know man, labeling people
isn't accurate. You might be surprised at the reasons people
have for voting the way they do..." (that isn't what I said,
but since I got the idea the fellow had been listening to radio
pundits who like to paint groups of people with a very broad
brush I wanted to make a point.

Here's the point - most people operate out of belief systems.
the beliefs in the systems support each other. In this case
there was a fellow who maybe has a set of values and he
conveniently is able to label a whole group of people whose
values he doesn't agree with/understand as "liberals" (meaning
"THEM") - creating a very safe-feeling US/THEM tribal feeling.

Ie. "we are the people with the smarter values and THEY are
the people who smoke pot and don't have their heads on straight."

I'm extrapolating here - don't take me too seriously :p

SO - what we have is that most people are walking around with
a whole barrelful of beliefs that form a system and have an
associated vocabulary for labeling one's own experiences and
other people, their values, their activities - usually in the context
of being "LIKE US" or "Not like us - like THEM!"

This is tribal consciousness I think - we would be well-served
if we could outgrow it sometime... but for the meantime it
sort of shows why people develop belief systems and more
importantly, defend them so fervently.

We all have 'em - but some of us are more skeptical of the
basis-in-reality of our beliefs than others. I'm always looking
not for what is convenient of "feels good" to believe, or more
accurately, think and behave as if IT were true, but for the
most accurate model of how other people REALLY behave
and the way things work.

Ie. the law of gravity seems pretty darn reliable.

The law of attraction is... well, a label for a set of beliefs some
people have.

If you will pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, you will see.

You get what you think about whether wanted or not.

Victoria

It seems to all come down to Repetition. If you think a certain way over many days than something in your life is bound to happen to reflect that way of thinking. Also, some people have repeatedly thought of themselves as a failure...so it prevent them from taking the actions they need to get what they really want. While I too found some things problematic with the Secret...I think it can still help people get out their ruts so to speak.

Live and let live.

If it makes someone FEEL GOOD to believe in The Law of Attraction why do you feel it necessary to try and make them feel wrong for believing.

I use the theory of The Law of Attraction to live my life and it makes me feel good.

What is wrong with that?

Karen

Hello

Consider this:

There is nothing inside of you that can create a thought - you can only receive and emit them, as your brain acts as a transmitter/receiver, somewhat like a radio which tunes into a frequency to produce sounds.

You come to know this by experience (as in actualy observing) which is attained by meditation. In fact, if you spend long enough observing your thoughts, you will find that every thought you have arrives as a vibration first, then is mentalized by your past experience, assigned a label and presented as "your thought".

Look at why you are friendly with some people and not so with certain others. You tend to attract into your sphere of experience people with like minded nature. This is in fact an extension of how you look at a certain vibration and decide if you want to allow it into your world or not. If you choose to allow the vibration, your past experience and conditionings determine how you label the vibration as a thought, and claim it as your thought. (look at a rabbit in front of a rabbit vis a vis a rabbit in front of a wolf. The vibrations of the rabbit will be different in each case).

LOA works in a similar way, by conscious use of vibrations that you put out in the universe, and these vibrations you put out gather force and strength, when similar vibrations existing already in the universe (you are not the only one emitting and transmitting) find your vibrations and join forces with them.

Once these vibrational alignment happens, circumstances, events and people arrange themselves in ways conducive to make your vibration a reality in your experience.(Please also know that by you getting what you desire it does not mean others are getting deprived - the law of balance in the universe ensures that you are matched with someone out there who does not want the thing you want. It is like ebay, matching buyer with seller) Our minds cannot imagine in what way our vibration will become a reality, as we don't have access to, so to speak, the universal database. Just like in ebay - the buyer does not know the seller and vice versa. But they are hooked up to make the transaction go through.

Don't forget that every conceivable thing you can think of is already there, only it is not in your field of experience (think Reticular Activation). When you are in vibrational alignment, it is in fact impossible for you not to have it. Think of all the things you have in your life. Has anything happened without you first having a thought about it? or desire for it?

This said, I look at people writing articles and books on LOA without understanding the roots of the mental science, and scratching the surface. I take pity on the people who are lured into buying ebooks and audios that don't actually have a firm foundational knowledge behind them. This is the reason many people say LOA doesn't work. I say it is impossible for it not to work, as the evolution of mankind and the universe in fact depends on it.

Our Maker has taken the autopilot route to managing - set the law of cause and effect into motion, and take your hands off. It works on autopilot. I can't think of God taking time to answer all prayers landing in his helpdesk. He would go mad. This is where the law of cause and effect, the law of attraction kicks in. It continuously operates to create experiences in your life, so that God can run a hands free operation - once he has set up the system, he can work on other projects and ebooks.

In fact, yogis and mystics spend years acquiring the deep knowledge about how to mind works and how to control it. They work with the breath to influence the intensity of the vibrations etc. and to slow down their thought vibrations to reach the stillness conducive to experientially realizing their "self".

Once you know how it works you have the means of right use of the mind with you. Till you get this knowledge, you should not, and in fact cannot effectively, teach others. I believe Joe Vitale is almost there, but not yet fully there.

Mr. Cox,
I think that it was stupid of you
to even think to start this thread due
to the simple fact that all of us knew
how it was going to play out.

I will not try to argue with you because it
is pointless and it will just boost up the egos here,
including yours and mine, but I would only like to
state that the law of attraction is the most powerful
law in the universe.

~Igor

You made some valid points, but the LOA is one of those things that are hard to prove or disprove. You have no evidence it doesn't work. Just because somebody made a movie about it and makes good money proves nothing. And I'm sorry but I really don't think you actually counted "trillions" of instances where the LOA didn't work. You simply chose not to believe it (and the Universe said: "Your wish is my command.").

David, I've read the Master Key book and I've seen the same claims you just mentioned - that it inspired both Hill and Gates.

Given what I know about them, this seems believable. However, I haven't been able to find anything more about these connections. Is there some place where I could read more of the story?

Regards,
Allen