The leading edge of thought

I don't believe in the law of attraction, but its so fun to think about. If it was true, life would be so good. I'm going to pretend that I believe in it for the next few paragraphs just for inspiration.

[rationalism OFF]

You are on the leading edge of thought. You chose this contrast even before you were born. It is what you wanted. Only through contrast can you unleash the desire used to create.

Think of all the suffering in this world. Imagine a child somewhere out there who is dying of hunger. Think of how terrible this is. Think of his unbearable pain and suffering. Now stop. Think of something different. Did you feel that? Did you feel the contrast? You can only know what you want because of the contrast. Everytime, you have this choice - to change your focus on what you don't want, to what you do want. The contrast brings forth rockets of desire. You cannot get rid of what you don't want by pushing against it. The more you focus on what you don't want, the more of it you attract.

You are a creator on the leading edge of thought. And here's the beauty of it: you never finish. You are constantly asking the universe via your focus. And everytime, the universe is responding.

After each manifestaion of your desires you are in a new place of contrast. And within that new place of contrast, a new rocket of desire is born. You never finish, because the joy is not in the recieving, but it is in the asking. You are constantly asking in your focus.

No matter where you are in life, remember why you chose to immerse yourself in this contrast. It is not so that you could focus on what you don't want, it is so that you could focus on what you do want.

[rationalism ON]

I don't believe what I said above. Many things I believed would happen, never did. That would falsify the law of attraction since according to LOA if you believe you will get something then you will attract it to you. Nevertheless, thinking about the law of attraction is inspiring.

Why not test the law of attraction yourself?

What I do to test the law of attraction, is I write down something that I want to manifest in my life. Once a day, or once every few days, I look at the goal I have written down and imagine that I have it. I keep a tally of how many days I have put my focus on believing I will achieve the goal.

Results are generally dismal. Most times nothing is achieved at all. Sometimes I do get success but if the law of attraction is true, it should work for all goals, not just some of them.

One of the manifestation goals I had written down a few days ago was to break my advertising revenue record. I have other personal websites that make a very small amount. The most I have ever received in one day is 82 cents. I broke that record today making $1.26. The tally next to my manifestation goal was 5.

The reason I have mentioned this is not to promote the law of attraction. I don’t believe in the law of attraction at all. Rather it’s to show the way that many superstitions work. To create a superstition all we need are two events happening within close proximity to each other. The mistake that a superstitious person makes is that they believe that because two events happened side by side, the earlier event must have caused the latter.

There could be an even better explanation. The universe is not actually answering your “vibration”. Your brain is simply working on achieving your goal because by focusing on it, you are telling your brain that it is important. Something that was previously at the middle of the subconscious “to do” list is now suddenly at the top. This was achieved by focusing on the goal. You’ve told your brain to spend more time trying to achieve that goal. However increased effort trying to achieve your goal doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be achieved. That’s why goal setting has a low success rate. That would be the rationalist explanation.

Nevertheless, as a rationalist, I find my self testing the law of attraction again and again. Not because I believe it works, but because it gives me hope. Who wouldn’t want everything they wanted to be attracted to them without having to lift a finger?

Nothing sells like hope

On most law of attraction sites there's usually something to be sold. Could it be that the law of attraction is nothing more than a self-help gimmick to get sales? If you've got nothing what is the best thing that you can sell? Hope. Just go into any bookstore and you'll see a whole shelf of books dedicated to self help. There's a whole group of people in this world who are desperate to better their lives and they'd fork out cash for it. But in my experience, self-help books make you feel good for a while but the techniques don't actually work.

The first self-help book I bought was Tony Robbins, "Awaken the Giant within". Years after I still am no great success. It seems like these guys get rich, not from using their techniques, but from selling them.

So is the law of attraction completely useless? Not really. If you're into scheming, then you can sell it. Just sell the idea of it. Even if your techniques don't work, it doesn't matter. People need hope, and hope sells.

Problems with the Law of Attraction

One of the problems with the Law of attraction is that terrible things happen to children. This falsifies the law of attraction hypothesis since according to the Law of attraction you only attract into your life what you think about.

This problem is brought up in a pro-Law of attraction blog but it doesn't solve the problem at all:

If a child is abused, does that mean the child intended it in some way?

No. It means YOU intended it. You intend child abuse to manifest simply by thinking about it. The more you think about child abuse (or any other subject), the more you’ll see it expand in your reality. Whatever you think about expands, and not just in the narrow space of your avatar but in all of physical reality.

This violates the law of attraction as promoted by Abraham Hicks because according to them, bad things only happen if you attracted it, not if someone else attracted it on you.

Depression, religion, and the Law of Attraction

Why is it that when times are bad I come back to testing the Law of Attraction? I am a rationalist, and yet the Law of Attraction which I know to be false offers something that I can't get elsewhere - hope. As a rationalist, I have rejected many things, including religion. Why then do I not turn to my former faith, Christianity in times of desperation? I pondered this question and realised that Christianity offers nothing to the depressed person. Even if Christianity was true, it is believed that your prayers are answered so long as it is God's will. So if you are suffering from depression and want to get rid of it, you could try praying and you wouldn't be surprised that it didn't work.

So how is the Law of Attraction different? Isn't it just as irrational as the Christian faith? Yes it is but it offers something that Christianity doesn't - hope. How you may ask? With the law of attraction, it is believed that you can get anything you want. What you can manifest in your world is not limited to "God's will". If you want money you can have money. If you want women you can have women. So long as you can imagine it, you can have it. Now for a depressed person, even the belief that there is such a law offers hope. I suffer from depression though I don't like to admit it since there's such a stigma attached to it. But whenever life gets unbearable, I turn to testing the Law of Attraction again. Not because it works, but because it offers hope.

Law of Attraction must be testable

The Law of attraction must be testable. If the law of attraction is actually useful, then really you should be able to manifest anything you want. If you don't manifest what you want, then there are two possible explanations:
1) Law of attraction doesn't work
2) You did something wrong

Many believers of the Law of Attraction usually point to explanation number 2. However there must be some sort of way to test which explanation it really is.

If explanation number 2 is the correct one, then you should be able to change something so that you eventually get what you want, and consistently. However, from personal experience I still couldn't manifest what I wanted and therefore I believe that explanation number 1 fits best.

Why we believe

The law of attraction and religion has one thing in common: both of them are false and yet people believe in it. I have believed in both in the past. The reason, I think, that we believe in these things is that we are desperate for a way to control our life. Religion, self help books, and new age theory offer this and we are desperate to believe that what they offer is actually true.

When I first heard of the Law of Attraction from Abraham-Hicks I was excited. I had already rejected the Bible and I had already rejected many self help books. I needed a way to feel good for no reason - and I believed that the Law of Attraction was the remedy.

The problem was that after trying it out, there was nothing useful that I could manifest that would get rid of my problems. Even if there was something wrong I was doing, it doesn't stop the fact that it was useless for me. So eventually I gave it up.

Now I still don't have a way of feeling good for no reason. However I spend a lot of time thinking about my old superstitions, perhaps seeing if there is a way to get rid of the blues that actually works.

Bad things happening to children

The biggest argument against the LOA is that if everything around us is a product of our thoughts, then why do bad things happen to children? Children don't normally think about really bad things and thus it makes no sense that bad things would happen to them.

Statistical Test on the Law of Attraction

This blog gives some information on a test to see if the Law of Attraction actually works. As expected, the Law of Attraction doesn't seem to do anything.