The "Secret" or Law of Attraction

People once regarded the law of attraction as a concept that fell within the realm of spiritual or metaphysical study, but suddenly, people from all walks of life have been talking about it as though a well-guarded secret to the universe was just discovered. As much as pop trend wants to cast an air of mystique around the subject by suggesting that this information has been deliberately hidden, printed information has circulated freely on the subject since the early 20th century, when many authors of New Thought literature shared their knowledge and success using law of attraction. See the online library on this site for many of these classics. It was mentioned in the Bible, taught by eastern religion since the dawn of time, and revived in the latter part of the 20th century with the concept of the power of positive thought. These early works laid the groundwork for later teachings and also provided us with a good history of many who succeeded by using the methods that these authors detailed in their writings.

From 1963 to 1984, Jane Roberts channeled spiritual information, including law of attraction concepts, from an entity named Seth. Almost immediately following Ms. Roberts’ death in 1984, Esther Hicks channeled similar information, beginning in 1985, from a group of entities who referred to themselves as "Abraham." Hicks’ many books and tapes have been widely available ever since. Most recently, the release of the cleverly-titled DVD, The Secret, illustrated a rather seductive and magical presentation of the law of attraction. The release of this movie spawned a deluge of get-rich-effortlessly-and-quickly instructional seminars, CD-sets, books and e-books, targeted toward people easily wanting to reach their material goals. However, aside from those who directly benefit from the sales of these products, the manifested results are less than profitable!

The law of attraction states that what you create in the inner world, or your conscious and unconscious mind, will crystallize in your outer world. The visions and thoughts that you impress upon the creative energy in the universe, through the process of your thinking, will manifest in your reality. This creative energy is also known as universal divine energy, or God. At first bite, this concept is usually difficult to grasp, but quantum physics tells us that science supports this concept. So your thoughts have a force that create your outer world. This suggests that everyone is already creating their reality, whether or not they are doing so deliberately.

This premise is based upon only a fragment of spiritual truth, a fact that current teachings don’t factor in when they tell you that you can achieve all that you desire. For this reason, most people do not achieve any predictable success using law of attraction. So, while the teachers tell you that everyone has total responsibility for their life, they can’t begin to answer why they, or others, don’t really have the ultimate control they tell you is possible. You may believe that you haven’t learned enough, or put into proper practice the principles they teach. Did you detach enough? Were you grateful enough? Positive enough? Did you put emotion into your intention? You may feel that if you attend some seminar, watch the movie again, purchase a CD-set, or another book, you might learn the real secret to making this work.

What is the point and purpose to these elaborate teachings of a fundamental universal law that is actually amazingly simple? Perhaps the only point is to manifest prosperity–not for the students, but for those who teach the principles! So, then, we might need to validate the teachings. We might want to see whether the teachers manifested wealth prior to, or aside from, creating and selling the information. We might ask to what extent they manifest other desirable conditions or situations in their lives. Clearly, if we are honest, we have to admit that while appealing, the law of attraction does not have the ultimate power that this current trend suggests.

As knowledgeable and experienced spiritual leaders know: it works for a while, sometimes, and then it doesn’t. As point in fact, some of the published authors who had acquired wealth using the principles, later found themselves in hardship or even destitute. So we need to understand the limitations in order to understand how it can help us.

As spiritual beings, first and foremost, our lives depend upon the demands of the soul, also called the soul plan. Our lives are neither at the mercy of whim, karma, luck nor chance, but neither are they entirely controlled by our conscious, or even unconscious, desires. Common sense, ancient wisdom, and experience tells us this. Spiritual masters have told us this. Health, wealth and the happy and fun life are, like it or not, expendable items, until we take care of the business of growth at hand. This means that sometimes we find ourselves in difficult life circumstances, which greatly contradict our positive intentions. These conditions are in place for the sole purpose of bringing us toward wholeness, light and freedom. Difficult times should be temporary conditions, and the sooner we "get" the lesson, the sooner we move to a higher and clearer level, more empowered to create a positive reality.

The content within our mind presents another challenge for us. The subconscious mind always has the final say-so on which conscious thoughts or desires have creative force. This is based on what ideas the subconscious, or unconscious mind, perceives true by virtue of prior learning and experience. Deliberate creation requires clear intent, free of any opposing thought, in either the conscious or subconscious mind.

Next, the universal consciousness, or "one-mind" restricts us. In the highest spiritual sense, we are all one, despite having separate physical bodies. We cannot escape the belief systems of this group. Tribe consciousness refers to the beliefs of the smaller groups we belong to, such as family, gender, or ethnic.  No matter what we may personally believe with even absolute conviction, we will be limited by the beliefs of all of these groups.

Developing a practical approach that takes into account all these considerations will yield far better results than attempting to use law of attraction in an unrealistic way. Wishful thinking will not make it so.

Nothing outside of yourself will prevent you from attaining abundance, love, health and happiness. There is no soul plan that denies anyone this. Rather, it is every soul’s urging that we grow to accept all this and more. Your success in attaining your goals depend upon you cultivating commitment and patience, as well as a postive mind-set. Your spiritual progress, ability to let go of core negative beliefs and programs, and your ability to eliminate destructive habits of negativity, anxiety and fear will largely determine the results. While you may encounter blocks when attempting to influence elements outside of yourself, law of attraction works infallibly 100% of the time on internal shifts and goals. In other words, what you think you are today, you will be, tomorrow.