law of atraction

[Radiant]

Radiant:well... yes, but in my humble opinion, people like that precive themselves as highly logical and reasonable.

Sure. Pretty much everyone does; that's known as the Fundamental Attribution Error.

[The Fool]

Sure, at the end of the day nobody is smarter than you are, and that is really usefull supporting belief. I was talking about people who precive every different opinion as stupid.

[The Fool]

the first reason why I created this toppic was to find someone who worksi with LOA too and find out how would game considering this thing looked like, but this discussion is pretty interesting too

[Vince Twelve]

When I lived in Japan, I had a side job transcribing Law of Attraction self-help podcasts for translation.  And listening to these things made me sick to my stomach.  Snake oil salesman pretending to be helping people, but only doing so by selling them useless ebooks, "life-manuals", and dvd sets.  Just absolute slime.  And one person was always pretending to be the impartial interviewer: "Wow, I came into this skeptical, but I'm amazed at all the results that you claim people have had after they threw their money at you!"

I felt terrible helping to bring such sleaze into the continent, but it paid really well (like 300 dollars to transcribe a 1 1/2 hour piece of audio) so I dealt with it.  And later I found out that the book that I was helping with failed to sell well, so maybe the Japanese are just smarter.

[The Fool]

Maybe it failed to sell well because it wasnt made well? 

[Dualnames]

I'm only attracted to porn. End of story. And its derivatives.

[Damien]

I think the big misunedrstanding of this video is, that the lady belives there is some sort of "general thuth".

How did you get to that conclusion?

If you believe in LOA, what do you think that happens when everyone starts using it to get wealthy?

[The Fool]

she suggests to "Try to figgure out whats actually happening in the world."

1. As I wrote before i belive there is no general truth and every event you see from your perspective you precive differently than anyone else, like different people likes different kinds of food. You can be critical, skeptical, happy, positive, but you NEVER CANT BE IMPATRIAL.

2. I belive every  thing that hapens to everyone of us is really vibrational match. You feal scared, there is danger you get thrashing from that drunk, angry skinhead sitting behind neighbouring table. If you feel good and safe, he wont take note of you at all or you will easilly talk your way out of it.

Honestly, have you ever get trashing while feeling safe and protected? Thoughts and feelings always, always,always preceding actions and events.

[The Fool]

If you believe in LOA, what do you think that happens when everyone starts using it to get wealthy?

People will understand their real unlimited potencial and mankind take great evolution leap. World will change rapidly, new ideas will flow and life will be better and better.

[straydogstrut]

she suggests to "Try to figgure out whats actually happening in the world."

1. As I wrote before i belive there is no general truth and every event you see from your perspective you precive differently than anyone else, like different people likes different kinds of food. You can be critical, skeptical, happy, positive, but you NEVER CANT BE IMPATRIAL.

I don't think she was suggesting there was a general truth, only that we should look beyond the 'delusion' that everything is okay and find out what's happening from our perspective. So rather than saying everything is hunkydory and papering over the cracks, we should look for the cause of our unhappiness.

I don't think she was suggesting that this would be the same in every case at all. How could it? Since as you said, everyone's perspective is different. I'll have to watch the video again though, maybe I missed this point.

I belive every  thing that hapens to everyone of us is really vibrational match..

Honestly, have you ever get trashing while feeling safe and protected? Thoughts and feelings always, always,always preceding actions and events.

While I would agree that there is some weight in positive thinking - if you go for a job interview with a confident attitude, that will come across - I don't think it has anything to do with a law of attraction. You won't necessarily get the job just because you have a positive attitude. Also, as I understand it, positive thinking itself is a separate area. I think the lines here are becoming blurred.

Feeling scared in a dangerous situation is a natural response to prepare your body for action.  I've been in countless situations where I haven't been attacked even though I felt the odds were against me. And what about the thousands of women who are raped every year? I'm pretty sure they felt safe on the streets before they were raped.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I don't agree. There's simply too much hurt in the world to explain it away as a result of people's thoughts. With that attitude, we don't need to fix anything, if only we learned to be positive about things the way they are, things would turn out all right. I can understand how, when good things happen, it's comforting to think it's because we willed them to, but only because we forget the times something good didn't happen.

This is an interesting discussion, yes. I have to admit that I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area, so my opinion here may come across as somewhat ignorant. But, aside from agreeing that we have a physical influence on the world just by being here, I don't believe in any LOA, or any religion for that matter. I'm perfectly happy living my life and being responsible for my own actions and how they effect others. It's comforting to me to believe that when I die, that's it. No everlasting life, no reincarnation. Though there's still some things I need to resolve to fit that view, but I don't need to buy someone's book to do that.

I place much more value in this life and making the best of it, trying to make the world a better place in my own small way. I won't accept that the world will be a better place if only we all thought the right way. I respect other people's beliefs, but I abhor those people who prey on the uncertainties of others, brainwashing them into thinking they're the reason things are wrong in their life, as so much of religion seems to do.

Not that i'm suggesting that's what you're trying to do here. I understand you were just seeking others' opinions, and I'm perfectly happy to discuss this further. If you do make a game out of this, i'll play it.

[GarageGothic]

The late, great Bill Hicks summed it up pretty well, in my opinion. Words to live by - and the true secret of Monkey Island.

[Monsieur OUXX]

ON TOPIC

> RaGG : "I don't perceive Law of attraction as a religion"
The problem is that "religion" has no definite definition. Some say it has to be performed in a group, some others say it can't be called a religion if it doesn't have a cult, or a church, or (etc.)


So let's ignore that whole religion thing, and let's focus on the purely "philosophical" aspect of it.

Law of attraction is based on a pretty clear assertion: "My thoughts can influence the environment".

What's nasty with it, is that it's not offered to the audience as a scientific theory that would need to be tested. It's presented as a set of "philosophical reflexions".
It's flawed from the start. No matter in how many philosophical terms you wrap it. If you make a binary claim ("thoughts impact the environment"), then you must prove it in a binary way. All the rest is a scam.

There is a simple reason to that: The New Thought appeared in the late 19th century. The scientific process started prevailing around 1850 and the New Thought appeared less than 40 years later, at a time when some of the most brilliant elite were still hardly struggling for outdated conceptions of the Universe and the Man (the most simple example is... the complete rejection of Evolution, again and again).

For the record, this also preceeded the wave of "magnetizer" hobbyists who were "moving goblets with their minds", in the 1900's.

What I'm trying to say is, that (IMHO), the New Thought is a pure product of that intermediate time between 1850 and 1920 when people were starting to accept scientific explanations of the World, but were still tempted to use them to produce even loonier (and desparately Dualist) theories (e.g. : "ghosts are fairy tales from the Middle Ages, however I do believe that we can perceive souls with a magnet")

Now, about the facts (after all, maybe there is some scientific truth in all that)
No need to say, all practical experiments that have aimed at discovering any kind of psychic powers have miserably failed. If you put the so called medium/psychic/etc. in a different room, then he suddenly loses his "powers" and becomes blind.

Of course, there are exceptions, but they can easily be explained: twins (because they have so much in common), subconscious, or guys who have trained themselves to be aware of clues inconsciously given by other peole (the best example is Darren Brown, who explains here that there is nothing supernatural in what he's doing - but people still strongly believe he's a psychic!!!)


As a conclusion: Any philosophy that appeared before 1850 should be forgotten (they were useful in their time, but now they hardly serve as a base for post-scietific-era philosophies). The New Thought (i.e. the Law of Attraction) appeared after 1850, but is still a remnant of those wacky visions of the Universe.


PS: I love you, Calin Leafshade.

[Khris]

If a popular proponent of an unscientific theory tries to explain it using quantum mechanics, it's really safe to immediately dismiss the concept as a whole.

To me it's obvious that going to an interview with a positive attitude (i.e. smiling, self-confident, etc.) will increase your chance of getting the job. Why would you put a pseudo-scientific theory on top of that?

[Anian]

offtopic: ...I think France isn't against religion per say, but mixing it and it affecting decisions that concern the public. I think it's a brilliant policy, it draws a clear line and tries to be neutral. Not to mention that history has shown that religion is not the best or the fairest way to make decisions and run society. Not only cause not all agree, but cause it allows quite a good way to control people and discourage individual thinking and development.

ontopic:
Philosophy (and as OUXX pointed out, it too has changed over the centuries) is not science just for that reason, that it doesn't offer evidence, it goes in the opposite direction - it offers explanation and theories to some observations and occurences. Science has a theory and evidence to support it - philosophy observes something happening and tries to offer an explanation, often isn't able to provide explicit proof, maybe some statistics.

Philosphy can be similar to religion. But in any case science would go - it only seems to happen cause you change your body language etc. and even then it's hardly efficient on every level.

And honestly can you state that really everything you thought and formed a desire on, happened? Aha, now we come to the philosphical loop - but what if you haven't thought about it enough, what if you didn't want something hard enough, what if there was doubt?? Then you go into - I believe that if I think etc.
So you're going in the direction of science (you have a theory) but you try to explain/proove it as a philosophy (you offer explanations). Which is just false logic/wrong thinking...many would call that religion.

Am I even a bit right?

[Khris]

As far as I understood the Wikipedia article, the Law of Attraction says that thoughts physically influence your course in life because they physically attract what you wish for.

I wasn't surprised when I read that this "theory" originated more than a hundred years ago, when science was in its infancy and superstition the prevailing way of "explaining" phenomena. IMHO it is complete bollocks.

Here's my theory, which I call the Law of StupidityDominatesErrIMeanRain: when a raindrop hits something, it vanishes instantly. A really, really (unmeasurably) small amount of time later, the same amount of water manifests itself on or inside whatever the raindrop hit. Not sure why, it's probably got to do something with quantum entanglement.

[Monsieur OUXX]

[ON TOPIC]
Well, it seems that we've said everything that could be said about the law of attraction...
Sorry, RaGG, it seems like it didn't generate too much enthusiasm.

[OFF TOPIC]
To answer calin leafshade and anian's comment about Religion, well, have a look at the video below.

WARNING
This video expresses radical laicist views (laicism= "politics shouldn't be mixed with religion").
- If you think the Dalai Lama is cool, then don't watch it.
- If you think atheism is evil, then don't watch it. (even though this video is not atheist but about laicism)
- If you don't know/believe that one of USA's first principles was that Religion should have nothing to do with the country (see the Tripoli treaty written under George Washington: "[the United States are] in no sense founded on the Christian religion", other sources here), then don't watch it.

The link: (forgot again how to make a spoiler field)
CLICK HERE

[Monsieur OUXX]

Sorry to dig up the thread, but I thought some might be interested in that video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhCLXEeSDQ&feature=player_embedded#!

I expresses what can be extrapolated from "my thoughts act on the world". No more, no less. Serious stuff.

[The Fool]

Sorry to dig up the thread again, I just feel I should recommand enyone here who would wish first hand informations about LOA without any distortion caused by wrong interpretation (mine or anyone elses) to make make open-minded opinion, you can download Abraham-Hicks book Ask and it is given or astonishing power of emotions, booth free on piratebay.org

Thats all from me, thanks for opinions!

Btw Calin Leafshade, I really enjoyed playing Eternaly us.

[Calin Leafshade]

Glad you liked it.