The law of attraction: garbled fragment of a lost tradition
by Jon Rappoport
November 13, 2016
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
There is no way to state the law of attraction with finality, because thousands of people have tinkered with it, and some of them earnestly believe they have the only “true” version.
I’ll present several of the more popular descriptions first, and then comment.
“The law of attraction is the name given to the maxim ‘like attracts like’ which in New Thought philosophy is used to sum up the idea that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts a person brings positive or negative experiences into their life…” (Wikipedia)
“The Law of Attraction is no scary science or heavy philosophy – it is all about turning good intentions into positive action. It really is as simple as that. Simple exercises like filling your thoughts, words and energies with positivity and possibility, knowing exactly what it is that you want and then simply ‘allowing’ the universe to flow.” (thelawofattraction.com)
“Someone has said, ‘the Universe has imagined it even better than you have.’ And we like to add to that: The Universe got all of its information about what you like from you, and it has remembered every piece of it and has put it together in perfect formation. And so, the things that are on their way to you are so much better than you even know that you want. And as you allow them, the essence all of these things that the Universe knows that you are wanting make their way to you and appear in perfect timing for you.” (abraham-hicks.com)
The first thing to notice about these formulations is that they have a major passive component. You’re just there, thinking good thoughts, and the universe delivers its gifts to you. Hello! Incoming! And the second thing to notice is how the universe itself is characterized. It isn’t planets, stars, and galaxies. It’s a mystic “everything” that is paying close attention to you. It’s an outside force that is ready and willing to pass along positive results in exchange for positive thoughts.
It’s no surprise that the law of attraction has flourished in modern America. The law, in its own strange way, is a marvel of optimism. “No need to worry, all you need to do is accentuate the positive in your thoughts, and good things will descend upon you.”
There is even a more “sophisticated” version of the law, whereby, if you think-positive and don’t receive what you want, you didn’t really want it. That is, your higher self didn’t want it. Therefore, disappointment and failure aren’t possible.
The law is also an expression of a severely declining culture, in which large numbers of people, living in a superficial land of plenty, just can’t seem to be happy. They’re not getting what they want. The presents under the Xmas tree aren’t the right presents. The dreams they’re dreaming aren’t coming true. Therefore: build a better Santa Claus. Call him Universe.
The law of attraction also has a dark side: don’t entertain negative thoughts or negative things will happen to you. This may as well be an overt piece of mind control, because…who can avoid a trickle or a stream of negative thoughts? The individual is being set up. “Be a cop. Monitor yourself. Be your own Surveillance State. Keep those negative thoughts away. Don’t think of a pink elephant driving a truck on the sidewalk as you step out a café…”
The law of attraction: it’s as if someone read an ancient torn manuscript, tried to reconstruct a valuable piece of information, and missed the mark by a few miles. He got it all wrong. He got it backwards. Everything he could get wrong he did get wrong.
Why do I say that?
First of all, re the law of attraction, we’re talking about “positive and negative thought” at a level of power that is weak, weak, weak. We’re talking about an inconsequential level of thinking. We’re also talking about thought that is divorced from action. The individual is characterized as if he were a radio antenna, a receiving apparatus. Thoughts are coming in, good ones and bad ones. His job is to filter out the bad ones and strive to accentuate the good ones. This is preposterous. This is a losing proposition.
In ancient Tibet, before the priest class took over and established a theocracy, the practitioners of the art of manifestation were operating at a truly profound level of creation. If someone had come up with the law of attraction, he would have been encouraged to see it and invent it with all the sustained intensity he possibly could—and then, when he had it before him with alive and electric force, he would have been told: get rid of it.
The whole notion of Tibetan magic was: creation and destruction.
Through long-term grounding in this practice, the student would eventually come to see, first-hand, that he could invent anything and also dispense with it. Now we’re talking about power.
Not the inconsequential static of “positive and negative thoughts.” Not the little amateur radio station. Instead, the Niagara, initiated by the student and gotten rid of by the student.
“You’re in love with the idea of a beneficent universe that delivers all good things? All right, create that universe with all the energy you can muster. Spend months creating it. And then, when you’re quite sure you’ve got that marvelous invention, and it’s going to hand down to you everything you want, get rid of your invention. You see? You’re the artist of reality. You invent it. You can invent whatever you want, and you can destroy it, too. You’re the painter with an infinite canvas. You can fill it up with anything you want—and you can also paint over it and erase it out of existence. And there’s no need to feel sad about it, because you KNOW you can create endlessly. You’re living in a sea of abundance, not because the universe is mandating it, not because any entity or force or field or personage is mandating it or allowing it, but because YOU are the beginning and end of the abundance.”
The Tibetans weren’t fooling around. They weren’t taking a stroll through a mall. They weren’t pining over some fervently wished for relationship that never was. They weren’t cooking up some little religion with rainbows and marshmallows. They weren’t a terminally sentimental culture. They weren’t living and dying by dreams of abject hope. They weren’t inventing some good guy at the center of universe who comes down the chimney every night to deliver presents.
For that twisted version of the truth to flourish, there had to be a culture that was seeming to produce a consumer paradise. A place where every toy and machine and frizzle and frazzle on shelves of plenty were within arm’s reach—and still the people were unhappy. Then, the people would imagine that a higher St. Nick was available by merely “thinking good thoughts.” Then, people would believe this St. Nick was “giving them permission” to be happy.
Re the law of attraction, those early Tibetans would say: “Are you really worried about thinking a negative thought? All right, take one of those negative thoughts and invent it sky-high. Go to the quarry and cut out a two-ton block of granite and have some horses drag it back home and spend a few months engraving that negative thought on the stone and put lights on it and hold a week-long boggling celebration—and then blow up the stone. Do this whole process many times as you need to, until you realize you can invent anything and then get rid of it. Until you realize you’re an artist of reality and you’re infinitely more powerful than some weak sister of a ‘negative thought’.
An artist of reality puts together a vision of something he deeply, deeply, deeply desires, and then he strides out and brings it into being in the world. Because he wants to. Because he’ll walk through whatever he has to walk through to bring it to fruition. And that’s “the law of attraction.” It’s not a law and it isn’t attraction. It’s art. It’s creation. It’s invention. Nothing is “allowing it to happen.”
The individual, as an artist of reality, can go anywhere and access anything: he can tap into fields of data, oceans of being, other people’s minds, this consciousness and that consciousness, this role and that role; he can merge and un-merge—or he can do none of that. He can invent power out of nothing. He can, as artists have since the dawn of time, experience the joy and ecstasy of bringing to life his greatest dreams. He can invent and choose those dreams. And he can also, if he wants to, put all that on the shelf, and just walk down the street in the rain and hold a newspaper over his head and hail a cab and ride to a restaurant and have a drink and eat a meal with a friend and talk about the horse who won the fifth race at Del Mar.
And just in case you think I’m excluding all the “necessary work” that needs to be done to make this world a better place, a client I worked with, some years ago, told me: “I just woke up to my dream. I’m going to take down [a major evil corporation].” There was joy in his eyes, like a man on a high cliff looking out to sea contemplating glorious unknown lands. He is making progress, real progress. I wouldn’t want to be that corporation.
What I’m describing in this article is an open path. Major steps on that path are embodied in my three Matrix collections, because I’m not only interested in characterizing the journey, but also taking it.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Donald J. Trump
Four-step formula for success:
1. Get in.
2. Get it done.
3. Get it done right.
4. And get out.”
Thanks Jon. I never liked the law of attraction either. But like your client, I want to make a difference in this stupid world. Where to start? Chemicals in drinking water? Human waste fertilizer? Rubber in processed food? So much to do. So little time.
Jon, this brings into clarity some of my disjointed thoughts from the past around the subject of how much I hated the idea of the “law of attraction.” Oh, don’t get me wrong…I did my share of spending time and money going to seminars hosted by famous people who promised to share the inside secrets of their success with me. Yet I soon decided they were new-thought snake oil salespeople whose only success was based on the money that I and thousands of others handed over to them…a shell game or pyramid scheme of massive proportions. As the whole phenomenon exploded into almost every corner of our Matrix world, I finally said to anyone who would listen, “Once it makes it to the Oprah show, I know something stinks!”
Gratefully, I emerged from the refuse of those times and had been floating in a seeming nothingness for some time…ready and willing to reclaim and re-engage my IMAGINATION! Thank you for all of your gifts!!!
The law of attraction is another variation of determinism. Align your thoughts with what the universe has already decided as your destiny. From it sprang other awful ideas like manifest destiny, progressivism, and the Third Reich. Last week’s election was an act of creative destruction. To hell with what everyone says must be, the voters chose someone who was not meant to be elected! A giant blow to determinism.
President Trump’s win
Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q
There is certainly a great deal of nonsense out there regarding the law of attraction since “The Secret” and I certainly cannot comment as a knowledgeable person on the subject. That said, I’ve read a couple of the New Thought proponents with Wallace Wattles and Charles Haanel as two examples; and have a slightly different take-away. I’ve not got the impression that action is unnecessary, in fact, I suspect it’s vital to creation on any level.
My understanding is as follows: The Universe (God, if you will) consists of intelligent energy in various forms vibrating at various frequencies, possessing varied levels of awareness in its different forms. These forms are interchangeable over time and as Einstein taught via E = MC squared, even matter and energy are interchangeable. If we accept the idea of Infinity, by definition, nothing can exist outside Infinity; therefore if God, Divine Providence, The Universe, etc. exists, then we are each an integral, albeit tiny aspect of Infinity. We are a part of God just as a rock or water is, though differing in awareness. Obviously I disagree with Thomas Aquinas and others on supposing God stands apart from and outside infinity.
Life is energy flow. Wishing or hoping for something has zero power to affect energy flow. Attention must be focused on the matter at hand; emotions must be powerfully and honestly engaged; and lastly, clear, concise intention (action) must follow. ACTION IS REQUIRED to first, prepare yourself to receive whatever it is you’re interested in; and secondly, action is required to bring about the intention as the Universe, if you will, always works through us, never on us. Divine Providence doesn’t do anything to us or for us. Due to Free Will, Infinite Intelligent Energy only works through us in shared creation as our individually manifested energy combines with the Infinite Intelligent Energy (God) of the Universe through our human gift of creative imagination to participate in creating our reality. This is the primary difference between humans and other earthly creatures we know of. (Let’s not get into spirits, though obviously we have at least one other energy form.)
A shorter way of saying it is: humans share the Divine gift of creative imagination with awareness of ourselves in space and time. If in fact, humans cannot create, then humans are just another instinctual creature and the idea of imagination impacting outcomes is nonsense – and I don’t believe it is. Obviously humans create. That’s my take on it, though as to why all this – I don’t pretend to know and always appreciate your learned views.
Thank you so much Mr. Rappoport for what you do!
Bruce K.
Here is a good article about creation and magic of the Tibetans. Hence, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it…
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/how-to-make-a-ghost-magic-and-mysticism-in-tibet
With imagination and creativity, you can do anything you want to. Even if everone is against you and think that you are a clown.
This video below is the ultimate proof:
When People Laughed At The Idea Of Trump Actually Being Elected President! Compilation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT0Rjc6jKCg
I think you have written something like this before, but is still great nonetheless, Jon.
In fact the laws of attraction came from Atlantis and that is a whole different story that needs to be tackled in a different way, considering we are dealing with people that aren’t human perse.
I am seeing others all around me so besotted by their beliefs, they are in denial of reality. Here’s a couple of topical paragraphs from my latest article to put things in perspective:
https://ozziethinker.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/the-great-societal-paradox-action-that-defies-principled-beliefs/
“Under those conditions, candidates can’t be voted in unless they tell a precession of untruths or outright lies. Other than those noteworthy “trainee Messiahs”, would be leaders are voted out. The one that was selected was the best of the “no better” bunch and he or she wasn’t voted for. To put it in contextual terms dealing with the here and now of busy today, when people appear to vote in Clinton, they actually vote out Trump. There is something else associated with this syndrome; something far more menacing. The great societal paradox is people say one thing and do another. Action always ultimately defies principled beliefs. I can’t rely on anything anyone says because the chances are they aren’t telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth….
…“Survival of the fittest”, “fight or flight”, “problem, reaction solution”, call it what you will. One thing is certain. We, humans, have trickery and deceit in our blood. The absolute commitment to self will reduce any Ascension event to banality if we are not very careful. Currently, there is no societal paradox. If you wish to focus on the veneer, then yes, most of you are caring, conditionally considerate, deeply compassionate about things you believe in and, superficially, at least, a credit to society. Yet, under the veil of self-assurance the real absurdity skulks. Action defies principled beliefs because we are; foul, slithering, pestilent, fork tongued serpents that quiver before the magnificence of the absolutely indiscriminate and non-judgemental “God in all being”. We exist day to day cobbled from acute Ciakar jealousy (emotion for emotion’s sake), the worst qualities of Pleiadians obsessiveness (blamed on the ego) and the most reckless violence of the Lemurians which keeps us on endless war footing….”
Best
OT
LOA as popularly taught is the other polarity of the Oneness Kool-Aid being disseminated by powerbrokers working for the masters of the universe.(more like masters of !@#$tardery).
You know the game guys, divide and distract, two “opposite” seeming movements, both having the same effect- PASSIVITY.
Oneness started in “mysticism” and was funded by places like the Warburg Institute (think Rothschildes ) , while Carnegie and his opprobrious peers, the charlatans of industry , the “men who built America” ,funded it’s “opposite”- i call it the happyclappy church of Little Anthony. (Twilight Zone Episode, “It’s a Good Life”)
Don’t think a bad thought or you could get wished off into the cornfield.
In America we don’t take to people who whine about getting shafted….Big Oil destroyed your land? Stop whining, it is for the greater good, Vaccines killed your child? Stop whining it is for the greater good. And god forbid you should actually get sick and not be happy and cheerful with hospital staff because even the dangerously ill are supposed to think only happy thoughts.
Meanwhile the place where people have been made to be afraid to go: the occult, the power lying within themselves, they have been propagandized and conditioned not to go.
All you need do is consider the pabulum on media,and through most publishers to get this point.
I’ve always felt this way about the “Law of Attraction.” It has become a way for lazy people to wish good things will come to them from nothing. Total insanity. Look at some of the greats of our time and tell me they didn’t go through hell to get where they got.
Great insight sir and thank you! It gives me more inspiration to keep doing what I’m doing (work hard for my dreams).
Law of Attraction teachings stretch their main premise too far, using it as the foundation to describe all of life’s intricacies and answer all of life’s questions. People like formulas and absolutes (“It’s simple: You get what you think about!”) but it doesn’t mean life is exactly that way, and when life does appear to go that way, is it all because of the famous and ever-powerful Law of Attraction? It’s a kind of lazy way to describe all sorts of other factors and subtleties, plus mysterious workings we probably can’t even grasp. I can hardly grasp how deep the ocean is or the ever-expanding cosmos, never mind confidently, happily chirp “You get what you think about, every single time!” or “You can have everything you can imagine!”
It’s like you said: “It’s not a law and it isn’t attraction. It’s art. It’s creation. It’s invention.”
And like an above commenter, Bruce, talked about: humans CREATE.
I won’t try to divine a formula, but I think a magic all its own is created when we get clear on and pointed towards the goals that are supported by our talents and interests. It can be framed as the law of attraction… but why bother? (I guess the answer to that goes back to giving people formulas and absolutes–it gives people a map that helps them define and stay on their path).
I appreciated your point about this philosophy flourishing in modern America and a declining culture. I think that Law of Attraction Teachings are absolutely a “First World Philosophy,” but I see it perhaps optimistically: We have our survival and safety needs met (in general, though not every individual of course). We get to focus on self-discovery and emotional growth. Many of us are free to define and pursue whatever we believe to be our Purpose. And people need guides along the way now as they go out exploring. HOW do you live the life you’ve designed in your head? How do you effect change? How do you make your life count?
Law of Attraction teachings are empowering (even the fictions, though ultimately I believe that fictions will disempower) and they are all about creativity and optimism. They are everything that many people deeply FEEL to be true, correlated with this sort of inner awakening and outer movement toward purpose. And the concept does help a lot of people get their head on straight and step into some power that gets things happening in life.
I can’t fault the coach/mentor/speaker who uses the term law of attraction in their language (unless perhaps that is all they rely upon) because in a way it is a helpful model, if not completely accurate, for positive change and focused achievement. People are successfully finding their way to their goals by thinking about life through this law of attraction filter (if they have other tools to balance and support them too).
I write at responsiblespirituality.com. May I link to you at my blog?
A lot of my writing is on Abraham-Hicks, but feel free to drop some knowledge on us in the comments over there.