The Law of Attraction is one of those hot topics. People never seem to tire of debating why it’s true; why it’s false; or why everyone else just misunderstands it! (I’m in the 3rd category.)
There have been a lot of great comments on this blog about the subjects of Law of Attraction (LOA) and Divine Intervention. Some people wrote in to share their personal story as proof of either (a) why LOA doesn’t work, or (b) why Divine Intervention exists. I was not convinced. If anything, I think people just misunderstand those 2 concepts because they are so commonly mis-taught, especially in New Age communities.
Over the next couple of articles I’m going to clear up some huge misunderstandings about such vital subjects as:
- How does (and doesn’t) LOA work?
- How does LOA differ to Divine Intervention?
- When is a synchronicity proof of God’s Divine Intervention?
- What is “proof” anyway? When are people just plain deluded?
Today we are focusing on the first topic.
What is – and isn’t – the Law of Attraction?
The Law of Attraction simply states that vibrations attract like vibrations. The key (misunderstood) word in that sentence is vibration.
Notice how I did not say like thoughts attract like things for instance. The LOA has little or nothing to do with our thoughts. That’s the biggest misunderstanding of LOA, perpetuated by movies like The Secret. It’s the idea that positive thinking or focussed thought attracts the thing you are thinking about. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work.
[Yes, I know, there’s always someone who it worked for. Every placebo works on at least 1 person. That’s not proof. Proof to me means it works on 90%-100% of people.]
There has been a backlash against The Secret because people went off and made their vision boards and then realized, “hang on, where’s my multimillion dollar house and my hot underwear model husband/wife that I’ve been manifesting?”
So how do I get some of these vibration thingies?
OK so we got that the LOA has to do with vibrations not thoughts. But what are vibrations and how do we harness them?
Keeping this really very simple, vibrations are the smallest, simplest piece of coherent energy. By coherent energy I mean that it is a transmission of information. So now you know what vibration really means – it means information.
Your brain and vibrations
Our brains have evolved to process information in a way that’s very complicated. Our advanced human brain (neo-cortex) is so complicated that we cannot isolate specific vibrations it processes. There are so many thousands of thoughts (hence millions of vibrations/information) in any instant.
In RPT we teach a specific brain model called the Triune Brain. It’s just a model, but it works brilliantly. In this model, the neo-cortex and limbic system are complex; but the deepest part of brain, our animal mind or R-complex, works on simplistic instincts for survival. These short, sharp impulses are powerful vibrations.
Where does Law of Attraction fit in?
It’s actually pretty simple. Positive thinking doesn’t make much of a difference. Affirmations are fairly useless. All the New Age crap about “Thoughts Become Things” – you already know it doesn’t work. Why? Because the LOA was never about thoughts, it’s about vibrations.
When you “think positive thoughts,” your mind has so many thousands of ideas / signals / information going on at the same time, how do you know which one you are manifesting. On the surface you might think “I’m ready for my soul mate” but the unconscious part of the neo-cortex is thinking “I don’t deserve it.” You can have multiple conflicting beliefs and ideas, which is why words and thoughts are pretty useless for manifesting.
Instead of words and thoughts, you have to go deeper and simpler. Use the part of your brain that speaks in simple instincts: key vibrations. Use the R-complex or animal brain.
We found that we can achieve remarkable results by using our survival instincts to harness the LOA. Example: Say you want to meet your soul mate. Instead of thinking “love” or “soul mate,” focus on how finding your soul mate will help you to survive and feel safe. When you get it down to a basic instinct, manifest for that instinct. This is a very simple RPT manifesting technique that works, because you are using the LOA correctly.
Manifesting is meant to be easy, and it is easy. Just stop reading all the rubbish about positive thinking and start Being with it.
Clearing up reader confusion
When people say “Law of Attraction doesn’t work” what they really mean is “LOA doesn’t work the way I saw it in The Secret and those other New Age books and courses.”
In my last article I made a lengthy reply to a reader who really thought he had single-handedly disproved the LOA. I addressed other issues last time, and I left the LOA part to today. Here is reader Dalben’s comment:
I was trying to kill myself subconsciously I know that now, so according to LOA I shouldn’t have gotten off the street all those negative vibrations, and it wasn’t until I was off the street that I had finally dealt with those feelings…
I should be dead, I am not … LOA doesn’t explain it not in the least, just like it doesn’t explain the countless members of MLMs like Amway who are living in squalor with their “Positive thought” brainwashing technique (I have a few former friends who are part of that with all the “inspirational messages” posted on their walls truly believing they are happy while their wife left them and their children are being taken away …. )
So to summarize, Dalben is saying “I wanted to kill myself but I failed, therefore LOA is rubbish” and “Positive thinking like Amway doesn’t work, therefore LOA is rubbish.”
Ask yourself – is he arguing against the LOA (“vibrations attract like vibrations”) or against the superficial rubbish that is common in New Age books and movies?
Though Dalben was trying hard to argue with me, I’m sure he just proved my point that LOA works on survival instincts, not conscious thoughts.
In fact, I just had a useful insight: people might attract danger and disease to them, but I don’t think you can use LOA to attract “death.” There isn’t a survival instinct for death. When Dalben says “I should be dead… LOA doesn’t explain it,” I think a better statement would be “I should be dead, but my animalistic brain saved me.”
(Obviously people attract disease and accidents etc. But I think that’s totally different from what Dalben is saying. He wants to know why he didn’t die when he was focusing on death. I don’t think it would have been possible.)
As to Dalben’s other statement about MLMs, I agree with him. Most positive thinking and brainwashing is front-cortex thinking. It doesn’t work with survival instincts or vibrations. Hence it has NOTHING to do with the LOA though.
Conclusion – the Triune Brain works for manifesting
What I love about the simple Triune Brain model is that it’s such a simple way to distinguish thoughts (neo-cortex), feelings (heart / limbic system), instincts (body / R-complex). A simple and brilliant model that tells us why tools that use language or thoughts (belief work, positive thinking, etc) cannot ever work – they ignore the instincts.
Most of the manifesting techniques taught in New Age workships leave people feeling frustrated. If you are an experienced reader: how many times have you manifested for $1 million, and how many times has it worked? But if The Secret was right, we should all be abundant and with our soul mates.
(Well OK I am and lots of you are, but it had nothing to do with The Secret. It has to do with RPT)
If you new to this blog and RPT and inspired to learn more, there’s plenty more information on the blog about the triune brain. I highly recommend the Level 1 Reference Therapy Course as a way to learn the simplest instant healing and manifesting technique based on the Triune model. It’s simple and it works!
Come back Monday when we clear up another huge New Age confusion: the difference between LOA and Divine Intervention.
Please leave your comments and questions. Don’t forget our prize going to a random person hitting Facebook Like or leaving a comment. You can enter as many times as you like.
Blessings
Simon
-What is “vibrations” in this context? Could you please give me a definition?
Yeay! I agree – LOA doesn’t work! Or did I mis-read you there
“Yeay! Definition of vibrations! Ok, so this is based upon the “Consciousness as information”-theory? Or is it more “real” – like sensory and affective information that drives to wanting something, working for it and achieving it? “
“Isolate specific vibrations? Haven’t heard about that before. Is this a scientific or a new-agey idea? What does it mean to isolate specific vibrations?”
“OK. Now I understand more of vibrations. It’s physical, neurological impulses, right?”
“Or, it’s about neurological impulses and instincts. Follow you gut instinct etc? Isn’t vibrations just another airy-fairy word? Or at best a phenomenological description of how it is to feel impulses from our (reptilian) brain – I can live with that”.
“I agree partly with this. What you’re saying doesn’t have anything to do with LOA and fairy-tales though, it is basic logical reasoning and I like it. “
“With other words, listen to your body – wouldn’t that be right? The physical aspect of emotions (affects) is very much the body’s way of expression what you call key vibrations (should it be key-impulses) or somatic markers as Damasio call them. And I just realized that I associate the word “manifest(ing)” with bullshit. Better “be” with that
Another thought that came to me while I read this: do you have to use new-agey expressions like LOA? Perhaps you feel it “sells” more, or that people recognize it etc – but the people who react positive to LOA are the same people who believe in fairies. When you (Simon) describe RPT LOA, you’re describing something very “reasonable” and human – I don’t think you should call I LOA. There’s no LOA – that is to say, there’s no need as I see it to call the act of “conscious creation” LOA. Most people (I know) associate LOA with New Age, and if you want RPT to be something other than that, then loose the popular LOA. Just call it “The RPT way of coherent creation/manifesting” or something like that.
“So people do attract disease and accidents? That’s obvious? But seriously Simon: you can’t say something like that. It’s a remnant of Bronze Age thinking, give it some awareness and see if it still rings true. “
Other than that, good article, IMO. But as an answer to your title: No, LOA does not work, because there’s no LOA.
[Reply]
Jørgen Mæhre Reply:
April 2nd, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Hm, the formatting didn’t work. My bad.
[Reply]
Simon Rose Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 8:19 pm
hi
I really understand what you are saying re changing the name. I guess it’s a tough marketing question of where to position ourselves. I don’t believe in most New Age stuff, but I guess most of my clients do – at least before doing the course. You want to talk people’s language else they wont find you.
I really did not understand your final comment about the Bronze Age thinking. Obviously we are having a Lost in Translation moment.
It’s fundamental to RPT and all emotional healing techniques that trauma and destructive thinking creates disease. Starting with Louise Hay there has been an understanding in the West that specific thoughts attract specific diseases. (I think this knowledge existed in the East for thousands of years.)
So yes Jørgen I believe that we attract our disease, in the way written about by Louise Hay and hundreds of other brilliant writers. The metaphysical relationship between specific thoughts and specific diseases is clear. It’s something I have researched myself and made some specifics breakthroughs for our Level 3 course and Evette’s upcoming book on Metaphysical Anatomy.
I’m sure you can clarify your concern.
Simon
[Reply]