Law of Attraction (New Age)
Encyclopedia
The law of attraction is a metaphysical belief that "like attracts like", that positive and negative thinking bring about positive and negative physical results, respectively.
According to the law of attraction, the phrase "I need more money" allows the subject to continue to "need more money". If the subject wants to change this they would focus their thoughts on the goal (having more money) rather than the problem (needing more money). This might take the form of phrases such as "I do have more money" or "I will have more money".
, who was a strong influence in the New Thought Movement, claimed that thought precedes physical form and that "the action of Mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form."
In 1906, William Walker Atkinson
(1862–1932) used the phrase in his New Thought Movement book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World, stating that "like attracts like." The following year, Elizabeth Towne
, the editor of The Nautilus Magazine, a Journal of New Thought
, published Bruce MacLelland's prosperity theology
book Prosperity Through Thought Force, in which he summarized the principle, stating: "You are what you think, not what you think you are."
The book "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace D. Wattles espouses similar principles — that truly believing in the object of your desire and focusing onto it will lead to that object or goal being realized on the material plane (Wattles indicates in the Preface and later chapters of this book that his premise stems from the monistic Hindu
view that God pervades everything and can deliver that which we focus on). In addition, the book also indicates that negative thinking will manifest negative results.
Richard Weiss explains in his book The American Myth of Success that during the New Thought movement, the "principle of "non-resistance" was a popular concept taught in conjunction with the law of attraction.
authors William Quan Judge
in 1915, and Annie Besant
in 1919. Besant compared her version of the 'law of attraction' to gravitation
, and said that the law represented a form of karma
.
published two books on this theme. The first was The Law of Success in 16 Lessons (1928) which directly and repeatedly referenced the law of attraction. Then in 1937, he published Think and Grow Rich
which went on to become one of the best selling books of all time, selling over 60 million copies. In this book, Hill discusses the importance of controlling one's own thoughts in order to achieve success, as well as the energy that thoughts have and their ability to attract other thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Hill mentions a "secret" to success, and promises to indirectly describe it at least once in every chapter of the book. It is never named directly for he says that discovering it on one's own is far more beneficial. Many people have argued over what the secret actually is, with some arguing that it was the law of attraction. Hill states the "secret" to which he refers is mentioned no fewer than a hundred times, yet reference to "attract" is used less than 30 times in the text. Most students of the book claim the secret is hidden in its title: THINK (i.e., thoughts)
) was a film based on the law of attraction. It was then developed into a book of the same title in 2007. The movie and book gained widespread attention in the media also from Saturday Night Live
to The Oprah Winfrey Show
in the United States.
The success of the film and various books led to increased media coverage. Oprah Winfrey devoted two episodes of her show to discuss the film and the law of attraction. Talk show host Larry King
also discussed it on his show with Bob Solis but criticized it for several reasons. He pointed to the sufferings in the world and asked: "If the Universe
manifests abundance at a mere thought, why is there so much poverty
, starvation
, and death
?"
In August 2008, Esther and Jerry Hicks's book Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.
magazine criticized the lack of falsifiability
and testability
of these claims. Critics have asserted that the evidence provided is usually anecdotal and that, because of the self-selecting nature of the positive reports
, as well as the subjective
nature of any results, these reports are susceptible to confirmation bias
and selection bias
.
Physicist Ali Alousi, for instance, criticized it as unmeasurable and questioned the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head.
The Law of Attraction has been popularized in recent years by books and films such as The Secret
. This film and the subsequent book use interviews with New Thought authors and speakers to explain the principles of an alleged metaphysical law that one can attract anything that one thinks about consistently. Writing for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Mary Carmichael and Ben Radford wrote that "neither the film nor the book has any basis in scientific reality", and that its premise contains "an ugly flipside: if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault." They asked, "If an airplane crashes, does that mean that one or more of the passengers brought that on himself? Do soldiers killed in Iraq simply not think enough positive thoughts?"
Others have questioned the references to modern scientific theory, and have maintained, for example, that the law of attraction misrepresents the electrical activity of brainwaves. Victor Stenger and Leon Lederman are critical of attempts to use quantum mysticism
to bridge any unexplained or seemingly implausible effects, believing these to be traits of modern pseudoscience
. Writing in the New York Times, Virginia Heffernan characterised The Secret as "a series of misquotations ... and fraudulent maxims" that nonetheless "takes [her] to a happy place."
According to the law of attraction, the phrase "I need more money" allows the subject to continue to "need more money". If the subject wants to change this they would focus their thoughts on the goal (having more money) rather than the problem (needing more money). This might take the form of phrases such as "I do have more money" or "I will have more money".
In the New Thought Movement, 1904–1910
Thomas TrowardThomas Troward
-Background:Troward was a divisional Judge in British-administered India. His avocation was the study of comparative religion. Influences on his thinking, as well as his later writing, included the teachings of Christ, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism....
, who was a strong influence in the New Thought Movement, claimed that thought precedes physical form and that "the action of Mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form."
In 1906, William Walker Atkinson
William Walker Atkinson
William Walker Atkinson was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q...
(1862–1932) used the phrase in his New Thought Movement book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World, stating that "like attracts like." The following year, Elizabeth Towne
Elizabeth Towne
Elizabeth Towne was an influential writer, editor, and publisher in the New Thought and self-help movements.-Career:Both Elizabeth Towne and her second husband William E. Towne were for many years associated with the International New Thought Alliance , and served on its board in various capacities...
, the editor of The Nautilus Magazine, a Journal of New Thought
The Nautilus (Magazine)
The Nautilus was a magazine of the New Thought Movement, founded in 1898 by Elizabeth Towne. In May 1900, Towne moved the magazine to Holyoke, Massachusetts, which became its permanent home until its discontinuation in August 1953, when Towne retired from publishing at the age of 88...
, published Bruce MacLelland's prosperity theology
Prosperity theology
Prosperity theology or gospel is a Christian religious belief whose proponents claim the Bible teaches that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. Most teachers of prosperity theology maintain that a combination of faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will...
book Prosperity Through Thought Force, in which he summarized the principle, stating: "You are what you think, not what you think you are."
The book "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace D. Wattles espouses similar principles — that truly believing in the object of your desire and focusing onto it will lead to that object or goal being realized on the material plane (Wattles indicates in the Preface and later chapters of this book that his premise stems from the monistic Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
view that God pervades everything and can deliver that which we focus on). In addition, the book also indicates that negative thinking will manifest negative results.
Richard Weiss explains in his book The American Myth of Success that during the New Thought movement, the "principle of "non-resistance" was a popular concept taught in conjunction with the law of attraction.
In Theosophy, 1915–1919
The phrase "law of attraction" appeared in the writings of the TheosophicalTheosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
authors William Quan Judge
William Quan Judge
William Quan Judge was a mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States...
in 1915, and Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
in 1919. Besant compared her version of the 'law of attraction' to gravitation
Gravitation
Gravitation, or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass. Gravitation is most familiar as the agent that gives weight to objects with mass and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped...
, and said that the law represented a form of karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
.
Napoleon Hill
Napoleon HillNapoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success...
published two books on this theme. The first was The Law of Success in 16 Lessons (1928) which directly and repeatedly referenced the law of attraction. Then in 1937, he published Think and Grow Rich
Think and Grow Rich
Think and Grow Rich is a motivational personal development and self-help book written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie...
which went on to become one of the best selling books of all time, selling over 60 million copies. In this book, Hill discusses the importance of controlling one's own thoughts in order to achieve success, as well as the energy that thoughts have and their ability to attract other thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Hill mentions a "secret" to success, and promises to indirectly describe it at least once in every chapter of the book. It is never named directly for he says that discovering it on one's own is far more beneficial. Many people have argued over what the secret actually is, with some arguing that it was the law of attraction. Hill states the "secret" to which he refers is mentioned no fewer than a hundred times, yet reference to "attract" is used less than 30 times in the text. Most students of the book claim the secret is hidden in its title: THINK (i.e., thoughts)
21st century
The Secret (20062006 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...
) was a film based on the law of attraction. It was then developed into a book of the same title in 2007. The movie and book gained widespread attention in the media also from Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
to The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
in the United States.
The success of the film and various books led to increased media coverage. Oprah Winfrey devoted two episodes of her show to discuss the film and the law of attraction. Talk show host Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
also discussed it on his show with Bob Solis but criticized it for several reasons. He pointed to the sufferings in the world and asked: "If the Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
manifests abundance at a mere thought, why is there so much poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
, and death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
?"
In August 2008, Esther and Jerry Hicks's book Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Reception of the idea
Skeptical InquirerSkeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
magazine criticized the lack of falsifiability
Falsifiability
Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
and testability
Testability
Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and the practical feasibility of...
of these claims. Critics have asserted that the evidence provided is usually anecdotal and that, because of the self-selecting nature of the positive reports
Publication bias
Publication bias is the tendency of researchers, editors, and pharmaceutical companies to handle the reporting of experimental results that are positive differently from results that are negative or inconclusive, leading to bias in the overall published literature...
, as well as the subjective
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
nature of any results, these reports are susceptible to confirmation bias
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
and selection bias
Selection bias
Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...
.
Physicist Ali Alousi, for instance, criticized it as unmeasurable and questioned the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head.
The Law of Attraction has been popularized in recent years by books and films such as The Secret
The Secret (book)
The Secret is a best-selling 2006 self-help book written by Rhonda Byrne. It is based on the earlier film of the same name that was released in DVD format in March 2006...
. This film and the subsequent book use interviews with New Thought authors and speakers to explain the principles of an alleged metaphysical law that one can attract anything that one thinks about consistently. Writing for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Mary Carmichael and Ben Radford wrote that "neither the film nor the book has any basis in scientific reality", and that its premise contains "an ugly flipside: if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault." They asked, "If an airplane crashes, does that mean that one or more of the passengers brought that on himself? Do soldiers killed in Iraq simply not think enough positive thoughts?"
Others have questioned the references to modern scientific theory, and have maintained, for example, that the law of attraction misrepresents the electrical activity of brainwaves. Victor Stenger and Leon Lederman are critical of attempts to use quantum mysticism
Quantum mysticism
Quantum mysticism is a term that has been used to refer to a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations...
to bridge any unexplained or seemingly implausible effects, believing these to be traits of modern pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
. Writing in the New York Times, Virginia Heffernan characterised The Secret as "a series of misquotations ... and fraudulent maxims" that nonetheless "takes [her] to a happy place."
See also
- Cosmic orderingCosmic OrderingCosmic ordering is the name given to a version of positive thinking that was renamed by Bärbel Mohr of Munich, Germany. She first outlined her own version in her own magazine called Sonnenwind , and then expanded these ideas into a book called Cosmic Ordering Service: A Guide to Realising Your Dreams...
- Efficacy of prayerEfficacy of prayerDetermining the efficacy of prayer has been attempted in various studies since Francis Galton first addressed it in 1872. Some studies have reported benefit, some have reported harm, and some have found no benefit from the act of praying. Others suggest that the topic is outside the realm of...
- KybalionKybalionThe Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy is a 1908 book claiming to be the essence of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, published anonymously by a group or person under the pseudonym of "the Three Initiates".- General description :...
- Law of contagionLaw of contagionThe law of contagion is a folk belief described axiom found in magical thinking which suggests that once two people or objects have been in contact, that a magical link persists between unless or until a formal exorcism or other act of banishing breaks the non-material bond...
- Magical thinkingMagical thinkingMagical thinking is causal reasoning that looks for correlation between acts or utterances and certain events. In religion, folk religion, and superstition, the correlation posited is between religious ritual, such as prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or...
- Medical students' diseaseMedical students' diseaseMedical students' disease, also known as hypochondriasis of medical students or medical student syndrome or medical student disorder, is a condition frequently reported in medical students, who perceive themselves or others to be experiencing the symptoms of the disease they are studying.The...
- PrimingPriming (psychology)Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus. It can occur following perceptual, semantic, or conceptual stimulus repetition...
- Pygmalion effectPygmalion effectThe Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform...
- Reverse marketingReverse marketingReverse marketing is the concept of making the customer seek the firm rather than marketers seeking the customer. Usually, this is done through traditional means of advertising, such as television advertisements, print magazine advertisements and online media. Reverse marketing works mainly on...
- Self-fulfilling prophecySelf-fulfilling prophecyA self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
- Sympathetic magicSympathetic magicSympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...