The Law of Attraction… thinking for dummies.A word about pseudo philosophical ideas and magical thinking.

A word about pseudo philosophical ideas and magical thinking.

I wish I could say that I’d hate to burst your bubble but the truth is that I actually love to. If it offends you to have your beliefs destroyed, mocked, and ridiculed then I recommend that you close this window and cease reading anymore because I intend to show no respect for unrespectable ideas.

As of late I have been hearing WAY to much about the supposedly new “secret” known as the law of attraction. The Law of attraction is basically the proposition that whatever one thinks about will manifest itself in reality, therefore if one wishes to be successful, wealthy, and healthy then all one must do is ask the universe for it and then believe and act as if it has all ready happened and be open to receiving it. On the flip side, those who do not know of or understand this “law” will, with “negative” thinking attract failure, poverty and sickness.

Now, let us put aside for a moment the fact that these claims are made without ANY evidence to back them up (just like religion) and that these claims are not falsifiable (also like religion)… it would be impossible to devise an experiment that put these claims to the test… how could anyone know if the thoughts of a test subject were really “positive?” I can already hear the bitching, whining and moaning of proponents claiming that “it wasn’t done right” when a scientific inquiry fails to produce the desired results. Instead lets turn our attention to the logical implications of such a theory.

Imagine with me for a moment that instead of being a well fed American suburbanite sitting on your (probably) fat ass in front of a computer screen that instead you were born in in Afghanistan to a couple of middle aged camel herders. Your life is fraught with disaster. On a regular basis your town is bombed by American jets, and the Taliban enforces the social norms. Do you honestly mean to tell me that these unfortunate people attracted such misery because they failed to adopt the positive thinking gospel? Or what of a little girl who is regularly abused by her alcoholic stepfather… is this because she had negative thoughts? Get fucking real. She can think all the happy thoughts in the universe and still be the victim of a drunk asshole. The thoughts and desires of these imagined people would have absolutely zero impact on the reality that they happen to find themselves in.

This appears to me to be to be a pretty simple refutation of the positive thinking bullshit that has saturated the minds of far to many otherwise intelligent people, but consider further the fact that ever last person on earth will eventually die, and vast majority will first become sick and suffer, not only with the disease that is slowly killing them, but with the knowledge of how it will all end. The alternative to the slow and painful death most of us will suffer is a quick but violent death, such as that at the hand of a murderer or in an tragic accident. That, my friend will be the end of each and everyone of us, no matter how much money you spend on self help books or seminars.

Keep it real.