Law of attraction

From RationalWiki
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
m (Quick-adding category Quantum woo (using HotCat))
(A false meritocracy)
Line 15: Line 15:
 
By toxic, he refers to ease at which adherents of the Law of Attraction can dismiss the misfortune of others as being a case of ''bad things happening to bad people''. The Law of Attraction does not necessarily mandate that the suffering of those less worthy should be ignored, leaving them to their fate, but it certainly makes it easier to blame someone for events beyond their control. Starving Africans are presumably hungry because they just don't want food, or they lack the self-actualization to demand it from the cosmos. Conversely, the Law of Attraction would appear to personally reward people for their good fortune in being born in to a wealthy society. [[Christianity]] is sometimes used in a similar way when suffering is attributed to [[God|God's]] will, or people being punished for their misdeeds (a la [[Fred Phelps]]), but mainstream Christianity practice tends to promote charity towards those less fortunate, albeit with strings attached.
 
By toxic, he refers to ease at which adherents of the Law of Attraction can dismiss the misfortune of others as being a case of ''bad things happening to bad people''. The Law of Attraction does not necessarily mandate that the suffering of those less worthy should be ignored, leaving them to their fate, but it certainly makes it easier to blame someone for events beyond their control. Starving Africans are presumably hungry because they just don't want food, or they lack the self-actualization to demand it from the cosmos. Conversely, the Law of Attraction would appear to personally reward people for their good fortune in being born in to a wealthy society. [[Christianity]] is sometimes used in a similar way when suffering is attributed to [[God|God's]] will, or people being punished for their misdeeds (a la [[Fred Phelps]]), but mainstream Christianity practice tends to promote charity towards those less fortunate, albeit with strings attached.
  
Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a motivational seminar and then blame his death from starvation on his lack of self-actualisation and a failure to ask the cosmic karma genie to provide food.
+
Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a motivational seminar on self-actualizing his food-gathering energy thoughts in order to get the cosmic karma genie to provide him nutrition and you'll feed him for the rest of his (short) life.
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==

Revision as of 17:57, 10 October 2010

Dolphins and money

New Age

Icon new age.svg
Key cosmic concepts
Spiritual selections

The Law of Attraction is an idea from the New Age Movement that thinking about something will make the "cosmos" suddenly manifest it for you. Its popularity increased with the 2006 release of the book and movie The Secret. Proponents try and wrap the idea up in pseudoscientific language, usually something to do with quantum physics. Thoughts form "energy fields" that "vibrate" with a "frequency" that attracts "like-energy" from the "cosmos" and all this somehow happens because of things like quantum probability waves and wave-particle duality.

In essence, to be rich, think about being rich. To be poor think about being poor. That's why all those people are starving in Africa — all they think about is not having food. Thus, wanting it bad enough is all you really need.

Contents

History

"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. Atkinson was the editor of New Thought magazine, a student of Hinduism, and the author of more than 100 books on an assortment on religious, spiritual, and occult topics. The following year, Elizabeth Towne, the editor of The Nautilus Magazine, a Journal of New Thought, published Bruce MacLelland's book Prosperity Through Thought Force, in which he summarized the principle, stating: "You are what you think, not what you think you are." The phrase "Law of Attraction" appeared in the writings of the Theosophical authors William Quan Judge in 1915, and Annie Besant in 1919." [1]

A false meritocracy

The Law of Attraction postulates a false meritocracy, in that people are supposed to receive rewards for supernatural reasons. A genuine meritocracy requires that rewards are apportioned based on demonstrable competency and abilities. In this system, one gets what one deserves, as decided by woo. The availability of rewards in a meritocratic system would almost always imply that less-competent people are not going to be rewarded. This withholding of rewards, amounting to de facto punishment, is where the Law of Attraction becomes truly sinister. John Stackhouse, Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, had the following to say about The Secret:

"What makes The Secret so troubling, from my point of view, is that it is a stew of the good and the bad, such that the good is genuinely nourishing, while the bad is genuinely toxic."[2]

By toxic, he refers to ease at which adherents of the Law of Attraction can dismiss the misfortune of others as being a case of bad things happening to bad people. The Law of Attraction does not necessarily mandate that the suffering of those less worthy should be ignored, leaving them to their fate, but it certainly makes it easier to blame someone for events beyond their control. Starving Africans are presumably hungry because they just don't want food, or they lack the self-actualization to demand it from the cosmos. Conversely, the Law of Attraction would appear to personally reward people for their good fortune in being born in to a wealthy society. Christianity is sometimes used in a similar way when suffering is attributed to God's will, or people being punished for their misdeeds (a la Fred Phelps), but mainstream Christianity practice tends to promote charity towards those less fortunate, albeit with strings attached.

Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a motivational seminar on self-actualizing his food-gathering energy thoughts in order to get the cosmic karma genie to provide him nutrition and you'll feed him for the rest of his (short) life.

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. According to an undated version of some article at wikipedia.[citation needed]
  2. Prof. John Stackhouse’s Weblog: The Secret is "toxic"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support