Is the Law Of Attraction real?

Most of this post was published on a forum thread, in response to a number of other posts that were more or less anti-LOA, and I thought I would go ahead and put it up here, too.
____________________________

I find it interesting that those who are the most fiercely in opposition to the idea of LOA rarely take the time to explain their understanding of how it is supposed to work.  They seem to think that it means positive thinking will make you rich.  When someone else suggests that they might not truly understand, they prefer to lash out, bashing the vague group, ‘gurus’, rather than site specific teachings with which they disagree so as to engage in non-confrontational dialog.

I’ve seen most of The Secret (2nd version, minus the people who were the focus of it in the first place – Jerry & Esther Hicks) during visits to my chiropractor (he runs it on a loop throughout the day, most days), and I have to say that I’ve not heard anyone on it claim that all that has to be done is to think positively, or visualize, or believe, or remove limiting behaviors.  And I’ve never heard any of them tell you to buy anything from anyone.  To be fair, I also haven’t been looking or listening for these things.  What I HAVE heard is people telling their own stories about what has worked for them – one guy talks about finding a vision board when unpacking his things after moving into a beautiful new house, only to realize that he is now living in the very house he had put a picture of on his board a couple of years earlier.

The idea that LOA is a New Age concept is laughable, unless the New Age began thousands of years ago.  According to those who are supposed to know, ancient peoples did things like drawing images on cave walls, in part, as visualization of things like good hunting results to come.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t following advice from The Secret.

LOA is ABOUT thought.  Whatever thoughts you dwell upon, you will attract more of the same.  Good or bad.  Like it or not.

USING LOA is about learning to CONTROL your thoughts.  If a thought makes you feel BAD, it is working against your prosperity, whether that prosperity is financial, spiritual, psychological, or anything else.  If a thought makes you feel GOOD, is it working to promote your prosperity.

How your thoughts make you FEEL is your barometer of how well you are lining up vibrationally with your desires.

VIBRATION is the engine that creates.  Everything in the universe is in constant vibration.  Hold your thoughts in the same vibration with things you want, and they will come to you, one way or another.  Hold your thoughts in the same vibration with things you DON’T want, and they will also come to you, one way or another.

That’s a fairly decent “New Age” explanation of LOA.

The corporate world, or business in general, is hardly considered part of, or open to, New Age thought. Yet, Think And Grow Rich is on virtually every business person’s list of must-read books, regardless of their opinions on LOA.  Vibration is a common theme throughout the book.

You can choose to believe that the Universe brings good (or bad) fortune to you, or that it is your own subconscious mind that does it.  Either way, the mechanism is the same; control the vibration rate of the conscious mind, in order to facilitate clear thought.  That clear thought programs the subconscious mind, which then provides, or manifests, the desired result (via an idea, an opportunity, or sheer dumb luck – ever found money on the ground?), or, since most of us do not really have the ability to be completely clear on every aspect of what we want in life, something relatively close.

Prayer, meditation, chanting, exercise, creative visualization; all are techniques to achieve the same thing – clear mental focus.  They all make you feel good.  They all help you to achieve more in life – to be more prosperous.  The technique you choose to use is completely up to you.  None is any better than another.  They are simply means to an end: they help us to control the vibration rate of our minds in order to cut through the mental chatter we all have during every waking moment of our lives.