04 - Descriptions.

Descriptions.  Proponents believe that the law of attraction is always in operation and that it brings to each person the conditions and experiences that they predominantly think about, or which they desire or expect.Charles Haanel wrote in The Master Key System (1912):  The law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the conditions, environment, and experiences in life, corresponding with your habitual, characteristic, predominant mental attitude.  Ralph Trine wrote in In Tune with the Infinite (1897):  The law of attraction works universally on every plane of action, and we attract whatever we desire or expect. If we desire one thing and expect another, we become like houses divided against themselves, which are quickly brought to desolation. Determine resolutely to expect only what you desire, then you will attract only what you wish for.  In her 2006 documentary, The Secret, Rhonda Byrne emphasized thinking about what each person wants to obtain, but also to infuse the thought with the maximum possible amount of emotion. She claims the combination of thought and feeling is what attracts the desire.  Another similar book is James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy, which says reality can be manifested by man. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy, says readers can achieve seemingly impossible goals by learning how to bring the mind itself under control. The Power by Rhonda Byrne and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho are similar. While there are personal testimonies that claim that methods based on The Secret and the law of attraction have worked for them, a number of skeptics have criticized Byrne's film and book. The New York Times Book Review called The Secret pseudoscience and an "illusion of knowledge".  Philosophical and religious basis.  The New Thought concept of the law of attraction is rooted in ideas that come from various philosophical and religious traditions. In particular, it has been inspired by Hermeticism, New England transcendentalism, specific verses from the Bible, and Hinduism.  Hermeticism influenced the development of European thought in the Renaissance. Its ideas were transmitted partly through alchemy. In the 18th century, Franz Mesmer studied the works of alchemists such as Paracelsus and van Helmont. Van Helmont was a 17th-century Flemish physician who proclaimed the curative powers of the imagination. This led Mesmer to develop his ideas about Animal magnetism which Phineas Quimby, the founder of New Thought, studied.  The Transcendentalist movement developed in the United States immediately before the emergence of New Thought and is thought to have had a great influence on it. George Ripley, an important figure in that movement, stated that its leading idea was "the supremacy of mind over matter".  New Thought authors often quote certain verses from the Bible in the context of the law of attraction. An example is Mark 11:24: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."  In the late 19th century Swami Vivekananda traveled to the United States and gave lectures on Hinduism. These talks greatly influenced the New Thought movement and in particular, William Walker Atkinson who was one of New Thought's pioneers.  Criticism.  The law of attraction has been popularized in the early 21st century by books and films such as The Secret. The 2006 film and the subsequent book use interviews with New Thought authors and speakers to explain the principles of the proposed 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".  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 were critical of attempts to use quantum mysticism to bridge any unexplained or seemingly implausible effects, believing these to be traits of modern pseudoscience.  Skeptical Inquirer 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 mantra of The Secret, and by extension, the law of attraction, is as follows: positive thoughts and positive visualization will have a direct impact on the self. While positivity can improve one's quality of life and resilience through hardship, it can also be misguiding. Holding the belief that positive thinking will manifest positivity in one's life diminishes the value of hard work and perseverance, such as in the 1970s pursual of "self-esteem-based education". Wikipedia: Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.This episode includes AI-generated content.