Comments on: How Does The Law of Attraction Explain The Holocaust?

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:54:10 +0000

Thanks for the post – realise its old now but I have a response anyway. I have been very concerned about the whole Law of Attraction thing, not just the “secret”, but ir pervades a lot of the modern growth movement, and my concern is how it excuses all sorts of bad behaviour from people while blaming the victim.
I would be more restrictive than you in terms of defining the area we can control. I quote from your quote:
“but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.”

You use the term “respond to” which usually includes feelings, thoughts and actions. I would say that you can control what you do, but not necessarily how you feel . If for example somebody’s daughter is raped and tortured, most people would feel outraged by that, and not able to choose to feel good about it. Or substitute “your spouse has an affair”, “you are found guilty of a murder of which you are innocent”, or many other awful things that can happen to people. After most of my adult life in the growth movement trying to change the way I feel about bad things happening to me – when they happen – other than detaching myself and numbing myself emotionally, there is no good way to do it . I am convinced that certain feelings are hardwired as a response to certain things. So I would say that you can choose how to act in response to something, but not how to feel – once a certain threshold has been reached, I mean. I can choose to ignore and forget being carved up by a bad driver within a few minutes, but not an unfaithful spouse, for example. There is a grain of truth in your idea of response which includes feelings, but it is not universally applicable unless you modify response to mean “behaviour” rather than what goes on inside as well. Just my humble opinion.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:58:54 +0000

Thank you for this post — I know you wrote it some time ago, but I just found it this morning and it was very helpful to me. I’ve been trying to reconcile the ideas of the Law of Attraction with some of the atrocities in the world, like Darfur. I can’t believe that ALL the people in those refugee camps are “vibrating” wrong and making horrible things happen to themselves. Yet, I DO like some of the ideas given by the LOA for individuals. I think your post brought together those notions very well, and I love your compromise. Thank you!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:46:09 +0000

I saw someone on some positivity blog mention that she needs to feel responsible for every thought she has, as if she has control over her thoughts. I do not agree. Our brains are like radios, and thoughts are like radio stations. Most thoughts are not original to us; we pick up on them as a radio tunes in to a station. We have a choice to feel like we own the thought or not. Discrimination is important, lest we get lost in pessimistic thinking.

By: Derek Ralston

Derek Ralston — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:43:06 +0000

@Jessica: Thanks for sharing the post! Hopefully after people see The Secret, most of them do more research into the subject, versus accepting all the information shared as factual (as most of it is anecdotal). As you mention, the movie is definitely missing the element of action.

I’ve been thinking more about the idea of complete control, and there is definite value in believing that you are responsible for a portion of what happens in your life (from a psychological perspective). It’s all about where you draw the line. To me, the belief of complete control is not realistic, or healthy, but others differ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assumption

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:19:17 +0000

Thanks for this post. I’ve shared it on Technorati and Facebook. Many of the specialists featured in the movie The Secret have expressed their concern that the movie didn’t cover all the bases. There is more to it than just wishing yourself a nice brand new car. Action is necessary, and that was only touched on slightly in the movie.

Of course, we don’t have complete control over the events in our lives, because of the intentions of other people, because of random acts of nature, etc. As you eloquently said, we have control over our reactions to the events in our lives, and it’s a very important distinction!

By: Derek Ralston

Derek Ralston — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:33:05 +0000

@Shawn: Thanks! I’ve been thinking about it for a while now also, and as you said, there is a lot of value in positive thinking, so we shouldn’t dismiss LoA entirely- just change our mindset about it.

Nice blog by the way- I lived in KC until February, it seems to be growing a lot with the P&L district and all… Sounds like you are a great help to local business owners.

By: Shawn Kinkade

Shawn Kinkade — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:56:09 +0000

Great post – I’ve spent some time thinking about the right way to explain what I don’t like about the (old) Law of Attraction and I think you nailed it for me.

There is a huge amount of research into the value of positive thinking, but that doesn’t mean you abdicate hard work and responsibility just because you ‘believe’.

Thanks for sharing.

Shawn