by Rahman Majere

Created on: November 11, 2010   Last Updated: December 18, 2010

The Law of Attraction is commonly understood to be a New Age concept. The premise is a fairly simple one. Whatsoever a person thinks, he or she will attract or sometimes known simply as “like attracts like”. For example, a person who says to oneself that “I always lose money in business” will continue doing precisely that. Less intuitively, a person who believes that he or she needs more money will also continue to be in a position of financial scarcity. The Law of Attraction instead suggests that thoughts of scarcity and lack be replaced by thoughts of already having whatever one desires. If we apply this to the previous examples, the respective beliefs should transform into “I will make more money in business” or even “I’m a rich man”.

This ideology has been thoroughly criticized by numerous scientific circles as being complete nonsense due to various reasons. Some even claim that the Law of Attraction is harmful at times. After all, if one were to accept its positive side, one must also accept that negative things happen to people wholly due to their own negativity. This implies that all manner of mishaps and accidents are simply the manifestations of a failure to apply the so called Law of Attraction.

Yet, despite all these, there is some hint of truth to be found in the Law of Attraction. While I reject the notion that our thoughts directly influence events outside our body or even on cosmic scale, it is undeniable that our thought patterns do determine the actions that we take. Positive thinking has often been maligned as blind optimism and affirmations usually don’t work as well as they are supposed to for most people. The problem here is that what we commonly view as ‘positive thinking’ is only lip service and does not change the deepest beliefs of a person. A student can repeat that she will do well in her exams a hundred times a day and still fail if her subconscious mind doesn’t really believe in it.

Another problem with what is commonly perceived as ‘positive thinking’ is that it tends to be unrealistic in its expecations of requirements for success. Any kind of success requires some degree of effort and as such, real positive thinking must always take into account that hard work is necessary. If this is done, then positive thinking can indeed bring forth one’s most intimate desires to oneself.

Consider that the motivation for any action is a function

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