MIND OVER MATTER: IT'S NO SECRET THAT ATTRACTION IS A SCAM!
The so-called "law of attraction" was a cultural phenomenon a number of years ago. And even today, grifters lean heavily into it in order to shameless exploit others…
Read Time: 6 Minutes
I blame Oprah Winfrey for giving ‘The Secret’ the oxygen it needed to take the world by storm. Published in 2006, it was a self-help book espousing the virtues of positive thinking. It basically claimed that anyone had the power to produce manifestations of whatever they wanted, simply by visualising it, asking the universe for it, and acting as though it was definitely coming.
To this day, it stands tall as one of the single most destructive ideas within the whole self-help ecosystem. And one of the reasons it became so popular, was because it conveniently “empowers” everyone to get everything without really doing anything of substance. It’s the quintessential scheme to “get rich quick,” just hack the universe with your mind, and everything you want can be yours.
It worked for one person—Rhonda Byrne, the author. And, I'm loathed to admit it, but she’s a fellow Australian.
The cover of ‘The Secret’, perhaps the worst example of pseudoscientific self-help garble that was ever written. (Source: ‘Wikipedia’)
What’s especially annoying about the approach the book takes, is that at a certain level of abstraction, you can make the argument that it works in at least some sense. Achievement is the kind of thing that takes devoted thought, sure, so if you’re consistently thinking about a goal, and using things like visualisation to renew your motivation to continuing pursuing it, then one day you may well get there. But in those cases, it's really not a matter of drawing your desires to you. Instead, it's about reaping what you sow, and achieving based on dedication and effort.
At the time that ‘The Secret’ went viral, a lot of people were providing testimonials that, in actual fact, were pretty specious. I recall seeing a medical student say that she used the law of attraction in her last year at university to get passing grades on all her final exams and earn her medical degree. Well how about that? A student who, presumably, attended lectures and studied medicine for multiple years, was able to pass an exam in which numerous medical questions were asked of her. Wow! It’s a good thing she found the book when she did, but she sure was cutting it a little close leaving until her final year!
Not only were skewed perceptions of things adding to the hype, other issues like survivorship bias were playing a part. I’ve written about that before, but just briefly, it’s the tendency to notice only instances where something seems to work, and be blind to how many failures have occurred that you’re just not aware of. Sure, one or two people might proclaim they attracted themselves a lottery win or a beautiful wife, but how many tried to manifest those things and failed? They don’t really seem to draw all that much attention, do they?
This sort of thing is par for the course in the world of self-help. Use emotive stories of success to bolster the confidence of your audience, but ensure your system is just ambiguous enough to explain away failure as the fault of the user, not the system. See, you actually could have won the lottery, if only you had visualised and thought about it as hard as the people who won it did. Oh well, too bad, the law of attraction totally works, you just didn’t apply all the principles of it properly. Try again, and make sure you try much harder next time.
I’ve never been a fan of the self-help industry. On paper it seems like such a noble and worthwhile endeavour, but alas, the way it’s come to fruition is a real blight. You shouldn’t have to pay $29.95 for a book filled with basic common sense and trite platitudes. I really don’t have a great deal of respect for the charlatans that keep putting them out there. People, broadly speaking, know what they need to do in order to achieve their goals. They might need a shot in the arm once in a while, or some intermediate rewards along the way, but achievement isn’t actually complicated, it's just hard to stick to.
There are no shortcuts or magic formulas, and you don’t need a nice coach or guru either. You just have to take consistent action in the direction that points to where you want to be. For some, good fortune will kick in and make it easier, while for others, misfortune or systemic failures will rear their ugly heads and make it harder, that's just life. Also, some will succeed in reaching their goal, while many others won’t, it’s all just a paltry thread in the intricate tapestry of varied experiences that constitutes a life. It’s fine to strive, and to make a concerted effort to control the things you can in order to give yourself the best chance of success, but that certainly doesn’t mean you always have to internalise failure.
Ironically, the self-help industry kind of strays from its own branding a little. As George Carlin famously said:-
“If you’re looking for self-help why would you read a book written by somebody else? That’s not self-help, that’s help. There’s no such thing as self-help: if you did it yourself, you didn’t need help.”
And the thing is, I actually think referring to it as “self-help” is in itself a pretty telling thing. As if the onus is being put entirely on the reader, and the writer is completely absolved from having any accountability whatsoever. I’m staunchly opposed to that.
‘The Secret’ was able to tap into the desire that I think we all have for easy answers and simple fixes. But sadly, that’s just not how it works. The whole reason certain desirable achievements are valued and sought after in the first place, is because they have a degree of exclusivity. Lots of money, just as an example, is only worthwhile if a relative few people have it in excess. So don’t be too quick to want the easy way out, because it will likely change your outlook on things…