In light of the recent US election results, and the emotional fallout of the election being experienced by many of my friends, some of my friends were discussing The Secret. In case you don’t know what The Secret is, and I don’t myself, the very brief and therefore probably inaccurate summary is that you attract the energy of what happens to you by thinking about it. Some of the atheists disparaged it, calling it magical thinking. They don’t like the self-blame that is implied. They don’t think that a 3 year old can be responsible for attracting leukemia. They don’t like the implication that thinking leads to not taking action. Yet, at the same time, there is something there.
“Claim victory in your heart, and the universe will follow.” – Teachings of the Minbari Priest Caste, Babylon 5. Yes, you can change a lot of things, simply by changing your expectations. What’s the closest I can come to that in a non-new-age context?
How about Derren Brown’s video on the Secret of Luck? The way I understood it, the people in a village were told that touching a statue would make them lucky people, and so they went out and were open to the opportunities which were always already there, but they just hadn’t been paying attention to before. Did they attract the opportunities by believing they were lucky? Or did they foresee greater immediately future opportunities, which allowed them to believe they were newly lucky? (shrug) I don’t know. Maybe both. The Universe does tend to work like that. All that matters is that the change of belief worked.
There are limits, of course. You can’t expect to win the lottery without buying a lottery ticket, as Grant Morrison says. However, you can expect the dishes to get washed, and then wash them yourself, or suddenly your family actually washes them. No, 5 year olds don’t “attract” leukemia. Maybe their parents do? I really couldn’t say. It’s not like you therefore control everything that happens to you by changing your thoughts and storyline. At the same time, you know how music can change your attitude? Or listening to an old fairy tale/myth? Or reading a comic book where Superwoman kicks ass and you find yourself standing up against bullies with backbone you didn’t have before? There is a component to it that does actually work, even within a completely atheist context. There are components to it that work even better in an animist context.
Which brings you to the self-blame part. Oh no! I am actually powerful over how I view myself and the stories I tell myself about who I am! That means that being a doormat and a victim is at least partly my fault. That means that being a terrible mommy is at least partly my fault. That really hurts. But. It also means that I can change those stories. I can be like my passionate friends, and grow a backbone, and figure out what it is that I really want. Maybe I don’t want to be really rich, really powerful, really famous/popular. Maybe I just want “enough.” So it doesn’t have to be about material success. Maybe you can attract friends who have your back instead of a very successful career. Maybe you can attract some helping land spirits. Maybe you’ve got things you’d like to banish/repel instead of attract, hmm? Maybe you just want to go through your day without experiencing harassment, belittlement, and bullying behavior. These are little things, and little things are much more likely to be able to be affected by any energy work within your influence than huge big things. That’s why people find pennies instead of a check for a million dollars when they wish for money. People actually notice the pennies on the ground in the parking lot when they’re open to opportunities like that. That’s something you can try right away: A little thing, like wishing for an emotionally stable friend if you are feeling down.
The biggest trouble, is figuring out what the little thing is that you want to attract. That sort of thing leads to your deepest stories you tell yourself about who you are. Are you telling yourself that you are a warrior? Then there are consequences to that. Are you telling yourself that you are a priestess? Then there are consequences to that. Same with farmer and king and healer. All the little lies we tell ourselves about who we are, they cloud our sight at the opportunities to make the world a better place that are right there in front of us all the time.
Very nice.
A few years back I participated with a series of motivational tapes by this guy Brent Philips. He claimed that listening to binaural beats tuned to a certain wavelength, along with speaking aloud positive things, would help to make the changes you talked about. For days I would come out to the garden where I worked, and after I was done, I would stand in the gloaming fighting off the mosquitos with my earphones in, swaying and repeating these positive and anti-negative statements. I tried ever so hard to believe.
For all I know he’s a charlatan, but whatever it was worked. I can look at my life and see so many of the negative beliefs I had have been turned around.
I guess I’m saying there’s a there there, even if I don’t know how to get there.
Meditation is certainly one door.