Demons in Hollywood's Garden of Eden
Advocates claim that the law of attraction has the absolute
scientific validity of any physical law, as real and unchangeable
as gravity. "These Laws are absolute, they are Eternal, and they
are omnipresent (or everywhere)" (Esther and Jerry Hicks, The Law
of Attraction, 2006, p. 20).
Oprah Winfrey said on her program that she has always believed and
practiced The Secret. But only in the fantasy world of
Hollywood-influenced media can this old New Age idea be taken as
scientific truththat your personal thoughts, positive or negative,
are the ultimate reality behind the universe.
Real life has never worked that way and never will. In religious
terms, self-absorption with money and power is all about loving
self above God or neighbor. This psychology is directly contrary to
the teachings of Jesus Christ and the law of God (Matthew 22:37-39;
Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18 ) and, in fact, is a never-ending
source of evil.
Single-minded pursuit of one's selfish desires leads a person to
damaging outcomesdistorted values, antisocial behavior, self-will,
arrogance and often isolation, loneliness and self-destruction.
These destructive values lie at the core of the dangerous "law of
attraction" fad.
Medical science finds the claims of the movement ridiculous.
Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist who operates
Quackwatch.com, a Web site devoted to exposing quackery and health
fraud, says: "There is no evidence that thinking can modify disease
other than occasional relaxation exercises. Thoughts have nothing
to do with physics. They are talking about a concept of energy that
cannot be measured.
"The energy involved in physics can be measured in a number of
different ways," Dr. Barrett notes. "There is nothing real about
what they are talking about. They are talking about imaginary
energy. The idea of a secret remedy is a classic quack
claim."
This is not merely harmless quackery, however. The impacts of The
Secret on mental health can be seriously damaging.
It can foster abnormal and obsessive thinking. These can generate
destructive emotional responses as life inevitably has its
sustained trials and drawbacks. Taken to its logical conclusions, a
person can develop a profound disconnect with reality.
The most prominent book in this marketing blitz, The Law of
Attraction, explains that every negative experience, accident,
mishap and influence in a person's world are the product of his own
thinking.
"Nothing merely shows up in your experience. You attract itall of
it. No exceptions . . . We must still explain that only you could
have caused it, for no one else has the power to attract what comes
to you but you. By focusing upon this unwanted thing, or the
essence of it, you have created it by default" (p. 30).
Where do you think this most unscientificsome would say crazyidea
came from? Esther and Jerry Hicks, the authors of The Law of
Attraction, have convinced their believers that their ideas came
from a cluster of supernatural spirits collectively calling
themselves "Abraham."
The Hicks claim these spirits communicated the law of attraction to
them through channelingan abnormal or alternate state of mind by
which some communicate with evil spirits. (This practice,
incidentally, is condemned in the Bible in the strongest termssee
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and Leviticus 20:27.)
In The Law of Attraction, these spirits have done a job worthy of
the devil's deceptions in the Garden of Eden.