Jerry and Esther's performances combined New Age woo with the popular, early 1900s, New Thought concept, the "Law of Attraction". They took their act on the road. Their shows sold out, and they made millions selling CDs, tapes, and books (all centered around their performances). Throughout their career, the husband-wife team (operating under the brand-name Abraham-Hicks) have done their best to maintain control of their performances by trademarking and copyrighting as many of the elements of their shows as possible. However, with Jerry and Esther's growing popularity, other entertainers quickly jumped in to cash in on the success of the "Law of Attraction" aspect of their shows (a clear audience favorite). In 2006, to protect their act, Jerry and Esther attempted to trademark the "Law of Attraction", but the US Patent & Trademark Office failed to see why Jerry and Esther Hicks should be able to trademark the known term that had been in use since the early 1900s. With a major part of their performances up for grabs, Jerry and Esther went back to the drawing board and registered to trademark a new term, the "Vortex of Attraction," and quickly began referring to their shows as "Vortex of Attraction workshops." They also altered their website to match the new trademark. Originally, their website said:
This is the original source material for the current Law of Attraction wave that is sweeping the world, and it is the 21st century inspiration for thousands of books, films, essays and lectures that are responsible for the current paradigm shift in consciousness.
Here you will find accurate clarification of the basics of the Law of Attraction and practical applications as well as up-to-the-moment leading-edge expanding information regarding the Law of Attraction. (Also known as "The Teachings of Abraham")
This is the fountainhead of the information upon which the hit movie, “The Secret” was based.Now, it reads:
This is the original source material for the current Vortex of Attraction wave that is sweeping the world, and it is the 21st century inspiration for thousands of books, films, essays and lectures that are responsible for the current paradigm shift in consciousness.
Here you will find accurate clarification of the basics of the Vortex of Attraction and practical applications as well as up-to-the-moment leading-edge expanding information regarding the Vortex of Attraction. (Also known as "The Teachings of Abraham")
This is the fountainhead of the information upon which the hit movie, “The Secret” was based.On top of this, their next book (allegedly written by Esther's Abraham character) will be titled Spirituality and the Vortex of Attraction: The Last Frontier (according to their Getting in the Vortex Meditations CD), and they have purchased the domain www.vortex-of-attraction.com to launch live performances! It appears that Jerry and Esther have received the go-ahead to tout their new trademark, and will be leaning their shows towards the new term in an effort to maintain creative control over their borrowed ideas. But how will Esther and Jerry's audiences react to the "Law of Attraction's" new face-lift? And will Jerry and Esther be able to implement the new "Vortex of Attraction" into their not-so-new act?
**UPDATE: Abraham-Hicks Publications' website has changed Vortex of Attraction back to Law of Attraction.
Kyra Question -I found lots of LOA material in past books such as Florence Scovel Shinn and teachers mentioned in the Secret. Do you think material is bad or just abs making tons of money is bad ??
ReplyDeleteHey again Majan,
ReplyDeleteLaw of Attraction lacks falsifiability and testability and therefore is unscientific. My problem with that is that there is no way of objectively testing the alleged "law." If there is a success (which can be the result of confirmation bias, post hoc fallacy, law of numbers, etc) then the credit is given to Law of Attraction for working. If it doesn't work, then the person using the law is the one at fault. That means you can no more test Law of Attraction than you can magic, hoodoo, voodoo, etc.
I feel I have done a great disservice in my blog if you feel that it is just about how these people making money is bad. I want to stress here quite firmly that others who are far more sinister than Esther and Jerry are making far more money (who are not religious or New Age gurus). Whenever I bring up money, it is only at my cognitive dissonance with the fact that they are making money being deceptive. If I was discussing anyone in any other profession, I would equally point out my problem with them making tons of money by deceiving people. However, my problem with the Hciks' has far more to do with the absurdity of their teachings than it does the amount of money they rake in.
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me as if you are feeling indignation because you are needing safety from being blamed, and from judgments about your thinking.
Did I get it?
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment.
It sounds to me as if you are feeling indignation because you are needing safety from being blamed, and from judgments about your thinking.
I think I am feeling indignation about people being duped and lied to. But regardless of what I feel (or think I feel), it doesn't change that Abraham is a sham.
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding, because I really want to understand. So, you feel indignation because you really need honesty. I get it.
I am also hearing that you are needing shared reality - mutual awareness and acknowledgement of what is actually happening. And I am sensing that you are needing to protect people from believing things that are not real, and from beliefs that may influence them to blame themselves, or to blame others.
Did I get it?
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the discussion.
I'm a little unsure what some of your statements mean. If you are asking about the intent behind my blogs, it is to expose Abraham Hicks for what it is. I think there is value in doing this in the same way that I think there is value in exposing any conman or quack. I don't think people want to be deceived and lied to. If a person was taking an M&M that they had been told was a cancer cure, I think they would want to know that it was just an M&M and that they had been duped.
I want to keep people from being deceived--not so much to protect them from believing things that aren't true. Though I think it would be nice if they chose to believe things that are true, I certainly don't think they should be forced to do so. If someone wants to believe Harry Potter is real, they can go for it, but if someone deceived them into believing that, I think they should know.
I think if you read my comments on the blog, you will find that it is not my goal to absolve people of responsibility, but rather for them to only feel responsible for those things that they actually took part in causing. I don't think a girl should feel responsible for her rape. I don't think that a person with cancer should feel responsible for that. But I certainly feel there are things people should feel responsible for. Someone who rapes should feel responsible for that. A serial killer should feel responsible for that. These materials encourage victim-blame. They do not encourage people assigning responsibility where it actually belongs.
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteReading, ‘I don't think a girl should feel responsible for her rape.’ what I am hearing is that you are outraged about these teachings because your need for support is not met by hearing people say ‘You brought it on yourself.'
Having been offered such a judgment by people who have been listening to Abraham, I know that it certainly can happen. When it happened to me, I felt a lot of hurt, indignation and disappointment. So, I completely understand your reaction. And I really appreciate your writing this, because it meets my need for caring and support.
I never want to be told 'you brought it on yourself', because such language does not promote self-love and self-respect, it promotes guilt and shame, and it does not meet my need for empathy, compassion and support -- regardless of what I might have done to cause myself to have the experience that I had!
I certainly don’t want to feel responsible for something that I did not take part in causing. I did not cause the other person to do what he did!!!
On the other hand, I also don’t want to continue to have recurrent nightmares in which I am being chased, hunted, by someone or something, and unable to speak, to scream, to call for help!
I don’t want to feel vulnerable to finding myself the helpless victim of someone or something causing me to have this kind of experience! I don’t want to feel powerless to meet my needs and to allow them to be met!
I don’t want to see myself as a helpless victim, ever again! I need my freedom from helplessness and powerlessness!
Would you be willing to reflect back to me what you heard me say, to help me know if I made myself clear?
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI will admit that I am a little unclear about the last part of your comment. I think what you were saying in the first part is that you think I am having a problem with people who listen to the Abraham materials and then blame people for what they attracted. This is actually not my biggest concern. I am more concerned with people blaming THEMSELVES because the inherent nature of the philosophy is one of victim-blame. The greatest damage that I see can be done with these teachings is for someone to blame themselves for their own rape, disease, etc.
If you could explain the last part, I can comment on that too.
Thanks again for the discussion.
Dear, are you concerned about people blaming themselves because it does not meet their need for self-love, self-worth, self-trust?
ReplyDeleteHey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteDear, are you concerned about people blaming themselves because it does not meet their need for self-love, self-worth, self-trust?
My concern stems more from the fact that the philosophy encourages people to believe they are responsible for everything in their life. People believe they create things like illness, rape, and genocide. This is victim-blame at its worst.
Hi Kyra,
ReplyDeleteI am hearing that seeing people being encouraged to believe they are responsible for everything in their life, you feel concerned, because you want people to not believe that they created their experiencing things like illness, rape, and genocide.
Did I get this part right?
Kyra,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
“Law of Attraction lacks falsifiability and testability and therefore is unscientific. My problem with that is that there is no way of objectively testing the alleged "law.
the philosophy encourages people to believe they are responsible for everything in their life. This is victim-blame at its worst.”
As you said, LOA is just a philosophy, which encourages people to believe something. As you said, your problem with this philosophy, or belief, is that there is no way of objective way of testing it.
It seems to me that there is also no objective way of testing the belief that “This is victim-blame”. Yet, this fact does not stop you from believing it, or from asserting ‘this is ...’ as if it is a fact, as opposed to your opinion.
LOA is not scientifically testable and falsifiable because it is about a relationship between thoughts, feelings and experience, and the only part of this equation that can be accurately tested, even by the person himself, is the experience. However, the fact that thoughts and feelings are tricky to pin down and measure does not make them, or their impact, less real. You would not be writing this blog if you were not feeling indignation and thinking ‘this is victim-blame at its worse’.
So, even if the claim that LOA is at the heart of everything that happens is not falsifiable, it is at least an observable fact that there is some connection between thoughts, feelings, and experience.
In contrast, there is no observable fact behind ‘this is victim-blame’. ‘Victim’ is a label that implies a judgement that a person has not created what happened to him. This judgement is not provable. Worse, it implies a judgement that the person was helpless and powerless to create for themselves a different experience. This, again, is not a provable fact. It is a judgement, and when people believe it they may get some relief from their self-blaming, but they get it at the cost of disempowering themselves. Self-blame can be relieved through self-acceptance, through acknowledging that being a human I don’t have 100% control over what’s going on inside me. Disempowerment can only be relieved through a process of regaining faith in my ability to respond in a way that would meet my needs.
Self-blame is more empowered, and feels better than fear, hurt and depression. Why would you want anyone to give up on seeing things in a way that helps them regain their self-confidence and give them something to depend on?
You wrote:
‘Jerry and Esther turned to acting when Amway was becoming far too controversial and their fresh act was starting to generate public interest.’
You are stating, as a fact, that Ester’s speaking for Abraham is acting. Unless you have heard Ester acknowledge it, you have absolutely no way of knowing for a fact that this is so. All I heard Ester say about it is that she get’s into meditative state, and speaks and does whatever her body has her say and do in such a state. If you study the subject, or better, try it for yourself, as I did, you will find that the experience of having you body start moving during meditation is an experience shared by many. I certainly have experienced it many times. You may not believe me, but I don’t need your believing it to know that it has happened to me, and therefore can certainly happen to someone else.
If it was an act, it would just mean that Ester and Jerry found a highly successful way to package and market, not just a philosophy, but also an evolving presentation of it, which includes responding to people’s questions. If Ester is doing it on her own, without the help of some non-physical beings, it just means that she gets the credit for all the brilliant stuff that comes out of her mouth. Good for her...
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments.
So, even if the claim that LOA is at the heart of everything that happens is not falsifiable, it is at least an observable fact that there is some connection between thoughts, feelings, and experience.
"Some" connection between these things does not suggest anything about LOA.
It seems to me that there is also no objective way of testing the belief that “This is victim-blame”. Yet, this fact does not stop you from believing it, or from asserting ‘this is ...’ as if it is a fact, as opposed to your opinion.
Victim blaming is an idea. And the Abraham materials meet the criteria to be included within the idea that is victim blaming.
As you said, LOA is just a philosophy, which encourages people to believe something. As you said, your problem with this philosophy, or belief, is that there is no way of objective way of testing it.
Abraham recognizes LOA as a science (the Science of Deliberate Creation).
You are stating, as a fact, that Ester’s speaking for Abraham is acting. Unless you have heard Ester acknowledge it, you have absolutely no way of knowing for a fact that this is so.
Even if Esther said that it was all fake, I still would not have any way of knowing for 100% sure that this was so. This entry is clearly a satire of Esther and Jerry's career. I am calling it acting to liken them to entertainers rather than charlatans.
All I heard Ester say about it is that she get’s into meditative state, and speaks and does whatever her body has her say and do in such a state. If you study the subject, or better, try it for yourself, as I did, you will find that the experience of having you body start moving during meditation is an experience shared by many.
If you read any comments about my experiences, you will see that I applied these principles to my life for years, including meditation.
If it was an act, it would just mean that Ester and Jerry found a highly successful way to package and market, not just a philosophy, but also an evolving presentation of it, which includes responding to people’s questions. If Ester is doing it on her own, without the help of some non-physical beings, it just means that she gets the credit for all the brilliant stuff that comes out of her mouth. Good for her...
Personally, I am not a fan of charlatans in general, so I would never congratulate someone on their ability to dupe large groups of people.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteDon't know if you are a different Anon than the one I just commented to, but I wanted to address your last question:
I am hearing that seeing people being encouraged to believe they are responsible for everything in their life, you feel concerned, because you want people to not believe that they created their experiencing things like illness, rape, and genocide.
I want people to feel responsible for things they actually created and not take on responsibility for things they had no part in.
hi Kyra,
ReplyDeleteyou wrote -- I want people to feel responsible for things they actually created and not take on responsibility for things they had no part in.
when you say -- feel responsible, it sounds to me as if what you really mean is feel culpable... Which human needs of yours or mine are served by my feeling culpable for things that I created?
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWhich human needs of yours or mine are served by my feeling culpable for things that I created?
I think it would be disgusting if a rapist didn't feel they were culpable for raping someone. And I would find it just as disgusting to see a rape victim feeling culpable for being raped.
I think it would be disgusting if a rapist didn't feel they were culpable for raping someone. And I would find it just as disgusting to see a rape victim feeling culpable for being raped.
ReplyDeleteDear,
So imagining people who were raped believing themselves culpable you feel disgusted because their feeling culpable would not meet your need for their emotional well being?
So imagining people who were raped believing themselves culpable you feel disgusted because their feeling culpable would not meet your need for their emotional well being?
ReplyDeleteI would say it does not meet my desire for their emotional wellbeing, and I would be very concerned about anyone who didn't desire for other people's emotional wellbeing.
I'm not quite sure if I've answered your question, but I don't feel I need to explain why I think it is important that rape victims not feel culpable for their rape. The harm and danger in that seems rather self-evident.
Thank you dear. You did answer my question. I get it that you are disgusted because you really want other people's emotional well being. It sounds as if you are also feeling concern, because you are really needing the concern for other people's emotional well being to be mutual. I completely understand, and can relate, since, being human, I have the same human needs.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for everyone else, but at least in my case, I am glad to be able to reassure you that I do care, very much, about other people's emotional well being. In fact, I care about everyone's emotional well being -- no exception -- which means, including yours, and including my own.
You wrote: I don't feel I need to explain why I think it is important that rape victims not feel culpable for their rape. The harm and danger in that seems rather self-evident.
It sounds as if you are feeling some frustration because you are needing a shared reality -- you are needing the reality of there being serious harm and danger to be mutually obvious.
If so, I completely understand.
It sounds to me as if your sense of danger and harm is magnified by the fact that there are thousands if not millions of people who have been influenced by these teachings.
Again, if so, I fully understand.
Having personally experienced feeling culpable for things that I did not create, I am fully aware of both danger and harm.
Having been alive for quite some time, and having talked with many people, including quite a few who seemed to believe in LOA with all their hearts, I have yet to personally meet someone who have not had the experience of feeling culpable for things that they have not created.
Have you?
Based on my experience, it seems rather obvious to me that most, if not all, of the multitude of people who embraced LOA are fully aware of the harmful effect of feeling culpable.
The question, to my mind, is not about the existence of harm and danger, but rather about the specific nature of this harm and danger, and about whether a given belief increases this specific harm and danger, or diminishes it.
The specific harm that I see, and personally experience when seeing myself as culpable, is that for the duration of my feeling culpable I feel awful, and my needs for self-trust and self-love are not met, and my feeling culpable and having these unmet needs have a detrimental effect on all other aspects of my life. And, for the duration of my feeling culpable I am influencing others to also feel culpable. This is very serious harm. I don’t want it for myself, and I don’t want it for anyone else.
Is this the kind of harm that is obvious to you?
The danger that I see is getting stuck in the place of self-blaming and self-judging, because the longer I spend in such a place, the greater the harm. The less time I spend in such a place, the less harm.
Is this mutually obvious?
What I am hearing is that you are needing to safeguard my ability, and everyone else’s ability to do that, to tell ourselves that we are not capable, and to believe it, as a way to relieve, or even avoid, seeing ourselves and feeling culpable.
Did I get it?
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this discussion. I'm glad that I'm not boring you with my answers.
I did want to comment really quickly on the idea of my, as you put it, needing a shared reality. I do believe that we live in a shared reality, where we experience things like the earth, gravity, matter, etc together. We can have a variety of beliefs that intermingle within that, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that we share this time and space together on this earth, though our beliefs may be very different.
It sounds to me as if your sense of danger and harm is magnified by the fact that there are thousands if not millions of people who have been influenced by these teachings.
If I'm reading this correctly, I think you are wondering if my personal sense of danger and harm is magnified by this. Not really. I think we can both agree that there are far more harmful belief systems in the world. And I am in more danger from some of these other belief systems than I am with the Abraham materials.
My goal with this is to help others who may not realize the information available to them so that they can make an informed decision.
Is this the kind of harm that is obvious to you?
Yes, this is the sort of harm I am referring to. There is also the flip side of a murder/rapist feeling no responsibility for their actions.
The danger that I see is getting stuck in the place of self-blaming and self-judging, because the longer I spend in such a place, the greater the harm. The less time I spend in such a place, the less harm.
Is this mutually obvious?
I can agree here, and the reason I am against this philosophy is because it innately encourages people to take responsibility for things like their cancer, rape, etc. It is a victim-blaming ideology. If a person is trying to use Abraham processes to cure their cancer and they keep getting worse and worse, then they must believe that they are creating that for themselves.
What I am hearing is that you are needing to safeguard my ability, and everyone else’s ability to do that, to tell ourselves that we are not capable, and to believe it, as a way to relieve, or even avoid, seeing ourselves and feeling culpable.
Did I get it?
But at the same time, I don't want everyone to feel as if they are not culpable for anything. I want people to only feel culpable for those things that they actually had a part in creating. I want murders to feel responsible for the people they murder, and rapists to feel responsible for the rapes they committed.
Hey again Kyra, You wrote: Thank you for this discussion. I'm glad that I'm not boring you with my answers.
ReplyDeleteAnd I appreciate your hanging in there with me... :)
You wrote: If I'm reading this correctly, I think you are wondering if my personal sense of danger and harm is magnified by this.
Actually, since your concern is for the well being of those whose well being may be hindered by coming to believe in LOA, I thought that you may be more concerned because of the number of people who may be already hindered by it. My goal with this is to help others who may not realize the information available to them so that they can make an informed decision.
I am hearing that you want people to make informed decisions. Again, this is a shared desire between us... :) There is also the flip side of a murder/rapist feeling no responsibility for their actions.
This is rather personal for me, as I, and people that I love, have been on the receiving end of such actions. So I fully understand the need for safety from murderers and rapists pointing to the murdered and the raped as having cause them to act as they did.
If I believed that LOA says that the ones who were murdered and raped have caused the murdered and rapists to act as they did, I would probably feel as indignant and disgusted as you do.
I can certainly understand, if you believe that this is what LOA says, that you would be concerned of other people believing it as well.
However, to my understanding of LOA, the only person who caused the rapist to rape is the rapist.
While I see the possibility for someone who understand LOA as you do to respond as you anticipate, that has not been my experience.
I have had plenty of experience of people blaming me and my loved ones for their violent actions toward us. Most of them had no exposure to the Abraham’s materials. All of them had one thing in common -- being human -- blaming someone else feels better than blaming ourselves!
There have been two cases in which someone blamed me for his actions after being exposed to Abraham.
The first person was indeed seeking safety from being held responsible -- yet he did NOT say that he did what he did because I create my reality.
The second person did it deliberately in an attempt to demonstrate to me ‘the absurdity of LOA’. He was the only person who ever hurt me on purpose and told me that ‘I created it’
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, If a person is trying to use Abraham processes to cure their cancer and they keep getting worse and worse, then they must believe that they are creating that for themselves.
I understand that you are concerned because you want people to retain their ability to not blame themselves.
Again, I fully share your desire for everyone to retain that ability.
To be precise, such a person would be encouraged to believe that their cancer is getting worse because something about their thinking or feelings is keeping it from getting better; that they have the ability to allow whatever it is to improve; that when they manage to do that, their situation will improve; and that it will improve one way or another -- with one possible path to improvement being their dying...
Why would anyone want to believe such a thing?
I can tell you why I want to: because believing that there may be something about my thinking or feelings which may be keeping my situation from getting better feels better than believing that my situation is going to keep getting worse and worse because of reasons that have nothing to do with me, and that there is nothing that I can do about it!
So yes, upon finding myself in a situation that keeps getting worse, I may spend some time blaming myself -- for a good reason! -- to meet my need for empowerment, for relief from helplessness and despair!
(Self-blame is an instinctive human reaction -- I did not learn it when I discovered LOA. All you need to do to see it is look up data about the psychological impact of emotional and physical abuse.)
I may also spend some time blaming the doctors, or genetics, or my body, because that would meet my need for relief from self-blame! -- I WOULD be able to do it because, thankfully, exposure to LOA did NOT cure me of my ability to blame something or someone else... because it did not cure me of BEING HUMAN, and blame is an important human emotion.
The one thing that I am NOT going to do, once I recall LOA, is CONTINUE to blame myself -- or continue to blame something or someone outside of myself -- as I have done for most of my life until I
I would NOT continue to do it because according to LOA, continuing to blame myself, or something outside of me, for the fact that things have been getting worse and worse for me, would be enough to keep them from getting better!
What I would do instead, once I recall LOA, is seek to improve my self-awareness, spend some of my time identifying areas of my life that I am having an unhappy reaction to and seeking to improve my reaction to them, and do my best to spend the rest of my time accepting that for the moment I am where I am, looking forward to things getting better one way or another, and appreciating and enjoying the positive aspects of where I am -- such as the love and connection that I share with those around me.
I would much rather spend the rest of my life in this manner than spend it blaming something or someone outside of me, or worse, my own body, for the fact that my situation is getting worse and worse.
It is possible, and likely, that other people would also prefer to spend the rest of their lives in that manner. This is probably one of the reasons why so many people are attracted to these teachings once they realize what is being taught. But at the same time, I don't want everyone to feel as if they are not culpable for anything. I want people to only feel culpable for those things that they actually had a part in creating. I want murders to feel responsible for the people they murder, and rapists to feel responsible for the rapes they committed.
Kyra, dear, are you feeling concerned about this because you are needing safety (for yourself or for others) from people feeling free to continue to do hurtful things because they feel safe from guilt and remorse?
Hi Kyra,
ReplyDeleteWhat I have attempted to convey in my previous message is this - the difference between whether I am self-blaming, blaming something or someone outside of myself, or acknowledging the possibility that my experience takes place in reflection of something that I get to do something about is about which mood I am in, as opposed to my beliefs about how life works. My belief that LOA is at the heart of what happens to me is out of my reach when I am hurt, discouraged or angry... (I bet that dismissing the LOA point of view does not help you avoid feeling culpable for other people's emotional reaction to you, even if intellectually you know that their reaction is not determined by you!) I can't avoid self-blame by dismissing LOA because I can't avoid the possibility and likelihood that in a less disempowered mood I would have a different influence on what happens to me. I simply don't have a way to know that. Without LOA have not been not better protected from self-blame, and I was without anything that I could reliably depend on, unconditionally on the circumstances to allow things to work out for me.
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteSorry it's taken me so long to respond. I've been on vacation for the past week.
If I believed that LOA says that the ones who were murdered and raped have caused the murdered and rapists to act as they did, I would probably feel as indignant and disgusted as you do.
Well, LOA, as Abraham discusses it, says that the raped and murdered did attract or create that circumstance.
However, to my understanding of LOA, the only person who caused the rapist to rape is the rapist.
And yet, the raped became a vibrational match to that and therefore attracted that into their experience.
While I see the possibility for someone who understand LOA as you do to respond as you anticipate, that has not been my experience. I have had plenty of experience of people blaming me and my loved ones for their violent actions toward us. Most of them had no exposure to the Abraham’s materials.
I certainly agree that victim blaming is prevelant outside of these teachings. I'm just saying that the philosophy in and of itself is rooted in victim-blame and I see that as a serious problem.
There have been two cases in which someone blamed me for his actions after being exposed to Abraham. The first person was indeed seeking safety from being held responsible -- yet he did NOT say that he did what he did because I create my reality. The second person did it deliberately in an attempt to demonstrate to me ‘the absurdity of LOA’. He was the only person who ever hurt me on purpose and told me that ‘I created it’
Again, the philosophy is talking about how you create everything in your experience, including rape, murder, illness. It isn't a stretch to see how someone within these materials would believe that it was the victim who was responsible for their creation.
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteTo be precise, such a person would be encouraged to believe that their cancer is getting worse because something about their thinking or feelings is keeping it from getting better; that they have the ability to allow whatever it is to improve; that when they manage to do that, their situation will improve; and that it will improve one way or another -- with one possible path to improvement being their dying...
This statement embodies the victim blaming mentality that I'm discussing.
Why would anyone want to believe such a thing? I can tell you why I want to: because believing that there may be something about my thinking or feelings which may be keeping my situation from getting better feels better than believing that my situation is going to keep getting worse and worse because of reasons that have nothing to do with me, and that there is nothing that I can do about it!
But if you are doing everything you can, and feeling better, and still getting worse, this is a damaging thing because then you believe that you are doing this to yourself--when the disease is really just running it's course. It might feel good to believe you are in control, but it feels worse when everything around you is telling you otherwise.
I may also spend some time blaming the doctors, or genetics, or my body, because that would meet my need for relief from self-blame! -- I WOULD be able to do it because, thankfully, exposure to LOA did NOT cure me of my ability to blame something or someone else... because it did not cure me of BEING HUMAN, and blame is an important human emotion. The one thing that I am NOT going to do, once I recall LOA, is CONTINUE to blame myself -- or continue to blame something or someone outside of myself -- as I have done for most of my life until I I would NOT continue to do it because according to LOA, continuing to blame myself, or something outside of me, for the fact that things have been getting worse and worse for me, would be enough to keep them from getting better! What I would do instead, once I recall LOA, is seek to improve my self-awareness, spend some of my time identifying areas of my life that I am having an unhappy reaction to and seeking to improve my reaction to them, and do my best to spend the rest of my time accepting that for the moment I am where I am, looking forward to things getting better one way or another, and appreciating and enjoying the positive aspects of where I am -- such as the love and connection that I share with those around me. I would much rather spend the rest of my life in this manner than spend it blaming something or someone outside of me, or worse, my own body, for the fact that my situation is getting worse and worse. It is possible, and likely, that other people would also prefer to spend the rest of their lives in that manner. This is probably one of the reasons why so many people are attracted to these teachings once they realize what is being taught.
None of this changes the fact that this philosophy is saying that you are creating your own deterioration.
I want people to only feel culpable for those things that they actually had a part in creating. I want murders to feel responsible for the people they murder, and rapists to feel responsible for the rapes they committed.
Again, according to this philosophy, the raped are responsible for being raped. The murdered are responsible for being murdered. It resulted from their sloppy, "out of the vortex" thinking.
Kyra, dear, are you feeling concerned about this because you are needing safety (for yourself or for others) from people feeling free to continue to do hurtful things because they feel safe from guilt and remorse?
I am concerned because victim blame is dangerous and harmful.
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that people are not going to victim blame without LOA. I am saying that LOA inherently endorses victim blame.
Without LOA have not been not better protected from self-blame, and I was without anything that I could reliably depend on, unconditionally on the circumstances to allow things to work out for me.
I don't think that LOA is something anyone can reliably depend on since they can't even prove that it exists.
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the clarification. I was pleasantly surprised to find that you have not given up on our discussion... :) You responded: Well, LOA, as Abraham discusses it, says that the raped and murdered did attract or create that circumstance.
So this is a place where I am hearing what they are saying differently than the way you hear it, where I am hearing a distinction that makes a difference for me.
For me, there is a big difference between telling myself: (a) ‘I attracted to myself the experience of being raped’ and (b): ‘I caused this person to rape me’.
In (a,) I am taking responsibility for my life, for meeting my need for safety.
In (b,) I am taking responsibility for causing another to act as he did -- in fact, I am taking responsibility for causing him to gave the experience of having raped someone! I am not only the creator of my own experience -- I am also the creator of his experience!
meets my need for independence and ability to take care of myself, even if in this particular case I have not managed to do so as well as I would have wanted to.
(b) does not meet any of my needs.
I do not believe that LOA says (b). In fact, if I heard Ester say anything of the sort, I’d say that at least at that point she was not functioning as a pure translator for a non-physical stream of knowledge... That said -- I never heard her say anything of the sort. You wrote: And yet, the raped became a vibrational match to that and therefore attracted that into their experience.
To my understanding what LOA says is that the raped was a vibrational match to being hurt by the violent actions of others, and that her life reflected it. In my case, I was certainly a vibrational match to having such experiences. You wrote:I'm just saying that the philosophy in and of itself is rooted in victim-blame and I see that as a serious problem.
So when you hear ‘the responsibility for your life is yours’, you feel upset because what you are hearing is blame, and because the blame that you are hearing is pointed in a direction that does not meet your needs for justice and for compassion?
If so I completely understand your reaction!
Can you hear, and respect, that when I hear ‘the responsibility for your life is yours’ I feel empowered, and disinclined to blame ANYONE, because what I hear in these words is NOT blame?
I feel empowered and disinclined to blame because what I hear is ‘You have needs, and the responsibility to meet them is yours. What can you do to meet them?’ You wrote: Again, the philosophy is talking about how you create everything in your experience, including rape, murder, illness. It isn't a stretch to see how someone within these materials would believe that it was the victim who was responsible for their creation.
So, you want to protect people from the belief that this is what these materials teach, because you want them to not blame themselves?
If so, we are wanting the same thing... You wrote: But if you are doing everything you can, and feeling better, and still getting worse, this is a damaging thing because then you believe that you are doing this to yourself--when the disease is really just running it's course. It might feel good to believe you are in control, but it feels worse when everything around you is telling you otherwise.
So you are concerned because you are wanting me to be able to say -- ‘I am not in control here...’? because resignation and accept feels better than self-blame?
I would not want to lose the ability to resign myself, to accept the fact that things are as they are, and to accept the limits of my ability to control my experience.
I have not found that these materials have lessened my ability to do so. The fact is, I am not 100% in control of what’s going on inside me. I can do my best, and yet there is always room for improvement. That is so important to me. There is always at least one aspect of the situation that I get to improve -- and see what happens.
You wrote: None of this changes the fact that this philosophy is saying that you are creating your own deterioration.
ReplyDeleteYes. The philosophy certainly says it. And while it cannot be proven to be true, it is certainly possible that I am creating my own deterioration. In fact, every feeling that I have has a chemical component. I look and feel older and weaker and more confused when I am unhappy... and the reverse is true as well... My friend’s oncologist told her that the most important thing she can do to boost her immune system is to relax...
If I disregarded and dismissed the possibility that I am creating my deterioration, I would have no reason to look within myself for thoughts and feelings that may be creating it for me, and I would have no reason to hope that doing what I can about what’s going on inside me would have a positive impact. You wrote: Again, according to this philosophy, the raped are responsible for being raped. The murdered are responsible for being murdered. It resulted from their sloppy, "out of the vortex" thinking.
Yes, according to this philosophy everyone is indeed responsible for their own experience, in the sense that their experience is about what’s happening inside them.
‘Sloppy‘ is a label and a judgement which I would not choose to apply to my own thinking or to anyone else’s. I do not have the kind of control over my thinking that would allow me to select every thought that I am thinking. Being scared or hurt is not ‘being sloppy’. In their teaching about the emotional scale Abraham talks about our inability to relate to thoughts that are outside of our current emotional range. They coach people into anger, though being angry is far from ‘in the vortex‘ thinking.
When I am unhappy and I look in the mirror, what I see is not the happy, attractive me that I would like to see. I create that experience in the sense that the mirror reflects to me what is going on in my heart and in my mind. And by allowing myself to feel better, I allow what I see reflected to me in the mirror to improve. I don’t blame myself for creating this miserable face in the mirror... I accept the reality that my thinking and my feelings have impact on what I see -- and I feel inspired to do something about my thinking and my feelings. You wrote: I don't think that LOA is something anyone can reliably depend on since they can't even prove that it exists.
Are you disgusted with LOA because you would like to have something to rely on which can be proved to exist and to be dependable?
If so, I completely understand.
To allow me to DEPEND on my ability to CAUSE LOA to work for me I would need LOA to be proven to exist. Obviously I can’t do that.
However, to RELY on my ability to ALLOW LOA to work for me, I just need it to be an Unfalsifiable Possibility. Other than that, I need to acknowledge the possibility of it, accept the possibility of it, respect it, appreciate it, give myself the benefit of the doubt, make other choices that free my heart and my mind, and watch what happen.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for continuing the discussion. I'm going to have to divide this one up so that it will fit in the comments section.
So this is a place where I am hearing what they are saying differently than the way you hear it, where I am hearing a distinction that makes a difference for me.
For me, there is a big difference between telling myself: (a) ‘I attracted to myself the experience of being raped’ and (b): ‘I caused this person to rape me’
Perhaps a definition of victim blaming will help me clarify my point. Wikipedia says, "Victim blaming occurs when the victim(s) of a crime, an accident, or any type of
abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them." In the case of LOA, victims are responsible for their
creations because they believe they are the ones who attracted those things to them.
In (a,) I am taking responsibility for my life, for meeting my need for safety. In (b,) I am taking responsibility for causing another to act as he did -- in fact,
I am taking responsibility for causing him to gave the experience of having raped someone!
But in A, you are taking responsibility for the rape, which is victim blaming. I would say it is even more victim blaming than most ideologies because usually the
victim is only being held partially responsible, but in LOA, the victim is wholly responsible for the things they attract into their experience.
(b) does not meet any of my needs. I do not believe that LOA says (b). In fact, if I heard Ester say anything of the sort, I’d say that at least at that point she
was not functioning as a pure translator for a non-physical stream of knowledge...hat said -- I never heard her say anything of the sort.
The problem is, both (a) and (b) are victim blaming.
To my understanding what LOA says is that the raped was a vibrational match to being hurt by the violent actions of others, and that her life reflected it. In my
case, I was certainly a vibrational match to having such experiences.
And this is where my issue is. You are saying that you were a vibrational match, because of the thoughts YOU were thinking, to this. This is just as ridiculous as a
girl saying that she can understand how the skirt she was wearing attracted that experience to her.
So when you hear ‘the responsibility for your life is yours’, you feel upset because what you are hearing is blame, and because the blame that you are hearing is
pointed in a direction that does not meet your needs for justice and for compassion?
When I hear, you are responsible for being raped, murdered, or getting cancer, I hear victim blame (because that is what the term is referring to).
If so I completely understand your reaction! Can you hear, and respect, that when I hear ‘the responsibility for your life is yours’ I feel empowered, and
disinclined to blame ANYONE, because what I hear in these words is NOT blame?
Someone who tells a girl that her skirt was the reason she was raped could say, "I'm not blaming you. I just want you to feel empowered because now you can wear
something else and not get raped!" That is still victim blame.
So, you want to protect people from the belief that this is what these materials teach, because you want them to not blame themselves? If so, we are wanting the
same thing...
But I DO want people to blame themselves. I just don't want them to blame themselves for things that they had no part in. I want a rapist to feel bad about what he did
I want a murder to feel guilty. I don't want a rape victim to believe that they attracted that by their thoughts because A) there's no evidence to show that is the
case. and B) that is a self-defeating idea.
So you are concerned because you are wanting me to be able to say -- ‘I am not in control here...’? because resignation and accept feels better than self-blame? I
ReplyDeletewould not want to lose the ability to resign myself, to accept the fact that things are as they are, and to accept the limits of my ability to control my experience. I
have not found that these materials have lessened my ability to do so. The fact is, I am not 100% in control of what’s going on inside me. I can do my best, and yet
there is always room for improvement. That is so important to me. There is always at least one aspect of the situation that I get to improve -- and see what
happens.
But my issue is further than this. The teachings are saying that if something is going wrong with you, it's because of the thoughts that YOU are thinking. Again, it's
not a stretch to say that people will feel responsible for the situations they are in when this is exactly what the teachings are saying.
You said: None of this changes the fact that this philosophy is saying that you are creating your own deterioration.
Yes. The philosophy certainly says it.
I'm aware, and this is why it is victim-blaming.
And while it cannot be proven to be true, it is certainly possible that I am creating my own deterioration. In fact, every feeling that I have has a chemical
component. I look and feel older and weaker and more confused when I am unhappy... and the reverse is true as well...My friend’s oncologist told her that the most
important thing she can do to boost her immune system is to relax...
I don't deny that there are benefits to relaxation, but the Abraham materials are making bigger--much bigger--claims than just that.
If I disregarded and dismissed the possibility that I am creating my deterioration, I would have no reason to look within myself for thoughts and feelings that may
be creating it for me, and I would have no reason to hope that doing what I can about what’s going on inside me would have a positive impact.
I like to think that people want to feel good regardless of the physical benefits it can bring them.
You wrote: Again, according to this philosophy, the raped are responsible for being raped. The murdered are responsible for being murdered. It resulted from their
sloppy, "out of the vortex" thinking. Yes, according to this philosophy everyone is indeed responsible for their own experience, in the sense that their experience is
about what’s happening inside them. ‘Sloppy‘ is a label and a judgement which I would not choose to apply to my own thinking or to anyone else’s.
I only used the term "sloppy" because that is what Abraham calls it.
I do not have the kind of control over my thinking that would allow me to select every thought that I am thinking. Being scared or hurt is not ‘being sloppy’. In
ReplyDeletetheir teaching about the emotional scale Abraham talks about our inability to relate to thoughts that are outside of our current emotional range. They coach people
into anger, though being angry is far from ‘in the vortex‘ thinking.
I am aware. I was with the teachings and moved up the emotional scale on many occassions, including going from revenge to anger.
When I am unhappy and I look in the mirror, what I see is not the happy, attractive me that I would like to see. I create that experience in the sense that the
mirror reflects to me what is going on in my heart and in my mind. And by allowing myself to feel better, I allow what I see reflected to me in the mirror to improve.
I don’t blame myself for creating this miserable face in the mirror... I accept the reality that my thinking and my feelings have impact on what I see -- and I feel
inspired to do something about my thinking and my feelings.
It's one thing to say that by feeling better, you'll start to seeing things in a better light. It's a whole 'nother thing to say that when you feel better, the
Universe will actually, literally transform to bring you things. The Abraham materials clearly say the latter occurs.
Are you disgusted with LOA because you would like to have something to rely on which can be proved to exist and to be dependable?
I am disgusted that those like Abe call it a science and then refuse to hold their ideas to any sort of scientific standard.
If so, I completely understand. To allow me to DEPEND on my ability to CAUSE LOA to work for me I would need LOA to be proven to exist. Obviously I can’t do that.
However, to RELY on my ability to ALLOW LOA to work for me, I just need it to be an Unfalsifiable Possibility.
Hell is also an unfalsifiable possibility. So is a judgmental God. It doesn't make them true. It just makes them unscientific.
Other than that, I need to acknowledge the possibility of it, accept the possibility of it, respect it, appreciate it, give myself the benefit of the doubt, make
other choices that free my heart and my mind, and watch what happen.
Why not accept the possibility of the devil? Or a judgemental God? I'm not saying I believe any of that. I'm just saying, there are lots of ridiculous things out there
that you could choose to accept the possibility of that are just as likely to be true.
You wrote: you are taking responsibility for the rape.
ReplyDeleteActually, I am taking responsibility for being raped, and leaving the responsibility for the rape to the rapist...
Let me clarify: I realize that the distinction that I am making is not necessarily obvious to everyone. I am not saying that you are wrong, or that I am right. I am not saying 'this is not victim-blame'. That would be just one more judgement... I am saying that I am looking at this from a different angle.
It seems to me that the concern about victim-blame is born out of the perspective that someone is to blame here. Therefore, it better not be me.
This is the perspective that I am not sharing. Blame is not a fact of life, other than as a thought that someone is thinking. It is just an opinion, a way in which people look at what happens.
Responsibility is not the same as blame, even though the distinction can get lost when the focus is on 'whose to blame here.'
You wrote: You are saying that you were a vibrational match, because of the thoughts YOU were thinking, to this. This is just as ridiculous as a
ReplyDeletegirl saying that she can understand how the skirt she was wearing attracted that experience to her.
Ridiculous is an opinion... not a fact. I have had a lot of experience of what you would call abuse. And I have also had a lot of experience of being treated with respect and consideration. By the same people. What I get from them is directly correlating to my mood and my thinking. I can turn it off and on. That is a fact of my life. If the girl in your example had experienced being raped multiple times, and each time she was wearing that skirt, I would suggest that she may be safer wearing a different skirt.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarity.
Let me clarify: I realize that the distinction that I am making is not necessarily obvious to everyone. I am not saying that you are wrong, or that I am right. I am not saying 'this is not victim-blame'. That would be just one more judgement... I am saying that I am looking at this from a different angle.
I am glad that you made this distinction. If you are saying that all victims are responsible for creating their realities, then I understand what you are saying. I am just saying that it is victim blame.
It seems to me that the concern about victim-blame is born out of the perspective that someone is to blame here. Therefore, it better not be me.
This is the perspective that I am not sharing. Blame is not a fact of life, other than as a thought that someone is thinking. It is just an opinion, a way in which people look at what happens.
Responsibility is not the same as blame, even though the distinction can get lost when the focus is on 'whose to blame here.'
I think that saying that a person is responsibile for creating rape, murder, and illness is just as bad as saying that they need to be blamed for it. In both senarios, the focus is on their part in it, when there isn't even proof that they did attract those things via their thoughts.
Ridiculous is an opinion... not a fact.
I certainly am not saying it is a fact. I do have opinions, and I express them frequently here. It is my opinion that it is ridiculous to assume that a girl is responsible (partly or wholly) for being raped.
I have had a lot of experience of what you would call abuse. And I have also had a lot of experience of being treated with respect and consideration. By the same people. What I get from them is directly correlating to my mood and my thinking. I can turn it off and on. That is a fact of my life.
And I would venture to say that there are plenty of explanations for this that have nothing to do with LOA.
If the girl in your example had experienced being raped multiple times, and each time she was wearing that skirt, I would suggest that she may be safer wearing a different skirt.
In my example, the skirt is not actually a problem. The rapist would have raped her regardless of what she had been wearing.
Dear Kyra, You wrote: I am glad that you made this distinction. If you are saying that all victims are responsible for creating their realities, then I understand what you are saying. I am just saying that it is victim blame.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am glad that you are making this distinction, because it sounds as if we are more in agreement on the facts than I thought we were...
Lets see if I can clarify a little more:
Wikipedia says: Victim blaming occurs when the victim(s) of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them.
Whoever wrote this defined victim blaming into existence, by saying that it ‘occurs’.
A factual and accurate definition of this label would be:
Victim-blaming is a label which is applied to situations when someone who has been defined by someone as a victim is held responsible for causing someone else to act as he did.
Some people apply this label also to situations where people are viewed as the creators of their own experience, when the experience that they are being viewed as the creators of is one in which they are considered to be ‘victims of abusive maltreatment.’
I fully agree... :)
A factual and accurate definition of this label would be:
ReplyDeleteVictim-blaming is a label which is applied to situations when someone who has been defined by someone as a victim is held responsible for causing someone else to act as he did.
Some people apply this label also to situations where people are viewed as the creators of their own experience, when the experience that they are being viewed as the creators of is one in which they are considered to be ‘victims of abusive maltreatment.’
I fully agree... :)
I agree that this is how it is perceived to those who practice teachings like the Teachings of Abraham. I am just saying that to people outside of the teachings, this is clearly victim blaming. My issue with either--whether we want to call it victim blaming or creating one's own reality--is that in both cases, I think there is much harm done by people feeling that they are responsible for being raped, getting cancer, etc.
You said: I think there is much harm done by people feeling that they are responsible for being raped, getting cancer, etc.
ReplyDeleteI understand that thinking that people who take responsibility for their lives are more prone to being harmed by self-blame than those who don't, you feel concerned.
Kyra, dear, are you reacting to a personal experience? Have you had personal experience of you or to someone you know who had such an experience before being exposed to this teaching, who felt worse about themselves and about life once exposed to these teachings?
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteKyra, dear, are you reacting to a personal experience? Have you had personal experience of you or to someone you know who had such an experience before being exposed to this teaching, who felt worse about themselves and about life once exposed to these teachings?
I have met plenty of Abers who felt this way because of their exposure to the teachings.
You wrote: I have met plenty of Abers who felt this way because of their exposure to the teachings.
ReplyDeleteWould you say that they felt worse because their response to the teaching was to hold themselves responsible, when until that point they held the other person responsible?
Hey again Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWould you say that they felt worse because their response to the teaching was to hold themselves responsible, when until that point they held the other person responsible?
I would say that it was worse because after they teachings, they considered themselves wholly responsible for creating every event in their life--things like car accidents, being robbed, major illnesses, etc.
I wrote: Would you say that they felt worse because their response to the teaching was to hold themselves responsible, when until that point they held the other person responsible?
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: I would say that it was worse because after they teachings, they considered themselves wholly responsible for creating every event in their life--things like car accidents, being robbed, major illnesses, etc.
Can you give me an example of a specific person whose reaction to a specific event changed after exposure to the teaching, and what was their reaction before and after?
Can you give me an example of a specific person whose reaction to a specific event changed after exposure to the teaching, and what was their reaction before and after?
ReplyDeleteI knew a woman who had cancer. Before the teachings, she just thought that it was something that happened. Afterwards, she thought that it had something to do with her thinking, and she did all these processes and games to feel better and change her vibration.
It sounds to me that the harm that you see is not about people feeling worse than they did before the teaching... Is that so?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me that the harm that you see is not about people feeling worse than they did before the teaching... Is that so?
ReplyDeleteThat is definitely a part of where I see the harm. The woman I was discussing did a lot of work to improve her vibration, but ended up getting much worse, and felt started to feel that she must have been doing something wrong mentally.
Hi Kyra,
ReplyDeleteI am going to be traveling and busy. Will get back to you when I can.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for letting me know. Hope you enjoy your travels. Look forward to hearing from you.
I am feeling a bit befuddled because I can see that it is obvious to you that she felt worse due to her exposure to the teaching, and it is far from obvious to me that this was in fact the case.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am hearing you describe are three segments in time:
Before hearing about the teaching -- when she believed that it was just something that happened
After hearing about them -- when she was started to think that this had something to do with her thinking, and was inspired to work on allowing herself to feel better
After her situation got worse -- when she started to think that something must be wrong with her thinking.
What I am hearing is what you have understood her thinking to be during these periods. I am still rather in the dark about what she was feeling in terms of her mood, her human emotions. It sounds to me, and please correct me, as if she was:
before exposure -- resigned
after exposure -- hopeful and inspired
after a worsening in her situation -- insecure
If this was the case, I can understand that seeing her ending up feeling insecure you would conclude that her exposure to the teaching made her feel worse.
However, such a conclusion would be far from obvious to me.
To my mind, the only time when we might have a comparison of before and after exposure to the teaching is at the point of exposure. There is no knowing what her emotional reaction would have been without the teaching once her situation got worse. For all we know she might have felt worse without them than she was feeling with them.
In other words, to me the only data that I have about the impact on her mood seems to reflect that exposure to the materials have empowered her, improved how she felt about herself relative to her illness, freed her to do something about it in an area where she could always do more to allow her situation to improve.
I am also puzzled about what happened once she started thinking ‘I must have been doing something wrong mentally.’ If I was in her shoes and caught myself thinking ‘I must be doing something wrong mentally.’ I would see it as an opportunity to improve my thinking by telling myself: ‘Some things in my thinking so far are obviously out of alignment with what I want. I want to see them and allow them to improve.’
That’s what I learned from these teachings.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI think "insecure" is an understatement, especially considering how frantic she became as she her condition worsened.
I am also puzzled about what happened once she started thinking ‘I must have been doing something wrong mentally.’ If I was in her shoes and caught myself thinking ‘I must be doing something wrong mentally.’ I would see it as an opportunity to improve my thinking by telling myself: ‘Some things in my thinking so far are obviously out of alignment with what I want. I want to see them and allow them to improve.’
Yes, she did this for a while, but eventually, the reality of the situation was too much for her and she was less than enthusiastic about "making her transition."
We can go back and forth about her experience all we want, but the fact is that it's not surprising that someone would feel guilty about creating something negative in a system that teaches that they are responsible for their every creation.
Dear Kyra,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: it's not surprising that someone would feel guilty about creating something negative in a system that teaches that they are responsible for their every creation.
I understand your point of view, and respect it.
For my side, I'd say, it is not surprising that someone would feel guilty in a culture that teaches blame or guilt as the 'right response' or as 'the wrong response' under any circumstances.
At the bottom line, people are responsible for their thinking, and for the influence of their thinking on their feelings.
I think that this would be a good point to accept that there is room for more than one perspective about any subject, and that there is no need for us to get to where we agree with each other. I was interested in understanding what was at the heart of your reaction, and I think that I got it. I would have liked to stay with you until we have reached a place where both of us have heard and understood the other. However, I have other things calling to me that I really want to focus on.
So, wishing you success and satisfaction in meeting all your needs,
- me.
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI think that this would be a good point to accept that there is room for more than one perspective about any subject, and that there is no need for us to get to where we agree with each other. I was interested in understanding what was at the heart of your reaction, and I think that I got it. I would have liked to stay with you until we have reached a place where both of us have heard and understood the other. However, I have other things calling to me that I really want to focus on.
I absolutely agree. We have both shared our perspectives on it, and I don't think it was either of our intentions to convert the other. Rather, I think we were both just reaching for a better understanding of where the other was coming from, and I think we have accomplished that.
I appreciate you sticking with me on it and taking the time to see where I was coming from.
Kyra... by addressing the conflict of thinking regarding the Law Of Attraction, you edify what the entire problem is. People in general look at The Law as a, "lot of phooey, but it kinda promotes positive thinking." This identifies that they who believe in this manner are living their lives as reactionaries who do not think life is their fault. Most of these people will also say that they believe that because of this, they have fewer or no opportunities to get ahead or "be safe and happy."
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, of course, by iterating that The Law has a real challenge explaining adversity in our lives. As long as people look to their physical world first, what they can relate to as evidence, it is a scientific impossibility to "think" or know that The Law works. And for those "testing it" to see if it works, they will always find something that proves that it is at least "inconsistently kinda working." Whereas, when one does comprehend that The Law IS law, everything for THAT person falls into place, understanding their place in the Universe/God's World, and their part in it, indivisible, and their empowerment because of this.
What accompanies this awareness is the knowledge that since we "did it ourselves," then there is no one to blame but ourselves. Since we can blame no one else, we have no negative holds on others, and can actually do what the great inspired spiritual leaders say - things like Jesus - "...love thine enemies..." People think that this a huge dose hogwash.... but not those that believe in The Law. LOAers feel that the way the enemy loses power over us is to not GIVE the enemy power. Being threatened and defensive and fearful is how we give away the power to be free of these thing as given in life by God Himself.
It is true that conflict and affliction of any sort is wrong. It is just that we are bred to believe that this comes from an outside source, when as in LOA, it really arrives into our lives from our own state of consciousness.
I doubt seriously that this will convince anyone to pursue The Law if they are not already in tune with it, so the bantering discussions will continue with no closure. However it has been helpful to me as a way of expressing what I truly feel, and I do hope that it echoes with others that feel the same.
Reverend Roland.
Hey Reverend Roland,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
Whereas, when one does comprehend that The Law IS law, everything for THAT person falls into place, understanding their place in the Universe/God's World, and their part in it, indivisible, and their empowerment because of this.
There were many years where I felt certain that the Law of Attraction WAS law. This did not make everything fall into place for me.
It is just that we are bred to believe that this comes from an outside source, when as in LOA, it really arrives into our lives from our own state of consciousness.
This is the sort of victim-blame that LOA promotes and that is so disturbing to me. People can try to say that's not what it is because "there are no victims," etc, but really, when you are saying to everyone who has ever had a misfortune that they created that, that is the epitome of victim blame.
I doubt seriously that this will convince anyone to pursue The Law if they are not already in tune with it, so the bantering discussions will continue with no closure. However it has been helpful to me as a way of expressing what I truly feel, and I do hope that it echoes with others that feel the same.
I am sure this will echo with others, and I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Hi Kyra- I found a link that you'd posted on a forum that linked to the public legal documents in the Hicks' attempt to trademark the term "Law of Attraction." An interesting read! Apparently Jerry and Esther failed to come into alignment with their desire to trademark that term.
ReplyDeleteMakes me think of people that "Abraham" gave advice to regarding residency concerns such as visas and other legal matters. According to those documents, the Hicks' went through two different attorney's offices (replacing one for the other after one of the refusals of their trademark claim.) So the Hicks' will go through two attorneys to try for a trademark, yet tell someone in the U.S. on a student visa who would like to say, "Just get in the vortex."
So sad.
That was supposed to read "yet tell someone in the U.S. on a student visa who would like to STAY..."
DeleteIt's already been established that I apparently always choose the lack end of the stick when it comes to typos.
:)