Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Fred Alan Wolf, The Secret, and the LOA

The fact that a New Age feature would misrepresent scientific work is very telling. They do it all the time. Pick up any book by Deepak Chopra, and you'll see ridiculous, pseudo-scientific ramblings that incorporate scientific evidence (misinterpreted and misunderstood, of course, by the author) that supposedly support crack-pot ideas.

Every good lie contains a little truth in it. And doesn't it show us something that people in the New Age movement take statements of scientists out of context and apply them willy-nilly in ways that support ideas the science has nothing to do with? Professional liars use this technique all the time. It's a great way to misrepresent the truth to get ignorant people to believe things that aren't true.

I had a friend who grew up actually believing that when he was an adult he would have a harem of beautiful women. He grew up in a country with rather backward ideas about women and their place in this world, and in such an environment he was allowed to really believe in this fantasy.

How could he believe it so strongly? Childish ignorance. Naivete.

Did he get his harem? Of course not. And as an adult he is still very bitter about this, believe it or not. ( No, it's not me. :P )

There are few things as strong, emotionally charged, vivid, and pure as the imagination of a child. According to New Age arguments about attraction, childhood fantasies should be actualized. Because of childhood ignorance, there is total belief. If belief is the major factor in creating new realities, then certainly every child is the seed of a new, fantastic universe.

And yet, I don't see unicorns leaping about on the horizon and dragons flying through the air. Every child isn't an astronaut, Barbie, a famous basketball player, or the president of the United States.

Why not? Because childish fantasies are just childish fantasies and reality is what persists despite our beliefs. Growing into adulthood requires you to learn this lesson, but like Peter Pan many of us just refuse to do it.

We've all experienced at one time or another the angry, bitter tears of a child who has just learned that he or she cannot get what he or she wants. At some point comes the demand for an explanation, which is a long and painful ordeal, because adults have to break through the strength of the fantasy, discern and correct the false assumptions which support it, and deal with the emotions, fantasies, and magical thinking that are the bricks of these castles in the air.

Getting an adult to believe in childish notions or fantasies or supporting these already existent tendencies is this process in reverse. It is not helping them. It's hurting them. But an adult who is childish and acts upon childish impulses is easy to manipulate and control.

Look at how the products on this website are advertised. Go through the copy and count the number of outrageous claims, and see how they entice the reader to fantasize and how the copy supports the inclination to think like a child who wants to believe that wishing for a pony hard enough will make the wish come true... and how the copy says that, yes, you will get what you wish for... if, that is, you buy the products.

I don't think LSC is filled with greedy monsters. Like most people in the field, and like many people in advertising and marketing, they believe it. So, in their minds they aren't deceiving and crippling, they're enlightening and supporting.

At some point or another we get cold water splashed in our faces. We wake up and smell the coffee. It isn't pleasant, but we are better off for it. It is better that you don't get what you wish for. There are Twilight Zone episodes about what it would be like if that sort of thing happened, and they are horrific.

Building a compelling vision is one thing, thinking, believing, and behaving like a child is another. I am all for building rich representations of what you want and engaging in imaginary rehearsals as a means to achieving your goals. I do it myself whenever I have to make a presentation or perform in various ways. Doing so has its advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it's better not to and to just wing it (with suitable preparation beforehand). As someone said (was it Mark Twain?), it takes a great deal amount of research and practice to prepare for an improvisational speech.

I think that instead of telling children (or adults) that imagining, wanting, and believing gets them what they want, maybe we should educate them about the myriad of tasks that are involved in actually turning visions into reality. Take them through any endeavor from conception to planning to execution and error and mishap handling to ultimately dealing with the maintenance of the creation. A firm base in reality helps people deal with the real world realistically. Wool-gathering doesn't make it happen, work does.