Is the Law of Attraction Legit?

One of the most popular philosophies in the Western world that is taught in new-thought circles is the Law of Attraction. This idea that our thoughts affect reality is even creeping into the church, despite having no support in Scripture or the observable world. By using Christian terminology and scientific concepts, the Law of Attraction has been widely accepted and taught by people of all ages on platforms like TikTok. This idea that we can manifest our deepest desires simply by thinking about them is indeed attractive, but just because something feels good doesn't make it good. Neither does thinking it's good make it good.

What is the Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction is a system of thought that teaches principles that we can attract what we want into the external world around us whenever we align our emotions and thoughts with the outcomes we desire. Do you want a new car? Simply think about good things that will lead to getting the car, and make declarations that you are able to do it, and that the universe will give it to you. This will cause the universe to act in your favor and manifest your desires into reality because the universe is connected to our minds. In this belief, like attracts like, which is odd considering it uses scientific concepts to support it (more on this later). One of the main methods to cause the universe to manifest your desires is to make verbal declarative statements, called "I am" statements. By saying them out loud, the universe is more likely to hear you and take action.

If you want success and a good career, align your thoughts with things like success, imagine what you will do when you get there, list all of the things that make you feel good about that desire, and then declare to the universe that you will receive it, and walla, you will get success and a career. The more positive a mental state (thoughts and emotions), the more likely an outcome will happen.

“The law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the experiences in life, corresponding with your habitual, characteristic, predominant mental attitude.”¹

This philosophy has exploded in popularity in recent years, ever since the release of a book called The Secret in 2006 that heavily discussed the Law of Attraction. It was then made into a documentary in 2009, and since then, mystics, celebrities, laymen, and internet "geniuses" have claimed it to be true. One of the head proponents pushing this is Oprah Winfrey, who says that The Secret contains everything she has been attempting to teach for her entire career.²

History of the Law of Attraction

The belief in the Law of Attraction (LOA) can be traced as far back as the new-thought movement in the 19th century, with people like Phineas Quimby (1802-1866) and Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910). The name of the Law of Attraction was also coined by the Luciferian Occultist Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891). She would also go on to found the Theosophical Society in 1875, a group dedicated to studying and synthesizing different religions and belief systems into the philosophy of Theosophy, but more on that later. Fast forward almost 200 years, and it's also creeping into certain areas of the wider Church of the West.²

Some proponents of the LOA claim it to be a continuation of ancient pagan beliefs handed down by mystics for centuries. They are not completely wrong, as LOA has been built by many different people, but not a line of "masters" that handed down the belief system over thousands of years. But just because it doesn't have direct roots to paganism doesn't make it a good thing to be practiced. The LOA finds its birth in 19th-century American History (much like Mormonism), a time when the scientific and the spiritual were being decided by men of the day. This time period would see multiple attempts at blending scientific concepts with religious ones into a systematic belief system, and the LOA being one of these attempts. LOA proponents see the mind as connected to an unseen creative force that gives rise to the outside reality around us. At the extreme end of LOA, a more idealistic view of nature arises, where reality is wholly born from the human mind. While more mundane positions still hold that a lot of our experiences are mind-dependent, and not entirely reality-warping.

Thoughts are seen to change the physical world, but in a different manner than an action would. This idea of mind action causing physical effects can be traced back to Rhonda Byrne's 2006 book, The Secret. In it, she claims that physical reality can be altered by the change of one's emotions and thoughts to align with one's deepest desires for one's life. Other teachers of LOA claim that we can transcend into higher spiritual states through manifestation over many different lifetimes, which highlights the synthesis of different opposing belief systems. In this case, LOA seems to have borrowed a mix of occult practices and beliefs from Buddhism. They posited a mechanism that causes the metaphysical desire to manifest into material reality. An unobservable, unconscious, but aware, natural force that is connected to our minds. Although modern versions pervert concepts in quantum mechanics to support their beliefs.

In the 19th century, the medium through which thoughts manifested was called the Ether, which was seen in the scientific community to be the medium by which forces interacted with nature. But LOA redefines the Ether to be a creative, but unconscious, natural force that obeys our desires. They borrowed a concept from theories of the day, but radically redefined it to be personified. Then, as electromagnetism and quantum theory were developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries, LOA used energy fields and quantum phenomena as evidence that thoughts alter reality. Not surprisingly, LOA proponents always misrepresent whatever scientific concept they are trying to describe, which leads them to their erroneous conclusions.

This belief was very grounded in early spiritualism, which is a topic for another article, and was seen as a science that people were able to study. Henry Olcott would go on to found the Theosophical Society with Helena Blavatsky in 1875. Theosophy is a school of thought developed in the 19th century, which taught a mix of many different pagan and occult teachings, like reincarnation, a universal mind equal to nature, secret wisdom, and higher spiritual states of knowledge, rituals, chants, and manifestation. Helena was a luciferian who taught that she could draw secret wisdom from esoteric traditions that were passed down to her from a line of mystical "masters" that gave her spiritual knowledge, and Henry taught that spiritual knowledge was governed by laws similar to natural laws that anybody could study. Theosophy was heavily influenced by the LOA and would continue to take concepts from scientific theories to mix with their metaphysical laws of universal abundance, which are invoked by the mind. And they still are to this day.

This would eventually begin to mix with American Christianity into the cult of Christian Science led by Mary Baker Eddy. In Christian Science, sickness is interpreted as a deviation from God's love, and by saying I am affirmations, one can change the world by a change of mind. The sicker you were, the more "faith" you required, where faith is not trust in God, but rather affirmation of yourself. Healing was a byproduct of prayer, but the emphasis of prayer is not reliance on God and communication with Him through the Holy Spirit, but rather the declaration of the prayer itself about you receiving your desires. Not long after it was created, they would adopt the name Christian Science, leading to two major heretical movements. Christian Science and New Thought. Both of them use Christian terminology, but radically redefining them to heretical definitions. They would go on to examine different religions and belief systems, while taking out the topics they liked and ignoring the ones they didn't. Things like meditation and a concepts of a universal oneness (the Brahmah). Many Buddhist teachings were borrowed, but the idea of a state of nothingness and its connection to Nirvana were ignored in favor of ideas about higher states of spiritual awareness and knowledge. It is cherry-picking at its finest.

By the close of the 20th century, more modern versions of the LOA were developed. Versions of a wealth and health gospel would be taught, where wealth can be achieved through I am affirmations and manifestation. Books like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich would be published that taught a more modest version of LOA, where thoughts affect reality via human action based on thought changes. Others, like The Power of Positive Thinking, would be a little more metaphysical, but not as direct as 21st century versions. Then, in 2006, The Secret was released, which is by far the most popular book on manifestation and LOA. It goes to great lengths to attempt to flesh out claims that thoughts directly cause desires to manifest into physical reality. In 2009, it was made into a documentary that heavily expanded upon its Western popularity. Moving to today, twenty-years after the publication of The Secret, it has heavily mixed into Christian circles with Christian Science, the Prosperity Gospel, the Wealth and Health Gospel, and the Self-Help Gospel. They sometimes use Christian terminology, by radically redefining them to fit into their pagan belief system.³

Should the Law of Attraction Even be Considered a Law?

Should the Law of Attraction be viewed as similar to a natural law, like the law of universal gravitation, that can be studied? Imagine you participate in a lottery drawing. As time passes, and it gets closer and closer to the time to call the winning numbers, you and other people begin to hype yourselves up. You begin to fantasize about what you will do with the money; you may save some of it, invest all of it, spend some, donate some, or use it to start a business. You are constantly thinking positive thoughts about winning, affirming the reality that you will win outloud to your group of friends. But no matter what you have done or will do, only one person will win, and the chances that it is you are extremely low. What you and just about every other participant did was practicing princples of the LOA, yet nothing happened. Only one person ends up winning the money. All of these people exhibited the correct conditions to cause their desires to manifest, but nothing was attracted from their inner world to their outer world. The chances of winning were not changed, and only one person won.

A natural law is a statement of an order or relation of values or quantities that are invariable in their behaviour under given conditions. What we have here is a cause without the effect. A hit or miss. The LOA does not work invariably under the conditions it implies. Every time you mix baking soda with vinegar, carbon dioxide is released in a chemical reaction. If you drop a heavy cube of iron off a house, it will always fall to Earth due to its gravitational attraction to it. In order for the LOA to be an actual law that can be studied, it must always act the same under its given conditions. If it doesnt, then it cannot be studied because there is no repeatability, and it cannot be a law.

Other Explanations for Success in One's Life

Well... maybe the LOA is not like a natural law, in that it only works in the general scope of things. If you put your mind on something, affirming it and making declarations to yourself, then it increases the likelihood of achieving said task/desire. It is almost as if when you want to do something, you are more likely to do it than when you don't want to do it. But is this an underlying law of the universe, like a physical law? What about all of the stories and claims of success from the LOA?

Let us consider some alternate explanations for why somebody may gain wealth. Success may come as a byproduct of the improvements a person makes when they attempt to practice LOA. By matching your inner thoughts with a desire you want, you may begin to walk in more confidence, with more alertness to opportunities, and decisiveness, which are all objectively good things that may help you succeed in your career. Changing these aspects of your life may improve your mood and encourage you to make further changes to your personality for the better. You may become more social and compassionate towards people and begin to care about your job, not just as a job, but as a career to be pursued. So when people see some success as a result of making these changes, they may falsely attribute those outcomes to some unseen force that permeates the universe rather than their objectively positive lifestyle changes. Moreover, this represents a simpler explanation than an unobservable spiritual force that can't even be described with mathematics, as every other law can.

Successes may also simply be a coincidence. You may be wanting soemthing that will happen regardless. But correlation is not causation, and just because a desire may be developed before an event, that does not mean it caused that event. Here's an example. You begin working a job, and unbeknownst to you, every new employee receives a raise at their 6-month mark. 2 months before your raise, you begin practicing LOA, and not long afterwards, you get your raise at work. The raise you wanted did not come because of your practice of LOA; rather, it would have happened regardless of your thinking about it or not. Moreover, experiments using pigeons have been done by B.F. Skinner to test this.⁴ They were put into a box, and food was dropped into the box every 15 minutes. But more and more food was added with each drop, which caused the pigeons to believe they were doing actions that caused a reward of a larger amount of food. It was observed that the pigeons developed abnormal behaviours because they expected rewards. One bird would thrust its head towards a specific corner of the box, and two developed a pendulum motion with their heads that would speed up and slow down to a stop. This supports the idea that we may falsely attribute certain actions to specific outcomes when it was just a coincidence to begin with.

Finally, success may be the result of selective awareness. Selective awareness is when someone's mind highlights certain events or observations that support a preconceived belief while ignoring those that contradict that belief. In other words, they become aware of stimuli and data they were not actively aware of before, because they now see that stimuli as important or significant. Say you walk your dog, taking the same route at the same time every day. You have never been one to care for money, and seldom find spare change on the ground, not that you are looking for it anyway. Then, let's say you begin to practice LOA and attempt to manifest wealth. Now, your brain is filtering information differently, considering money as a topic of concern. You are now actively aware of money, and you start to find spare change on your dog walking route. It was always there, but now that you want money, you are more likely to see it than when you were't actively searching for it. People who practice LOA expect the universe to send them abundance, and may begin to notice spare change on the ground believing it was placed there by the universe, when the reality is, it was always there; they were just never looking for it.

These events were happening at a normal rate beforehand, but they were never actively looking for them and thus never came into their awareness until they recognized it at a later time. There are far simpler explanations that are more likely and do not posit unobservable explanatory entites on a universal scale. Therefore, the LOA cannot be an actual law and fails as an explanation for success in some people's lives.²

An Attractive Quantum Perversion

If you recall, I already mentioned that LOA proponents misuse scientific concepts and mix them with metaphysical concepts to make erroneous claims. They tend to take concepts from theories and interbreed them with their belief system to produce completely unobservable, often unfalsifiable, metaphysical claims about reality. And they fail for the same reasons exotic naturalistic cosmological models fail as the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. The LOA does not accurately represent the concepts it claims to describe. Proponents point to things like the Observer Effect as evidence that thoughts can alter reality, but this is far from the truth.

As more and more people began to try the LOA after the release of The Secret in 2009 with failure, some people began to once again look towards quantum physics as a way to justify their beliefs. They would go on to reference things like the double-slit experiment, quantum leaps, and the collapse of the wave function as proof that our minds create reality.

The Double-Slit Experiment

The Double slit experiment is often cited as evidence that the mind causes reality to manifest. They claim that human observation forms the material world, and if our observation can affect the behaviour of photons, so too can our thoughts and desires. But this is not what quantum physics says. Observation does not mean human consciousness directly, as the interaction of particles with macro-scale objects (like measuring equipment) causes the wave of potentialities to collapse to a specific position. Although the line of causation would end at the human mind assembling the experiment, this does not represent a direct cause, but an indirect chain of causes. This is a ways away from the concept that our thoughts affect reality in alignment with those thoughts. The human mind only has an indirect causation that causes the actualization of a range of potential material states. Moreover, the human mind does not create reality in this sense either, as the entire universe is in a state of decoherence before observation. Decoherence is when a quantum system interacts with things in the macro-scale environment, like energy fields, temperature, and other particles, which narrows the range of potential states that may actualize upon observation. So it is not your thoughts that create reality; the universe is there when you are not observing it.

A neat fact here is that the concepts of decoherence and the collapse of the wave function themselves do not determine why the universe we observe is the one that manifests, as the outcome should be random and not determined and ordered. Yet we observe a very ordered and fine-tuned finite universe.

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum entanglement is when pairs or groups of particles become linked or correlated so that they are in a unified quantum state described by their wave function. This makes it so that any observation on one particle will instantly determine the state of the other. Entanglement is used by LOA proponents to suggest that every person's consciousness is connected to the universal quantum field. Just like how two particles can be correlated no matter their distance, if they avoid decoherence, so too are thoughts entangled with the universe. But how can the behaviour of particles be extrapolated to thoughts being connected to the universe? There is no logical warrant at all for this conclusion, and thus it fails as a valid argument in favor of LOA. It also misrepresents entanglements, because nowhere is human consciousness included in it. Moreover, there is no "quantum field" but rather many different fields that correspond to types of particles we observe in the universe.

Electric Thoughts and Magnetic Emotions

In a complete electrical circuit, an electric field surrounds the wire (voltage) and causes electrons to slowly move (amperage), which generates a magnetic field in and around the space of the wire. The collaboration of the electric field with the magnetic field allows electromagnetic energy flux to travel through the space around the wire to terminate at the load, say a light bulb. Similarly, LOA proponents claim that thoughts generate electric fields, and emotions generate magnetic fields that extend to several feet from your body to become entangled with the quantum field that transfers desires into reality. But this is a perversion of quantum field theory and electromagnetism in the brain.

There is no such thing as a single "quantum field," as quantum field theory posits many different underlying fields that permeate all of space that give rise to the actualization of different particles we observe. These fields are governed by the laws of physics, so that their interactions follow a regular pattern to produce the macro-scale universe we see today. LOA is mixing a tiny bit of truth with a lot of lies. Emotional states in the brain do generate magnetic fields, but they also produce electric fields. So the claim that emotions generate magnetic fields only is wrong. Likewise, so too does brain activity generate both electric and magnetic fields. But these fields are extremely weak, with values in femtotesla (10^-15 Tesla). For comparison, the Earth's magnetic field is 10⁵ times greater than the one generated by our brains. Moreover, we need sensitive equipment attached to a person's head to detect these fields, so the claim that these fields can extend up to several feet is not true.

There is zero evidence that these fields affect material reality, as they have been detected by extremely sensitive equipment up to 63cm away from the brain, which is not strong enough or far enough for what LOA claims.⁵ As mentioned before, when you align your thoughts and emotions with a desire, your brain filters information in a way oriented towards that desire. This helps you recognize opportunities that align with your goals and the data relevant to them. This is not in any way, shape, or form your mind directly affecting the state of the material world through an unseen universal consciousness.

What Does the Bible Say About The Law of Attraction?

The Bible is very clear about practicing things such as the LOA. It actually calls it sorcery. Sorcery is any attempt to alter a supernatural force through your own will, power, and practices. The LOA is based on the principle that there is a metaphysical force that will work in your favor and obey your desires if you tap into this knowledge of manifestation. Sorcery can open people up to demonic experiences. The Bible is also clear that demons can manipulate things in our lives to fool us into false beliefs that don't glorify Jesus.

The core issue lies in how the LOA views God as an impersonal universal energy that human minds manipulate through thought rather than a personal being. This framework denies the personhood and sovereignty of God, completely avoiding the Biblical understanding of a God with free will and emotions who maintains complete control and existence of creation. It denies the fact that God has complete control over the universe, and no matter what man does by his will, God's will be done. Where the LOA teaches that people control their own destinies and reality, the Bible offers a different reality where God ordains all days before they ever occur.

Another core issue is the underlying temptation that humans can become God through our knowledge and will. This echoes the lie that satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden, questioning God's sovereignty and promising that we can become gods ourselves. This same lie is what led humanity to disobey God and separate itself from Him in the fall, exactly how satan's rebellion failed. The LOA also perverts prayer, focusing on the desire of the want of the prayer, rather than an outlet for humans to rely on and communicate with God. But it is not humans who engage in communication in prayer; it is the Holy Spirit who enables a person to receive revelation from God. God controls all things, and the path to human fulfillment is not aligning your thoughts with your desires, as they may be wrong, but rather aligning yourself with God's revealed will in the person of Jesus Christ, allowing Him to slowly replace your desires with His.^{6, 7}

Prayer combined with faith in the true God produces results (Matthew 21:21-22; Mark 11:22-24). Seeking God's kingdom first is what brings us provision, but not solely material abundance (Matthew 6:25-33; Luke 12:22-31). And asking according to God's revealed will ensures that He hears and answers (1 John 5:14-15). The LOA changes God to one who obeys our will and desires. We replace God with whatever we want Him to be. We set ourselves as our God, our Idol, and one that is bound to fail. The LOA views God as part of the universe, as some unconscious force that obeys our thoughts and emotions. Moreover, this pantheistic view of the universe is not supported by any observable evidence about the universe. There is simply nothing we see in the heavens or in our descriptions of nature that supports the belief that there is some underlying natural force that obeys what we say out loud. No matter how much I think about Schnozz, Schnozz will never manifest into reality, and neither will anything else I think super hard about.

Schnozz will unfortunately never menifest into my life.

It is blatantly obvious that the LOA is a pseudoscientific cult belief system. It references gross misrepresentations of scientific concepts, posits extremely illogical explanatory entities, and exhibits a bloated ontology with no observational confirmation. Repeatability is what confirms something like a law, and the LOA has no regularity to it at all. The most likely explanation is that people are experiencing selective awareness and cherry-picking events that support their beliefs. The Law of Attraction has been debunked. If you remain unconvinced, that is okay. God created you with free will, and that entails that you have a right to be wrong. God Bless.

(1) (Charles Haanel, The Master Key System)

(2) The Law of Attraction Debunked, https://youtu.be/86IQa-ra3Uk?si=wX6mwmkoVErCV22w

(3) Manifestation: The Worst Self-Help Philosophy, https://youtu.be/tYTlBx51o1k?si=VnTHbDQTFdVSVgeF

(4) (Superstition' in the Pigeon, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 38, Pg 168–172)

(5) (Measuring the Electromagnetic Field of the Human Brain at a Distance Using a Shielded Electromagnetic Field Channel, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9049916/)

(6) (Got Questions Ministries, Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered, Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013)

(7) (Doug Addison, Personal Development God’s Way, Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2010)