The Dark Side of the Law of Attraction

What is the Law of Attraction?

The Law of Attraction [1] looks like one of the runaway hits of the self-help genre. It comes from the book The Secret, whose central claim is that the whole universe is connected to your own mind: when the power of your thoughts grows strong enough, it can influence the so-called "frequency of the universe" and draw to you anything you desire. So as long as your belief is strong enough, nothing is impossible. And every failure in life — including natural disasters and human tragedies — is, in truth, something you yourself attracted. The Law of Attraction is in fact a pseudoscientific theory, but I think the reason it caught on is that parts of it do rest on a genuine psychological foundation — for instance, that belief really is closely tied to personal success. What follows comes in two parts: first I will briefly introduce the psychological theories related to the Law of Attraction, including the Placebo Effect and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Then I will introduce the Just World Theory and use it to analyse the core idea behind the Law of Attraction, showing that the Law of Attraction is, in essence, an extremely self-centred and reality-detached theory. The Law of Attraction does not deserve to be called "self-help" at all; at most it is "self-help candy" — eating it may feel pleasant for a moment, but over the long run it can only harm your mental health, never help it.

Baselessly dragging in cosmic physics, exaggerating to court the crowd

One hallmark of pseudoscience is the haphazard use of completely irrelevant scientific vocabulary to dress up a theory and exaggerate its credibility — words like "frequency", for example. Many physical phenomena in the universe do involve frequency, and the workings of the brain do involve so-called brainwaves. But why should the frequency of your brainwaves influence the frequency of the entire universe? On this point, the Law of Attraction crowd can offer no reasonable explanation. What is more, to believe that the entire universe revolves around your own mind is not only without scientific basis, it is an extraordinarily self-centred attitude.

Of course, one of the dangerous things about the Law of Attraction is that, on the level of phenomena, parts of it are in fact correct. Take, for instance, the so-called Placebo Effect in medicine and psychology. When a patient takes a pill believing it to be medicine (when it is in fact usually glucose), it can help their condition — whether the illness is psychological or physical — and this is by now widely supported by the scientific community. Or take the so-called Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: suppose someone believes they have very little appeal to the opposite sex; their attempts to win someone over naturally tend to fail, because that belief shows in how they carry themselves, others readily pick up on their lack of self-worth, and failure follows.

That your beliefs influence outcomes is not just folk wisdom but a subject of psychological research. To take responsibility for your own beliefs and behaviour is a mature, proactive attitude to life. If we set aside the pseudoscience problem, what is wrong with the Law of Attraction encouraging you to take responsibility for your own beliefs? I think the biggest problem is that the influence of belief on outcomes has both a degree and a limit. As in the example above of pursuing women, life, academic achievement and family life do depend a great deal on personal belief and attitude, and holding different beliefs leads to different results. But that degree has its limits. For instance, a cancer patient does not get cured simply by naively believing "it will get better" — cancer does not just vanish without treatment (though, of course, viewing the illness optimistically does, in most cases, help). When people who oppose the Law of Attraction raise the counter-example of a patient who firmly believed they would recover yet died of cancer, the believers fall back on: "Actually, he died because he did not believe strongly enough that he would recover." How do you know he did not believe strongly enough? You do not. The fact that he died is taken as proof that he did not believe enough. This is a Circular Argument — it looks reasonable, but is absurd at its core.

Self-centredness taken to excess, lacking empathy, cold-blooded and unfeeling

"Do not concern yourself with the poor; do not do charitable work. Because charitable work only creates more misery, it does not solve the problem"– Wallace Wattles, one of the founders of the Law of Attraction
"Put your attention only on the rich, and turn a blind eye to the poor"– Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret

You need only think of the world's richest man, Bill Gates, to know that success requires no belief in the utter nonsense of the Law of Attraction. A more extreme version of the Law of Attraction lays the whole blame on the victim (Blame the Victim). For example: a woman is raped because her own beliefs drew the universe into raping her; someone is born into an age of war and famine because they drew the universe into casting them into that age. For the reasons above, this claim of course does not hold up, and it further reveals how poisonous the Law of Attraction is to the human heart.

The most extreme followers of the Law of Attraction believe that any misfortune you suffer is something you brought on yourself, and so leave no room for any sympathy. This mindset is quite similar to the Just World Theory proposed by the psychologist Melvin Lerner. The Just World Theory is a kind of Cognitive Bias — an attitude that holds the world must operate on "good is rewarded with good, evil with evil", and goes on to infer that every victim must have done something wrong. There is, of course, a very interesting phenomenon: when believers in the Just World Theory themselves meet with misfortune, they temporarily abandon this belief and blame their circumstances instead.

People who thoroughly believe (definition: anyone's circumstances are entirely, 100%  their own responsibility) in the Law of Attraction are usually very fragile psychologically, because they cannot bear the reality that so much in the world is beyond a person's control. The Law of Attraction grants them the illusion of control, and through it protects their fragile minds. For example, when a believer meets with misfortune, he can console himself: "Ah! I only need to believe a little more strongly, and next time it will not happen."

Towards a positive, realistic outlook on life

Although the Law of Attraction has many problems, the positivity and the sense of agency over your own world that it advocates do hold value for many people. It is just that the middle way matters most, and the reality is this: some things you can control, and some you cannot. Believing you can control nothing is not only detached from reality, it also leads to a collapse of the will; believing you can control everything leads to hysterical over-excitement, and is equally detached from reality. "Do everything within human power, then accept the will of heaven" is the rational and fitting attitude to life — though, of course, working out what falls under "human power" and what under "the will of heaven" calls for the wisdom of a lifetime. I am still in the midst of getting a grip on it myself. On this topic, though, there are two books I can recommend: the first is a classic of management studies, the first chapter "Be Proactive" of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ; the second is How to be a Stoic , an introduction to ancient Greek philosophy. The two books span past and present and illuminate one another; for the art of getting on in the world, both are of real benefit.

1 Note: this article addresses only the most extreme version of the Law of Attraction, meaning the view that everything anyone experiences is, entirely and without exception, caused by their own beliefs.