An Overstated Promise
At best, detractors say, the Law of Attraction overstates a promise that just thinking about something brings it to you. Further, critics argue, you cannot have irrefutable proof of the nonscientific claim that you can gain whatever you dream about or long for — it is not a hypothesis that can be proven through scientific method. Instead, they point out, savvy marketing, attention-grabbing buzzwords, catchy phrases, and the promise of getting something for (almost) nothing seem to have caught the imagination of Americans and the media.
Hype for Vulnerable and Gullible People
The disenfranchised, poor, aged, infirm, and gullible, critics say, have always been targets for schemes that claim to make their lives easier. When thoughts about great wealth, a Bentley, or a miracle cure don't materialize, disappointment doesn't begin to describe the feelings of the person who had believed in the promise of the Law of Attraction. Yet believers of the law have faith that it is always working to bring the fruits of your thinking into your life.
Could a single fearful thought passing through the mind manifest in your life?
It's unlikely that you would attract into your life the parallel of an isolated thought about something frightening. However, the more you experience the fear and allow it to build around a specific idea or image, the more likely you are to attract it.
Resonance with Older Ideas
The Law of Attraction has resonance with older books that contain similar ideas. Think and Grow Rich and The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie are just a few titles from other eras that preceded the current offerings of the Law of Attraction. The new works often feature a personal growth, self-help, or New Age focus while the earlier books targeted a different type of audience with content that was practical and inspirational.
Those earlier works explored ideas of positive thinking, the necessity of taking action, and the importance of having a belief in a higher power working with you. Hill's inspirational book was published almost three-quarters of a century ago. Although totally appropriate for its time in 1937, his book addressed a mostly capitalistic white male audience and gave many Depression-era people hope for a better life through application of certain principles.
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. — Henry Ward Beecher, nineteenth-century minister and abolitionist
Napoleon Hill interviewed five hundred of the wealthiest men of his lifetime. Born into a poor Virginian family in 1883 and orphaned by the age of twelve, Hill overcame poverty to become a journalist and lawyer. Scotsman and steel titan Andrew Carnegie became his mentor. Carnegie felt that others could create wealth for themselves if they understood his formula for building a stupendous fortune. He urged Hill to interview successful American businessmen like him to find out their success secrets. Hill did and shared his findings in books, lectures, and speeches.
Hill learned that any formula for wealth and success had to include such things as formulating a precise purpose, cultivating the desire for it to manifest, recognizing opportunity whenever and wherever it showed up, being persistent, cultivating success consciousness, perceiving advantage and new opportunities in every obstacle and adversity, and — perhaps most importantly — having a desire that is fueled by faith and charged with emotion. He also believed it wise to surround oneself with like-minded persons.
In his books, Hill wrote about his belief in the power of autosuggestion as a law of nature and suggested that our thoughts are like vibrations in the ether that are either negatively or positively charged by our emotions. The subconscious mind, according to Hill, must be influenced by emotionally charged thought mixed with faith if such thought is to bear results. Detractors believed that Hill's thinking was flawed. They asserted that it was foolhardy to believe that desire could turn into its tangible equivalent. Further, they argued that it was impossible to create something out of nothing.
Great leaders from myriad backgrounds have expressed their belief in the role of persistence in achieving success. Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United States, once remarked to a group of school children that “nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.” He noted that talent, genius, or education could not. “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent,” he emphasized.
