Aldous Huxley sums up manifestation nicely in his utopian novel Island.
“If prayers are sometimes answered it’s because, in this very odd psychophysical world of ours, ideas have a tendency, if you concentrate your mind on them, to get themselves realized.”
His words capture the essence of the belief that our thoughts can be causative in the world. Believers in a fundamentalist approach to manifestation or law of attraction teachings may object to Huxley’s words “sometimes” and “tendency.” A literal approach would say we are 100 percent responsible for our reality via our thoughts and consciousness without exception. In that view, there are no victims in any tragedy.
I, and many of the contributors to this blog, both honor tradition and take a more nuanced and critical view of beliefs about manifestation. We celebrate Huxley’s words “sometimes” and “tendency.” Yes, we believe thoughts are sometimes causative, but not always. We believe it’s time for a fresh look at manifestation and law of attraction teachings. For all the insights the pioneers of these teachings had, they were operating on scientific ideas now well over a century old and in a culture in which individuals were believed to be the sole architect of their lives. Quantum physics didn’t begin to arrive until the 1920s. We were still waiting on social science insights about how individual choice and opportunity are influenced by economic and political systems and institutions, and race, gender, and class.
Manifestation of desires can only happen in the context of those very human systems, institutions and cultural beliefs, and prejudices. All these factors are inherently limited because they are human. Yes, we and our cultures and institutions have the capacity to evolve and overcome limits but that also means we are always chasing our best and highest vision. There are real perceptual and systemic limits in any historical period and indeed in the present though it’s easier to see outdated beliefs from the past. It can’t be otherwise since we are in an evolutionary world.
So we argue for approaches to manifestation that are bold, experimental, innovative, and evolve while also being more compassionate towards life’s inevitable suffering and injustice. You aren’t responsible for every bad (or good) thing that happens to you.
The blog posts on this page present emerging ideas in manifestation to help you evolve your life and spirit.
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