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Michael Bernard Beckwith

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The Law of Attraction: Does It Grant Us an Evolutionary Edge?

Posted: 11/16/10 08:56 AM ET

Why is it that just by walking into a room some people light up the atmosphere with their presence? Why, when certain individuals speak, do their listeners become spellbound, while someone talking about the same subject is met with yawns? What I'm describing are those individuals whose magnetism is so potent they effortlessly make a dynamic impact. No form of social networking, marketing, or résumé reveals more about us than the vibratory frequency that radiates from our being.

Did you know that you have a magnetic field that draws to you the people, experiences and things that mirror the vibratory equivalent of your thoughts, perceptions, opinions, beliefs, insights -- in short, your overall state of consciousness? Consciousness determines most of what unfolds in our life. How we interpret, integrate and respond to that evolutionary process determines the rest. We are all -- consciously or unconsciously -- evolutionists, constantly co-creating, regenerating, transforming and emerging through application of the laws governing the universe.

Before I describe the evolutionary progression of the law of attraction, let's pause to consider vibration itself. Vibration is the motion, the movement of energy. Modern science reveals that our universe is made up of electronic vibrations, cosmic currents of invisible, intelligent energy. To understand this at the kitchen sink level of every day life, in the 60s it became commonplace to describe how we did or didn't vibe with another person. How is such a determination made? When we meet someone there is an energetic exchange that occurs: we receive an energetic current from them, and we send one out to them. How the vibrational blend of our individual energies is interpreted determines the chemistry we sense we do or don't share with another person (or a group of people). Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are constantly radiating energy into the atmosphere we inhabit.

"Spiritual magnetism," says Paramahansa Yogananda, "... is the power of the soul to attract or create whatever it needs for all-round happiness and well-being." He is describing our inherent soul-capacity to consciously operate the law of attraction and draw into our magnetic field whatever is required to support our fundamental life structures as we grow, develop, and expand in consciousness with an "all needs met" awareness and gratitude.

To accelerate your magnetic frequency and manifest your vision for your life, you must enter the laboratory of your own mind and soul and evolve through three domains:

  • Discovering, activating, expressing and promoting your gifts, talents and skills, which attunes you to the law of divine right action;
  • Moving into a deeper spiritual understanding and practice of working with the laws governing the universe through affirmative prayer, Life Visioning, and visualization, which attune you to the law of attraction;
  • Practicing meditation and surrender at such a depth that you no longer need to attract anything because you live in alignment with the law of radiance which automatically provides all that is required to sustain you and cause you to flourish.

  • Living in the first domain provides an entry into the understanding that you have come on the planet with a purpose, that you are an "on purpose" being endowed with tremendous capacities, powers, and qualities. Living in the second domain provides factual evidence that you can indeed consciously participate in the co-creation of your life in attunement with the law of attraction. The third domain, living in attunement with the law of radiance, causes the emergence of your essential self, which is to say that you live from the inside out.

    Biologist Rupert Sheldrake said that a thought held in mind manifests when conditions are right. Now he's not suggesting that we passively wait for the right conditions to finally, magically show up. It is up to us to actively participate, to consciously contribute to the process of co-creating the right conditions for our inner vision to outwardly manifest. We do this by first cultivating an intention to educate ourselves on the universal laws governing the planet, how they function and how we may consciously apply them to the various aspects of our life.

    Next, we begin to experiment with these laws in the laboratory of our consciousness, not in a big serious way, but in a playful, trusting mindset of wonder and appreciation. We then discover that we live in a realm of infinite possibilities, that we have been fully equipped to live our highest potential. We radiate compassion, unconditional love, peace, joy. We begin to consciously realize our oneness with source, our interconnectedness to all life. We no longer consider our life as a problem to be solved but rather as a mystery to be lived and celebrated. We realize that we are spiritual beings having a human incarnation in which we are the writer, actor, producer, and director of the part we play on the stage of life.

    Living in harmony with the laws governing the universe fulfills the mandate of your soul-call, not by words, but by proof.

    The Life Visioning Process (LVP), originated and trademarked by Michael Bernard Beckwith, is available in a six-CD set, a Life Visioning Kit, and book to be released in 2011. Please visit www.agapelive.com for these and other Beckwith products.

     
     
     
    Why is it that just by walking into a room some people light up the atmosphere with their presence? Why, when certain individuals speak, do their listeners become spellbound, while someone talking abo...
    Why is it that just by walking into a room some people light up the atmosphere with their presence? Why, when certain individuals speak, do their listeners become spellbound, while someone talking abo...
     
     
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    HUFFPOST BLOGGER
    Ronald B. Robinson
    Keeping the Jesuit Tradition Alive
    11:22 AM on 12/13/2010
    cont'd...So rather than get serious treatment, like EMDR etc. to reprogram their nervous systems and receive help in establishing healthy, co-responsive, and emotionally giving friendships and relationships, they go to their “self-empowerment” forums, spiritual centers, meditate, etc. and convince themselves that they’re on the path of “enlightenment” while expecting others to treat them with “unconditional love.” It’s time we EVOLVE beyond this anti-social form of liberation in the spiritual domain and reductive individualism in the scientific domain.

    Brother David Steindl-Rast has it right. Unconditional GRATEFULNESS will help animate Mbiti’s “I am because WE are…” and is a wonderful antidote to the self-centeredness of Western spirituality and science. This may not fit the current, multi-marketing business model of the Western new age spirituality and self-empowerment movements, especially as they attempt to bypass mainstream psychological, clinical, and religious models, even as they selectively quote from science. And it certainly doesn’t fit the mainstream grant and pharmaceutical funding machine of the sciences. But it’s where science and spirituality need to form a new nexus if we are to EVOLVE our Consciousness, which is social, cultural, and collective to the bone. For truly, “I am because WE are, and since WE are, therefore I am.”
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    HUFFPOST BLOGGER
    Ronald B. Robinson
    Keeping the Jesuit Tradition Alive
    11:20 AM on 12/13/2010
    Cont'd...“New Age spirituality” & Ayn Rand/Rupert Murdoch inspired “self-empowerment” forums, like Landmark, make the same, Eurocentric mistake as their scientific brethren, no matter how much they quote Eastern religious personalities or preach “Oneness.” Their implicit cogito is, “I am therefore you are.” Each individual is responsible for their OWN emotions, their OWN evolution, and there is no “right or wrong,” etc. So no matter how abusive to others they might be, it’s the other who must take responsibility for creating their OWN emotional and mental distress, and being a “victim.” etc. In other words, it’s the perfect “spiritual path” for the sociopath, and affords those who’ve been abused and traumatized with the perfect out to do the same to others, since they don’t have a sense of the primacy of our mutual relationality, co-responsiveness, and co-responsibility. Why? Because, fundamentally they have been taught that it’s all about “self” and “selfish actualization,” “getting their needs met,” “attracting what they want,” etc. It plays right into their sickness and affords them the kind of narcissistic “power” trip that temporarily allows them to bypass their issues around shame, blame, guilt, etc., since nothing they do is considered wrong. It makes it seem like they’re spiritually evolving because they’re “attracting” the kind of power that was taken away from them often through early childhood and/or social trauma and abuse, or various degrees of disorganized attachment relationships with their parents...
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    HUFFPOST BLOGGER
    Ronald B. Robinson
    Keeping the Jesuit Tradition Alive
    11:05 AM on 12/13/2010
    Great 2 C U here Rev.
    As you know, the nexus between spirituality and science inspires my research. And what science is discovering about humans is that it’s a fallacy to consider us as individuals independent of the web of interactions that we dynamically co-create with others. None of us came here alone. We all came here as the unity of egg and sperm connected in the womb with our mothers, themselves embedded in a web of social, cultural, ecological, and environmental connections, interactions, and circumstances. Combined and in interaction with our genes, which program us to be inherently social and connected to others, these social factors etc. already begin to wire our brains and bodies as fetuses. When we are born, other people serve as our frontal lobes, and the wiring and development continue. We are not just vibrationally connected – we are neurobiologically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially interconnected.

    That’s why I love the African religious scholar, John Mbiti’s cogito: “I am because WE are, and since WE are, therefore I am.” Yet, despite these findings, science is still culturally immersed in the “fallacy of the individual.” Of course we’re individuals. But that’s an impoverished view given the dynamic social interconnections and other people who exist as interacting neuronal populations in our brains...
    11:36 AM on 11/26/2010
    It is true that you can attract things into your life if you are thinking about them... but it also helps if you are able to create an emotional feeling of already having what you want... and a very positive emotional feeling at that.
    It doesn't really matter what systems you use; religious teachings, visualization boards etc, providing the system you use gives you the right "Placebo Hit" - to activate "your" power of belief. Then... you're going to start seeing some changes.
    http://www.beyond-the-law-of-attraction.org/universal-law-of-attraction.html
    08:31 AM on 11/19/2010
    Thank you for this post, Rev. Insightful, loving and powerful.
    This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
    06:36 AM on 11/19/2010
    I remember reading the book, The Luck Factor where they do this experiment for people who self identify as either being lucky or unlucky people. The researcher sets up conditions for every person to have the same opportunity to find money along the path to a seminar and to meet a wealthy person who was interested in investing in new projects. The self identified "unlucky" individuals did not find any of the money (intentionally left along the ground as they walked to the seminar) and did not meet or speak to the wealthy investor in the audience. All of the self indentified "lucky" people all found the money, and each"happen" to meet and spoke to the investor while they were at the seminar.

    The conclusion of the book was that we all have opportunities surrounding us in life, but some people are closed to receiving them while others are opened for them.
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    HUFFPOST SUPER USER
    xanxia
    Dazed and Confused
    10:35 PM on 11/18/2010
    I've loved this exciting article! You are very right :D Put a huge smile on my face
    07:07 AM on 11/18/2010
    Those are the people that we laugh at on shows like "America's got talent", they try and try again, they travel to the next place where they can have a new go, they want it so bad, but they just don't have the talent.

    Maybe they have never seen Leni Riefenstahls "Triumph of the will", but they are sure that determination will win, it simply cannot fail, they want to believe in something that is so obviously wrong. A sad way of life in my opinion. Just believe and it will happen, in the meantime you can be a clown on television. Maybe you want so much to be a financial genius but just doesn't have the real world talent. Just think of Madoff. We can only try to understand these people because they are out there and they are doing everything they can for their believes.

    Who want's cold and damp weather? Every year millions of my countrymen (Denmark) wish for a nice long warm summer after 8 months of gray drizzle. There must have been a lack of willpower ever so often..
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    Bostontru2u
    Keep on Moving...The Left Way.
    03:36 AM on 11/18/2010
    It's all true. That kind of energy can be felt around the world even through the computer.
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    HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
    General Public
    liberal, progressive, atheist, Democrat, SubGenius
    01:30 AM on 11/18/2010
    Sorry, there are plenty of good people out there who do not attract others naturally and have a tough time of things despite being good, honest, decent human beings, yet plenty of vicious lying, cheating scoundrels who are so full of charisma they can talk people into doing anything. I don't think there is any correlation between someone having a lot of charisma and the person actually being a good person. The people who have more charisma than anyone else are con artists, who have a certain amount of natural charisma but work on developing it even further so they can manipulate others. If charisma corresponded to being good, democracy would lead to people electing politicians who actually care about them and represent them rather than representing wealthy special interests and just pandering to ordinary people but never delivering anything good for ordinary folks. I must respectfully disagree with your theory, although I do like that you believe in evolution... most Americans actually don't believe in evolution and reject science, so you are ahead of the curve on that.
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    HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
    dartagnan
    09:19 PM on 11/18/2010
    "The people who have more charisma than anyone else are con artists, who have a certain amount of natural charisma but work on developing it even further so they can manipulate others."

    Right. Such people are called sociopaths. They are fairly common in politics, where if they last long enough they are called "statesmen."
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    HUFFPOST BLOGGER
    Jamie Frevele
    07:53 PM on 11/19/2010
    Agreed. I can't tell you how much the spiritual people I know pray and hope and wish without ever seeing any progress or change in their lives. Myself included. That's why I finally came to the realization that supernatural forces, whether they exist or not, simply have no control over our lives, nor do we have control over them.

    It's up to us to just be good to each other, and that's all we can hope for. Sometimes it actually happens!
    02:05 PM on 11/20/2010
    Praying and hoping and wishing actually have nothing to do with the Law of Attraction, except that you attract more of the state of praying, hoping and wishing. One of the reasons why people don't see results is that they don't get their heads around what the process is for using the LOA.
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    HUFFPOST SUPER USER
    Quincy Miller
    Think with your heart.
    11:40 PM on 11/17/2010
    Don't knock it until you've tried it. That would still allow you the scientific approach of experimentation, just on yourself. Then you could rightfully say that this article is bunk or not bunk. To say that it's bunk because you've never experienced it and don't believe it's possible is to take the same stance that you seem to oppose. I don't think most people are familiar with the latest theories of theoretical physics, but the consequences of some of those theories make this what this author wrote seem like common sense. That it doesn't jibe with your present worldview is besides the point. That's simply a matter of belief and preference. take the next step. Apply the scientific method to your spiritual life. Then, if you come up empty, so be it. You will have enjoyed the ride.
    11:10 AM on 11/19/2010
    Couldn't agree more-F&F #27.
    02:06 PM on 11/20/2010
    Fanned and faved!
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    HUFFPOST BLOGGER
    SoulBlazer
    Writer, traveler, wife, mother
    03:42 PM on 11/17/2010
    I love this article and find it to be true. I've met people who light up a room after leaving it.
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    HUFFPOST SUPER USER
    sLUCIDITy
    04:35 PM on 11/17/2010
    They dropped a cigarette on their way out?
    06:38 PM on 11/17/2010
    nice
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    Jewels23
    Whose woods these are I think I know.
    03:30 PM on 11/17/2010
    I have to say it.....if we expect journalistic integrity in our news and we criticize others for playing pretty loose with the facts -- why do we accept this type of pseudoscience be featured on my favorite news site?

    Once you start saying its just a piece in the Living section -- it doesn't really matter--You have accepted that truth, facts and critical thinking don't matter. Once you relax your BS meter it tends to stay off.
    10:52 PM on 11/17/2010
    Thank you!
    11:24 AM on 11/19/2010
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167

    Living section of this on line paper features different authors, that others may embrace, so fine if you don't. The beauty of it is that no one has to accept anything. BS meters everywhere stay pristine, lol.
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    Jewels23
    Whose woods these are I think I know.
    05:03 PM on 11/19/2010
    They can still do new-age type articles like this -- just get an editor to take out the science that is blatantly untrue. My fear is that so many people are scientifically illiterate that they can't tell what is true and what is just plain made up.

    We need a new word like truthiness to describe the trend to play pretty loose with scientific concepts -- perhaps it is scienciness.
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    HUFFPOST SUPER USER
    wandering girl
    grownup
    03:17 PM on 11/17/2010
    bunk
    09:33 AM on 11/22/2010
    Let me guess..... does your glass tend to be half empty?

    I've noticed something over the past few weeks..... more so than previously because now I'm paying more attention to it.

    If I'm walking down the street and I'm in doubt and worry, people avoid my gaze. They walk on by without any kind of acknowledgement. It's like they don't want to know me.

    If I walk down the same street and I'm on my purpose, feeling charged and "on", people look me in the eye when they walk by, and they smile or nod.

    Do I observe this because I'm delusional? Because I tend to see whatever I'm looking for? Because I have spinach stuck in my teeth?
    HUFFPOST SUPER USER
    vippy
    Carpe Diem!
    01:44 PM on 11/17/2010
    I have come to the conclusion that there are 3 kinds of people, the ones you like immediately, the ones you dislike immediately and the ones that your are aloof about, who can go either way after getting to know them better but there certainly is not instant fascination present.  Ever tried to work with someone who you dislike but you want to overcome it, impossible, shallow, a farce. 
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    HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
    dartagnan
    09:23 PM on 11/18/2010
    "Ever tried to work with someone who you dislike but you want to overcome it, impossible, shallow, a farce."

    I have often had to work with people I disliked, and generally managed to do it. Sometimes these work relationships were very productive.

    It is not essential to like someone personally to work with him/her effectively. It is possible to separate personal emotions from the work environment. I will be branded a sexist for saying this, but men seem to be able to do that better than women. I don't know if that's the result of our socialization or our genetic makeup, but I've often observed it.