Interweave Newsletter

One of the latest cultural crazes is The Secret, a best-selling book by Rhonda Byrne which outlines what the author calls “the law of attraction” — the idea that desires, deeply held, have the power to attract the thing you hope for into your life. Put in the simplest terms, if you want it wholeheartedly enough, and don’t cloud your mind with doubt, it will come to you.

It’s fairly easy for some to dismiss such an idea as a childish delusion, mere wishful thinking—a perfect example of what psychologists call “magical thinking.” And, stated too simplistically, it probably is. But does that mean there’s no truth at all in the idea that desires deeply held and devoutly wished for, have no power to shape events?

True, most of us learn early on that wanting something really, really, really hard can be a set up for disappointment. A great deal of the maturing process involves learning how to navigate the landscape of unfulfilled or frustrated desire—to accept reality as it is, not as we might wish it.

But many, if not most, people also have experiences of strong desires that come true, sometimes in uncanny ways. I’ve certainly experienced it more than once, usually on the days when I feel “in the groove” spiritually, somehow living from my deep center. The day flows with amazing smoothness; people I’m thinking of calling call me “out of the blue,” and my inner aims for the day are fulfilled swimmingly. Conversely, if I’m in a negative, grumpy, world-resistant mood, it often seems as if events fight back: I encounter every red light, get stuck behind slow school buses, and am likely to miss an important connection with someone. Similarly, athletes talk about the almost magical quality of “being in the zone,” when the team acts like a well-tuned flock of birds, and a deep inner assurance of victory is borne out by external events.

As The Secret points out, great spiritual teachers through the ages have affirmed the power of prayer or meditation to open up connections that can bring blessing into our lives. Jesus of Nazareth, for example, says that if people “keep on asking, seeking, knocking” then they will have “the door opened.” His brother James writes about his own version of “the secret” in these words: “When you ask, you must believe, and not doubt…and it will be given to you.” In other words, praying for specific things can have specific results.

So, are these ancient spiritual teachers just peddling a religious version of “magical thinking?” And, even if that’s so, should we be in such a hurry to dismiss magical thinking as total nonsense?

Psychologists point out that magical thinking is a stage children pass through on the way to greater maturity. It’s a “primitive” form of reasoning, a simplistic way of thinking about the relationship of inner ideas and outer events. Children aren’t clear about how much power their thoughts and feelings have, but they do observe that sometimes inner feelings seem to provoke outside reactions.

Now, maturity surely means we learn that, quite often, “thinking doesn’t make if so.” But does it mean that “thinking never makes it so?” Why would evolution preserve the capacity for magical thinking (inner ideas influence outer events) if it had no survival value? Why do we pass through that state if we aren’t supposed to learn something from it? Maybe, like our capacity for language, or love, or reasoning, or music, or anything else, magical thinking is an immature form of something that could become more skilled, intelligent, and mature. Maybe that mature state of deep desire for the good is what spiritual masters like Jesus are talking about—a state so deep that it affects the way we behave, and finds some answering echo from the universe around us.

Carl Jung, the pioneering depth psychologist of the last century, observed in many of his patients uncanny examples of outer events matching inner states. He called it “synchronicity,” saying that when the depths of the psyche are stirred by an image or strong desire, outer events can really reflect inner states. Is this the “law of attraction” The Secret talks about?

Certainly superficial thinking doesn’t make things so. But maybe the spiritual masters did know, and teach, a secret about the deeper capacities of the psyche—about what can happen if an idea, a desire, a dream really takes a powerful hold on our inner being. If that’s so, it may matter profoundly—for either good or ill in our lives—what we set our hearts on.

Want to know more about what you can learn—pro and con—from “The Secret”? What are the possibilities? The pitfalls? Join Interweave Director Robert Corin Morris at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24 for a special evening program on the subject.