Thinking with Somebody Elses Head

The Law of Attraction

It's being called the great secret of the universe, passed down through the ages, the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love ... well, you get the picture. Newton knew it, it is said. So did Carnegie, Beethoven and Einstein. The implication being that if you don't have everything, the secret will give it to you. Im Richard Lloyd Jones, Today on Thinking With Somebody Else's Head, we'll take a closer look at the Law of Attraction. That's the big secret that's being divulged in the viral video that's sweeping North America. But do their ideas tell the whole story? I think not. First of all, I have to admit it, I'm a little behind the curve when it comes to catching up on the trends sweeping North America. For one thing, I live in Brazil, which makes me at least six months late simply by virtue of geography. Stuff takes awhile to get here. But I finally got the chance recently to see this "ground-breaking feature length movie", as they call it in the marketing blurb on the site - which was written in a manner, by the way, suggesting that they were trying to capitalize on the success of the Da Vinci Code's so called esoteric legacy. The webpage and the film are dripping with an implied mystical wisdom that uses a common technique: mixing universal truths with dialectical inaccuracy that winds up leaving everyone confused. You know, in a recent teleclass I conducted in the U.S., this was something that came up again and again - people whod read all the books, attended all the seminars, watched all the videos, listened to all the tapes, who were totally confused about what was true or not. I started this podcast exactly to address that confusion, using the philosophical, theological and scientific knowledge coming out of Dr. Norberto Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy in Brazil.

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Today, Cesar Sos is with me again, one of the researchers into the Metaphysics of Dr. Keppe, here in Brazil. R: Cesar, your take of the law of attraction. C: In fact there is a law of attraction. But not in the way the movie puts it. Because if you think about the law of attraction and they even compare it to a magnet, as if you are a Magnet and you have a field around you and you attract things and the mistake in this thought is that you are the center of the universe, and the universe works for you. And its not exactly like that. You are just part of the universe. You may consider yourself like a note in a music scale and if you are not there, in the right place, at the right moment, doing your part, the music will not be effective, will not be harmonious. And so human beings, they are not made to be everything they want. They are made to be what they are. R: Well, you should probably define that a little more for us, Cesar. What is our place? What are the boundaries, if you will, that we need to consider when discussing the law of attraction? C: We have limits as human beings, like every single being in the universe has limits. I can not wish for what is beyond my limits. If Im thirsty and I drink one glass of water, I may wish to drink three or four or five, theres a limit in that. There is a limit in my wanting as well. In the movie, it gives the idea that your wish prevails over your nature, you understand? Im not a person capable or entitled like a God to say I want things that I dont deserve or that I dont need or that I must not use R: This touches actually on the issue of freedom which I considered a few weeks ago in this podcast with Dr. Claudia Pacheco. She said in that program that human beings are not free in the way they think. She was alluding to the consideration of many of the great philosophers, Max Scheler would be the most recent, I think, that postulated that there was a reality that existed independent of human experience. This is a huge philosophical consideration, since that it suggests that human beings are not the creators of reality, but participants in it. What do you think about all of this, Cesar?

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C: The question is, Richard, we have everything we need. The fact is that we unconsciously reject what is good for us. And this is our main pathology. Inconscientized you have an attitude which Dr. Norberto Keppe, a famous Austrian-Brazilian psychoanalyst, names inversion. This inversion process is the process of rejecting what you need. Rejecting even what you really want. What you know is good for you. This sounds crazy but it is exactly like that. For example, human beings, they want growth, economic growth, so they develop systems, develop enterprises, which are very effective in particular ways, but in general terms they are destroying the planet, as we can see. We have few years ahead if we do not change this course. R: And that is always a sobering point. We have to change, dont we? I mean just wanting more, more, more locks into the same old pattern. And thats proven itself to be a very destructive pattern. One of the groups here associated with Keppes work, is the Stop the Destruction of the World Association at www.stop.org.br And they talk a lot about the root cause of our problems. One of their conclusions, coming directly from Keppes work, is that our society has become sick. This is what Keppe calls sociopathology and it is something that the law of attraction movie never considers. How do you see that Cesar? C: You know, Richard, the law of attraction says that whatever you wish, whatever you think about you draw to you. What is missing in this movie is a consideration of how this applies to the people in Africa, for instance. How can we say that they are attracting to them this tremendous hunger and disease and misery? Do you see that the so called law of attraction doesnt apply here in this case? And thats why the people in the movie focus only on the individual manifestations of this law. A better job, better relationships, a bigger house. Its very superficial. But you know, our whole human society is responsible for the inequity in this world not only the individuals who live in an afflicted area. We have all helped to create a very unjust world, full of exploitation of those who are weaker, full of hypocrisy and lack of opportunity. In the first world, there is quite simply more possibility than insay Somalia. And thats not to the credit of the first worlders, or the fault of the Somalians, you see. So this is something that falls outside the law of attraction. And thats why no one in that movie talks for one second about deeply desiring world peace or social justice.

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R: So, how can we navigate through all this Cesar? Whats the way for us to be? So many of the techniques and schools of thought get all mixed up, as were exploring on this program. And thats why its called thinking with somebody elses head, because we are very often influenced by the thinking of other people, without understanding what the truth behind it all is. Help us make some sense of it all. C: There are many references about how to be happy. And even Christ said that the secret, the real secret for you to be happy, is to serve. Not to be served. And the consequences of wanting, wanting and wanting is to want the universe to serve you. And not you to serve the universe. So in this sense you see they are completely against what Christ said. In psychological terms there is a very important field of study: the three phases of development of the human being. When you are born, you are a child, you passed through the oral, anal and genital phase. And these phases are characterized by the fact that you are centered in yourself. What counts is your will. Whoever studies psychopathology deeply, deep psychology knows that these phases are pathological. Because the child wants everything for himself. So, if he doesnt have a proper education from his parents, he will be spoiled when he is an adult. He only wants, he wants the world to serve him, he wants his boss to serve him, he will not accept what he has. He will always want, and will be very unhappy. R: And is this not exactly whats happening? Particularly in the first world? We have everything and still feel were missing something. Maybe the real secret lies in the fact weve been looking in the wrong place for the answers. Im Richard Lloyd Jones. Thanks for listening.

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