META-ATTRACTIONS

In the last two Reflections I’ve described what we call a self-organizing attractors. In the human mind-body-emotion system, we can set frames of beliefs and intentions which, due to the lack of genetic content information about life or “instincts,” and the information that we set send commands to our nervous system to make the content of our beliefs real in our lives.

This basic mechanism is powerful. And yet in saying that, it is also not an absolute power. To be explicit— this does means that not everything you think, believe, or even intention will be attracted to you or that you will be able to make real. For one thing, fallibility is built into the system. Your thinking, believing, and intending is fallible and variable as it is influenced by numerous other things.

The system is also relative to, and dependent upon, the constraints of reality. It is required in all of our internal mapping through thinking, believing, and intending that we map things that are within the realm of possibility and that our maps be accurate enough to the territory so that we are not living in delusions and fantasies. The map must accord at least somewhat to the territory. It must have a similar structure to the territory. If it does not, we start to create and live in a fantasy world of make-believe that does not allow our neurology to actualize our content.

It is true that “as we think so we are,” that “thinking makes it so,” that believing is a powerful mechanism for health and success, but such thoughts (at whatever level) must be thoughts that can be actualized. That the thoughts send messages and commands throughout our mind and body and enable and empower us to act on them.

Thoughts are not magical. They do not “create” reality in some magical way. And this means that calling upon “the quantum dimension” doesn’t suddenly endow thoughts with supernatural power. Yes, I know that “quantum”is a sexy term and that using “quantum” as an adjective is very popular these days, but creating that label does not make it so. That’s why there are no such things as “quantum linguistics,” “quantum psychology,” “quantum understanding,” etc. And because these sexy-sounding PR phrases are captivating, but totally empty of actual references, they are meaningless goobledygook.

Yes, the ultimate bottom line of reality may involve the quantum world, but we do not live there. We do not drive quantum cars, we do not ride on quantum elevators, we do not go to quantum mechanics for car repair, or quantum builders to add on an addition to our house, or quantum interior decorators, or quantum doctors when we’re not feeling well or need surgery. With the bodies we have, we live at a much higher macro-level of life.

We do not even live our lives at the molecular level, let alone the sub-molecular level. That’s why we cannot and do not put our hands through solid furniture, cannot walk through walls, and cannot fall off a skyscraper without getting hurt. Stones crush our bones, speeding cars rip our fragile bodies apart, and spoiled food turns our stomachs. And even the best thought, the most powerful beliefs, and even the most innocent and focused intention, cannot prevent or stop these things. Think quantum thoughts all you want. But if you jump off a skyscraper or out of an airplane without a parachute, you will fall and you will suffer and probably kill yourself.

In the small book that’s now in bookstores, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006) quotes John Assaraf who says, “A thought has a frequency, we can measure a thought.” (p. 9). Again, a fascinating and even sexy kind of thing to day, but it is just not so. The author has confused levels. A “thought” exists at a macro-level of our phenomenlogical experience. What occurs at the level of the brain processing is the exchange of chemicals (neuro-transmitters, peptides, etc.) and the charging of protons and electrons as a bio-impulse moves along the neuro-pathways and the ions are exchanged in the cells. We can see and measure and somewhat understand these mechanisms, but these are not “thoughts” or “emotions” — those terms do not apply at that level, they apply as a much more macro-phenomena.

All of these bio-electrical and bio-chemical processes are the sub-strands and sub-layers that comprise a gestalt that we call “thoughts” or consciousness. So “thought” has no frequency. The overall functioning of the brain has frequencies and within those operations of the brain, we experience different kinds of thoughts.

The author Assaraf has also forgotten that the idea of “frequency” applied to thought is a metaphor — a metaphor! — not an empirical description. This is similar to the metaphor that is used throughout the book of magnetic attraction, “Thoughts are magnetic.” Yes, metaphorically. But no, not empirically. And this confusion of levels has led to non-sense and ignorant statements like the following, statements asserted without any evidence: “The law of attraction simply gives you whatever it is you are thinking about.” (p. 13) “Quantum physicists tell us that the entire universe emerged from thought!” (p. 15) “Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thought.” (p. 28)

Such over-simplistic explanations create several toxic thought viruses. The last statement implies there are no other factors, no other variables in the world except thought which, of course, is blatantly false. The first statement is indistinguishable from the magical thinking stage of cognitive development that occurs in children from 3 to 5 years of age, again implying that thought is the only creative factor and that there are no constraints of reality to interfere. If only! And the second statement is completely undocumented; I have never read a legitimate book on the subject that even comes close to asserting anything like that. Yes, the indeterminacy factor means that we tend to observe what our assumptions and premises prepare us to observe since the observer influences the field. But that’s a very long way from saying that the universe emerged from thought!

There’s several dangers in this. Exaggerating, confusing levels, failing to index statements, failing to include the other multiple contributing factors etc. leaves the impression that people are “gods” or at least almost all-powerful in creating reality. Not so. Where is fallibility in all of this? Where is mortality? Where is social reality? Where are the constraints of reality?

So to ameliorate all of this, the truth is more balanced. We do create ideas and meanings and as we hold them in mind, we send messages and commands to our neurology to try to actualize them in our bodies. Try to make them actual and real, however, is a very different thing from thought absolutely creating your reality. If it did, the people in the back rooms of psychiatric hospitals would be some of the most powerful people on the planet instead of some of the most sad and pathetic.

Yes, thinking, feeling, believing, and intending do create and set up self-organizing “attractors” or attractions within us, but this is mostly a way of talking about the mind-brain relationship, the reflexive communication processes within us, and should not be taken as an empirical description. There’s still much mystery about all of this, and anyone even slightly educated acknowledges.

Yet there are a few people in NLP who have taken this exaggerated and unbalanced view and created the toxic non-sense that therefore everything that happens to you— you are responsible for it. You brought it into your life. Ah what power! There were no other factors. No other variables. No other influences. You and you alone are totally responsible for everything that happens to you. Now, that’s about as toxic an idea as they come. It implies that other people cannot be responsible for what they say and do. It implies that you do not live in various family, cultural, social, political, economic worlds. It implies that you are like a “god” who makes everything happens.

If only! But it is not so. There are constraints in all of those dimensions that we have nothing to do with. We did not create the world. We were born into the social, cultural, political, and economic worlds that we now live. Our responsibility is to first map out these territories and then develop the knowledge and skills for coping with such. So here’s to your effective mapping as you set belief frames, understanding frames, and intentional frames that will bring out your highest and best!