The privileged perversity of the “Law of Attraction”

A popular New Age myth claims that humans can “manifest reality” through “intentions” and “visualizing.” The related “Law of Attraction” states that humans bring negative outcomes on themselves with negative thoughts, and positive results with positive thoughts. The goal is often “abundance,” which means “money.” The philosophy, if we can call it that, basically boils down to “make a wish and it’ll come true.” If you don’t get what you want, you didn’t visualize hard enough or you still had negative thoughts. It’s an individualistic worldview that ignores systemic factors and the importance of community. It’s “every man–and their intentions–for themselves.”

In my mind, the clearest proof that this is all BS is that mothers in warzones lose their children to bombs and bullets. Surely, if anyone has strong positive wishes, it’s a mother for her children, isn’t it? Don’t mothers in war zones pray every night that their babies will be spared from the death raining down from the air? Don’t they wish every every day for relief from the violence? So why aren’t they delivered? Because their thoughts aren’t positive enough? Their intentions aren’t pure enough? Their visualizing isn’t clear enough? WTF?!

If we could measure it somehow, which would be stronger: the intentions of a privileged US American seeking a successful career, or a parent in occupied Palestine desperately hoping that the missles striking their neighborhood don’t maim or murder their children?

If you’ve never done so, look up “fallujah depleted uranium birth defects” in a search engine. In 2004, the US attacked Fallujah, Iraq, with shells tipped with “depleted” uranium. Despite the name, it’s a radioactive substance and a rash of birth defects followed. Babies were born with multiple limbs, and with internal organs on the outsides of their bodies. The photos are some of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen, and I go look at them about once a year to remind myself why I oppose US militarism.

So, if the “Law of Attraction” is true, then what did the mothers of Fallujah do wrong? What “negative thoughts” brought this terrible curse onto their babies? What should they have “visualized” so that the uranium would be made harmless? How could they have “manifested” children who were healthy despite being poisoned?

I find the whole thing deeply offensive, frankly. Such theories can only survive in contexts of great privilege or deep denial, or both. In the interest of peace, we must reject them, and get to the real work of making the world a better place. This means less self-indulgence and more mutual aid, with the goal of replacing systems of oppression.