I have been reading some negative reviews of "The Secret" recently, and I think one thing they have in common is a lack of full understanding about the law of attraction. I understand that many people do not consider themselves "spiritual" or believe in anything beyond what they can see (or "science" tells them exists). So talking about the vibrational energy of your thoughts and how they reorganize the rest of the universe might be a bit of a stretch for some people. However, what I don't understand is how people can deny that the law of attraction exists, even on a purely "rational," non-spiritual level.

Basically, the law of attraction states that the things you think about become attracted into your life, whether good or bad. Oprah and many others explain it by saying, "what you think about expands." Even if you don't believe in any "spiritual" interaction between thoughts and the universe, it should still be easy to see the law of attraction in action.

The law of attraction starts with a thought. Would anyone deny that our thoughts are precursors to our actions? No, that would be absurd. Before I move my arm, I think about moving my arm. Before I speak, I think about speaking (no matter how brief the thought may be). Before I buy something, I think about buying something. There is no such thing as action without thought. Sometimes the thoughts are buried, maybe even "sub-conscious" but they are still thoughts (in this case thoughts that have been so conditioned that we are not aware of them).

Now let's look at our actions. Isn't it true that our actions determine what happens in our life. If I choose to sit here all day then my life will be quite different than if I choose to go on a vacation to Hawaii. Notice I say "my life" will be different. Every action we take changes the course of our life, maybe insignificantly, or maybe quite significantly. Sometimes the course starts off insignificant but becomes very significant later on.

So, I think we can all agree that our thoughts determine our actions, and our actions determine what happens in our life. So, how do our thoughts attract similar things into our lives, as stated by the law of attraction? Let's take a look at a process called filtering. I have mentioned before that we are bombarded with an incredible amount of information every day. If we were consciously aware of all that information all the time, we would go crazy. There is simply too much information being provided to our senses to consciously respond to it all. So our brain has developed a filter, whereby only the "important" stuff is presented to our consciousness. Who decides what the "important" stuff is? You do. Have you ever seen someone who wasn't "paying attention" and bumped into something, tripped, etc.? Have you ever been looking for something only to realize that you are holding it, or it is literally "right in front of your eyes"? This is the brains filtering system at work. Basically put, you become more aware of the things you put your attention (or thoughts) on, and you become less aware of everything else.

Now to put it all together. Our thoughts determine what we filter out and as I mentioned previously, our thoughts also determine our actions. And so, not only do we act on our initial thought, we also act on the filtered information we receive as a result of that thought.

So, for example, if I am going to give a speach and I think that I am a terrific, interesting, and dynamic speaker, then when I walk out in front of the audience, my brain will be focused on this and will filter out anything that doesn't fit with that belief. Let's say there is a person laughing in the front row. If I truly believe that I am a terrific, interesting, and dynamic speaker, I won't interpret that person as lauging at me...there are a number of other possibilities. Maybe they are laughing at a joke, or maybe they thought of something funny that happened earlier that day. But certainly they would not be laughing at a terrific, dynamic, and interesting speaker! I will get to the lecturn and give a terrific and confident speach because that is what I thought I would do, and I acted upon that thought. In addition, I filtered out anything that didn't fit with that thought, which simply strengthened my belief and further affected my actions.

This is a cycle - the thought creates an action and a filter; and the filter limits the information you receive, effecting your subsequent thoughts and actions. Thus we are naturally directed towards the things that we are thinking about and away from everything else. In this way, the things we think about begin to move into our lives.

Alright, I am sure there will be some questions and comments to this one! I look forward to hearing from you.