Basic Methods: Prayer

The first two basic methods, or paths, discussed were positive thinking, in which one drives oneself toward the goals, and the law of attraction (LOA, a.k.a. intention), in which the universe itself is incited to bring good things to you. The third method, prayer, is very much like the second, but is instead a request of a higher power.

The threshold for believing in the power of prayer is higher than it is for self-motivation (which is pretty much self-evident), yet lower than the level of reason required to buy into LOA (which can seem rather silly at first blush). The list looks something like this:

You need a deity (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent) who gives a rip about how things are going on Earth, cares enough about you to listen, and has the wherewithal and willingness to adjust things once convinced. We'll call this being God. (That's actually a title, not a name, but that's for a different article.) You also need a willingness to ask for what you want and to do it in a way that doesn't irritate the almighty. That asking is prayer.

Now, the difference between LOA and prayer is more than just where it's being directed and how you think about it. People uncomfortable with one or the other are very likely to pretend they are the same just to keep the peace or appease others' vanity. They are not the same outside of a very few issues. Most obviously, they are both appeals to something admittedly vastly more powerful than ourselves. In neither case should we assume or act like we are ordering this Power around. Gratitude, however, should absolutely be expressed and felt in both cases and for similar reasons.

The differences begin right at the root of the matter. LOA is a force of nature, like electromagnetism or gravity. It works as it does because of what it is, and it is no more animate than a candle flame: it may seem to be, but it has no actual opinion or desire (in the sense that living creatures have) and simply does what it does. God, on the other hand, is the very definition of awareness and consciousness, and gave all the natural forces - including LOA - their methods and abilities. You can appeal to God, argue with Him, even negotiate. You can no more argue with LOA than a mechanic argues with an engine. He may seem to, but it's an illusion.

The practical upshot of this appears when making one's appeal. To invoke LOA one must apply positive emotion, ideally joy, to a visualization of the desired outcome, and, if possible, experience beforehand the emotion one feels when the desire is manifested. You don't have to believe in it: it's a force of nature and will happen with or without you. You do have to feel it: that's how it works. Regret, fear, and similar feelings get in the way of it.

With prayer, on the other hand, belief is absolutely required but feeling that the prayer will be answered positively (it is arguably always answered; sometimes the answer is “no”) is not strictly necessary. This can cause a certain amount of confusion in the petitioner, since we intuitively understand that feeling something and believing it are strongly related. (This, by the way, further suggests that LOA is built into us as a basic understanding.) In the Gospel of Mark's 9th chapter, Jesus said to a man whose son was in dire straits, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” He didn't feel it and didn't naturally act as though the healing were possible; but he wanted to believe. His son was healed.

Prayer allows for an expression of the negative emotions and forgives the human weaknesses that the forces of nature are rather more harsh about. This is because that almighty, omnipotent deity cares for you. Tiny, foolish, totally insignificant you. Yeah, omniscience means there is nothing new in your pouring out of sorrows, but every good father knows what's troubling his child before she curls up on his lap and sobs out the story of her day. It's the telling that is the important part, and the asking. Even if the answer turns out to be, “No, there is a better way,” it builds the relationship. Which is what prayer is all about.

Basic Methods: The Law of Attraction

Chances are you're either a believer in this idea or not, and won't be swayed either way by anything I say. That's fine with me! Don't forget, I'm here to figure it out, myself. You have to admit, though, that if true, this could be the biggest change of all from the ordinary.

The Law of Attraction (LOA for short), at its simplest, is the ancient idea that like attracts like. It combines with, or is partly interchangeable with, the concept of “intent,” which suggests that what you mean to do or what you want to happen, is urged toward existence thereby. Whereas Positive Thinking (PT) is a way to alert oneself to good things and align one's perceptions and actions toward receiving and encouraging them, LOA and its related concepts state that the same can be affected outside of one's physical influence.

Think of it: utilizing this sort of thing, one could remotely prompt an old friend to finally call; not just see a parking space but reliably cause one to open up on your path; increase walk-in business. Though these examples don't really show it, there are ways to empirically define whether or not one's intentions are making an actual difference. What makes this part of the experiment interesting is that it can be tested and exists outside of one's control.

Like PT, LOA is not the same as Wishful Thinking. If anything, it's even farther from it than PT. It's a law of nature, and you can no more “break” it than you can break the law of gravity. That is, you can fight against it, but it's still there, fully in effect. We all interact with gravity every hour of every day, and people have since long before Newton had that incident with the apple. You don't have to understand Bernoulli's Principle to see that airplanes somehow leave the ground and know that it has something to do with their wings. LOA is with us whether we know it, want it, believe in it - or not! It simply is.

So… what the heck is it? What possible effect could my mere thoughts have on the physical world around me? It's a complicated answer (much more so than explaining Bernoulli's Principle), but the essential idea, as my imperfect understanding has it, is this:

When we experience an emotion about something, it has an effect on that something. Whether the emotion is positive or negative, the object of the feeling is drawn to the emotion. It seems, according to my reading thus far, to have a stronger effect on the web of patterns and effects in the world rather than the specific objects in those patterns. It's not a matter of wishing or hoping for something, but rather of recognizing that it is real or true (even if it isn't yet). Wishing, as I've said before, is very nearly a focus on something not being so, which may well have the opposite effect that one desires. Instead, build strong feeling in yourself, joyous positive feeling, that something is already true, already coming to pass, already real (whatever is appropriate), and connect it to a gratefulness regarding this good thing.

I sound very much like I already believe in LOA, don't I? Well, until pretty recently I didn't. Some things have happened lately that shoved me rather forcefully toward thinking that it just may be so. More on that another time.

Basic Methods: Positive Thinking

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln
“For myself, I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” - Winston Churchill

Let's be honest: Most people hold the belief (whether consciously or not) that happiness is a shallow and fleeting thing, but that unhappiness is abiding and reality-based. If you don't believe me, just look around you at how people react to happiness, feel-good movies, upbeat ideas, etc. “Ok, that was nice. Back to reality…” Sure, happiness sometimes is a thin and brittle shell borne of denial or trying to look good, but the same can be said of its opposite emotion. I won't go into it much right now, but I want to be clear on the point: an emotion is an emotion, a sign of things and not the thing itself. It should ideally be based on what is, but is easily and often derailed by misconceptions.

The various benefits of happiness will have to wait for a later article, as will a discussion of its artesian source, joy. For now, I ask you to take as granted that even a fleeting sense of happiness is inherently good and useful.

It's also the first and most obvious result of thinking positively. By “positive thinking” I mean a general sense and specific vision that things will go well, will improve, will recover, or will otherwise bring a brighter future. As many wiser heads have observed, you can be as vague or as precise as you desire with your optimistic mindset, and each level of precision carries its own benefits. All, however, lead directly to an improvement of mood.

Adopting positive, “can do,” “will happen” stances toward the world on a longer term begins to convert the bright future into a bright present, simply because we become what we believe we are. This is ancient wisdom, proven over and over every day throughout millennia. Again, look around and you will quickly see that it's true.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” - Proverbs 23:7

What do you want to be? Believe that you not only can be it but that you are already on the road to becoming it, and it will begin to be so. What do you want to do? Believe that you can and you eventually will.

“Yeah, right,” I hear from the curmudgeon in the back. “Nice new age fluff you have going on, there. Your own in-skull cheering team. Rah rah rah, sis boom blah. Wishful thinking sets you up for a fall.”

In some ways, the curmudgeon is right. Wishful thinking is worse than useless. What comes of saying “I wish I was a better person, more self-disciplined” other than reminding myself that you aren't better, aren't what you know you should be, reinforcing the fact of it? It lets you think that something might happen while preventing motion that direction. Good thing we're not talking about that, huh?

No, Positive Thinking looks like its hapless, helpless cousin Wishful Thinking, but doesn't act like it at all. It says, “You can - and you are!” It draws you forward into the light, and more than just promoting dreams, it encourages all of your mind, conscious, subconscious and unconscious alike, to see the ways to the goal that come along and which are already there. Like magic, you will begin to become your true self.

It's a pretty well-known fact that once you're aware of a thing, you will suddenly see it popping up all over. You may never have noticed Australia in the news, but plan a trip there and I promise you'll see references to it all over. And yet a Lexis-Nexis search will show that there's no sudden up-tick of Aussie news. Develop a concern with (to grab something pretty random) corn-based products and they'll start practically throwing themselves at you. This applies in so many ways it's hard to comprehend. Most importantly for this discussion, (a) think about good things and your world will be a brighter place, (b) focus on bad things and your world will be downright depressing, and (c) keep what you want to be and do in your mind as a will-happen notion and the path to get there will present itself.

Really, it's as simple as this: “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.” - Willie Nelson

Personality Types

So what's a Jovian? Well, first of all, I'm not talking about the somewhat inept Roman emperor, nor a class of planets. I would use “jovial”, which actually means the same thing, but people have a much too narrow view of the word. Yes, it does mean “full of high-spirited merriment” and all that comes with it. But as a personality type, it's just the beginning. The archetype is much more than the mood.

A jovian person is, at the core, joyful and expansive. The Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens' A Christmas Carol is perhaps the best example. That good soul was a giant, the better to embody such love and joy, generosity and kindness. Note that while often portrayed as flighty, the Spirit was actually deeply aware that his joy was not universally known, and kept hidden in his robes the shameful children of mankind, Ignorance and Want.

The jovian personality is curious and optimistic, with a bright outlook toward life that at times defies a given situation. The difference between happiness and joy can be found by watching such people. They are interested in a great many things and find wonder and adventure everywhere. This curiosity reaches from the tiniest marvels of the world to the great questions of existence.

The other great example of the jovian archetype is of course Jove - better known as Jupiter. That Roman deity claimed the oak, full moon and lightning as sacred, all of which are signs of solidity and power. He presided over justice (which is why we have the phrase, “By Jove!”) and was chief among the gods. And such a personality! From this example can be found most of a jovian person's best traits: at their best, they are generous, tolerant, truthful, and enthusiastic.

Combine these traits, mores and essential values, and you arrive at a person who inspires, infects others with joy, take bold steps confidently but with risks calculated, radiates love, and gladly teaches the ways of joyfulness - if not always in usual ways.

Jovians are perceived as intrinsically powerful even if they have no imposing physique to suggest it. Their comfort in their own skin and their calm handling of life bespeaks the interested unconcern of power. Don't miss this: That very way of being causes them to become more powerful. This happens in obvious ways, as people react positively to perceptions of capability. It also happens less obviously, as their affirmative outlook actually seems to rechart the path of their surroundings to their desires. No, I cannot actually prove that yet, but it is no small part of this experiment's object. Jupiter is also strongly associated with excellent fortune, and I have come to suspect that it has much to do with the broad and cheerful optimism of the archetype.

This is the sort of person that I should be. Surely only a few attain all of what I've described here, but I know that it's the path that works best for me. The other ways of living have not gone very well, and even if I never reach the perfect Jovian goal, it's the direction I need to aim. There is a place in me that knows it, wants to flow into it like water down a streambed. It's a little scary, really. I don't have much of an idea of how well this will go. I can only see a couple of steps ahead.

Still, I hear my ideal self calling to me from wherever he is hid: “Come, and know me better, man!”