Imagination
It’s really an amusing experience to read this piece of essay-the force of imagination. The author uses several little examples that are mysterious. He tries to be objective and convince the readers the magi power of imagination. I don’t think the list of these stories really convince me but I somehow agree with this opinion: imagination may change your life.
That’s a picture of her. Seems a little bit complicated, mysterious and with magical power, right?
In her book, she told us about a law of attraction. Our thoughts create a force field of energy that radiates out from us and attracts back into our life, the people,circumstances, ideas, opportunities and anything else that is consistent with those thoughts.
This idea in its essence, from my perspective, is the same with the magic power of imagination that has been talked about in Montaigne’s essay. In Byrne’s book, she also used a lot of stories to convince others. The main characters of these stories are still alive and it seems this law really changes their life. In my point of view, she just uses the same way of Montaigne to persuade people and tells totally the same thing. The only different thing is that she also encourages people to use this law in a positive way, to help them out of trouble. And hence, this book turns out to be an inspirational book. People are really crazy about it. It even has a film and website and thousands of fans sharing their life-changed stories on it. I think it is really fun so I share the link of the website and the film below. Maybe it will help if you’re interested in it.
THE FILM: http://v.ku6.com/show/ndTXX-nuLMC7zJsCE5Qirg...html (I just found a free version in a Chinese website so it may be a little bit slow.)
OK. All above is about the fun part. In the following, I wanna discuss with you guys about something more serious. I want to ask you guys a simple question.
Question : Do you believe the magic power of imagination?
As for me, I partially believe it. I believe it not because of Montaigne’s essay or Bynre’s book but because of some life experiences. Those supporting examples in his essay are too crazy and unbelievable. And for the book the secret, it is too positive and all the stories are with happy endings. I don’t believe anything that has only one side.
In my own life, I think I have used this law. For example, I wanted to go to France for my exchange study a year before and I always thought about what I was going to do in France and where I would go for traveling. And now, I am here. I don’t know whether it is the help of this law or just a coincidence. One thing we have to admit is that everyone will certainly have this kind of experience. Think of us in classes. Do you also have the feeling that every time you don’t want the teacher to pick you us for answering the questions but he always pick you. That may be caused by imagination. Those kind of experiences make me partially believe this idea.
Actually, this law wasn’t first stated by Byrne. It can be traced back to 1877 on Isis Unveiled: Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition. After that, several people wrote about this and until 2006 it became popular around the world by the book the secret. Scholars talk about it in a scientific and psychological way. Common people become crazy about this.
Montaigne tells us to be doubtful even if it is said by the authority or the majority. I still cannot be totally convinced. Your action matters! If you just lie on the bed and think, nothing will happen!
Whereas, I still suggest to apply this law. We can have a positive attitude which may change the result.
So here are several questions that I want to discuss with you guys:
First, do you believe it and why? Can anybody tells me some reason that more from a scientific and psychological view?
Another one is that why so many people are convinced easily about the power of imagination? Does it imply some phenomenon?
Hi Ivonne, very interesting post. I haven't actually read The Secret, but I have heard about it and the law of attraction, which its very similair to ideas I've ecountered through practicing yoga and some vary cursory research I've done into Buddhism. The idea that your thoughts and way of thinking can influence your life as Byrne argues is one that I absolutely believe in. From my perspective, Byrne's idea of a big ball of energy radiating out of your body is a bit silly if taken literally, but provides a good visualization for the idea that positive ways of thinking can have a positive influence on your life. In my opinion, cultivating your mind to develop a positive mindset can very much have a postive effect on your life. Having a 'positive mindset' means that you look at everything in a positive way. If something bad happens to you one day, you shrug it off, look at the positive things in your life, and pick yourself up without dwelling on this negative event. When you encounter people you are lively and upbeat, saying and doing positive things. If you have a negative interaction with someone, instead of becoming hostile and thinking badly about that person, you hesitate and think about what things in their life could explain their behavior. Cultivating your behavior and your thoughts to follow along a positive mindset not only makes you a happier person, but has a positive effect on those who come into contact with you. If you radiate positivity and happiness, people will like you more, enjoy spending time with you more, and therefor your interactions with them will be more positive for yourself. This can then translate into more opportunities for personal, social, and work advancement. If your boss thinks you are a positive person and enjoys being around you, the chance that he will promote you is higher than if he thinks your a pessimistic asshole, or even just a normal person. If your friends think you're a positive person, they will enjoy being around you more than if you were a pessimistic downer, and they will want to invite you to do more things. Random people that you meet will be impressed by your good energy, and will have more positive impressions of you. After having a positive mindset for a while and having your friends and aquantinces notice and understand that you are a postive person, you will develop a reputation for positivity that will extend beyond people you interact with. I.e. when someone you have never met asks someone you know what you are like, your aquantince will speak highly of you, and thus despite having never met you a stranger will have a positive impression of you.
ReplyDeleteSorry wouldn't let me post my whole response, so here's the second half:
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, this is how Byrne's "law of attraction" really works.^ I believe that it works because of experiences I have had in my own life. I used to be a very pessimistic person, and would interpret things in very negative ways. I looked around my world and the world portrayed by the news and saw stories of death, destruction and impending doom, and took this to heart. i would contemplate life and death and the universe and would feel soo small and insignificant that my thoughts would feed my negativity. After conducting a literary/philosophic investigation into the thoughts I was having and discussing my findings with teachers and my elders whose opinions I valued, I came to the conclusion that while many of the things that were wrong with the world that I focused on were true, my obsessing over them didn't help at all. My worrying about negative things in my life didn't have any impact on the negative things, and only served to make me unhappy. there is a saying by Shantideva, an ancient Indian Buddhist monk that goes: “If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.” having come across this quotation and many other ideas and quotes similair to it, I realized that living my life in a negative fashion was not the right way to live. Since then I have striven to be as positive of a person as I can, and to try and live by Shantideva's saying. Over the years I have slowly become a more positive person, and I can absoultely say that doing so has made me a happier and more successful individual. My positivity has impacted my life in positive ways socially, personally and academically, and am sure will in business as well. In this way, I think that Byrne's idea of the "law of attraction" is a very real thing, though perhaps not in the exact way Byrne describes it. Which I suppose, means that I believe Montaigne's idea about the power of imagination, although once again, not in the exact way he does.
wow! Thank you very much for sharing your life experience. I also share the same opinion that positive thinking can lead you to a better life. But here comes the question: how can you really think positively. I mean sometimes you just stuck into your own things and don't know how to use another way to consider your problem. If you meet this kind of situation, what will you do? Also, if you just think positively, will it bring some bad effects? For, nothing will happen, all things will go well. But of course we know that it cannot be a truth. what do you think?
DeleteI don't have time to properly respond to your post for I'm frantically trying to finish other projects and will follow up with my own thoughts later. However this video highlights the the dangers of the type of ideology that is promoted in the Secret. I may not agree with all of her points but the connections that are made are nothing short of spectacular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo Please watch it! ( She mentions the author of the Secret )
ReplyDeleteHope you will have time to share your opinion. Anyway, thanks for sharing the video! That's really good.
DeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it! I wrote my thoughts on this couple days ago.. I came back to the blog tonight to find that somehow my response wasn't published. I'll have to rewrite it! :(
DeleteCool video Steadn, I didn't realize that Byrne was that cooky haha. I think it's obviously important to be rational and think realistically about the world, and positivism taken to such extremes can indeed be a negative thing. Its rediculous to think that with thought alone you can be successful. Thought combined with action and effort results in success. However, I think that being positive when dealing with your life, while at the same time seeing the world in a realistic and rational manner, can make you a happier and more successful individual. I don't think they're mutually exclusive.
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ReplyDeleteHey Jack! I am really glad you enjoyed it! Yes you are correct, like the video states there is nothing wrong with positive thinking. The issue is delusions. Delusions can both be negative or positive.
ReplyDeleteThe correlation that I found fascinating through this discussion is the connection between Descartes thoughts on the danger of the imagination and by extension what can be seen as the superstitions of the church as a means of social control through the punishment of free thinkers, intellectuals, science and women essentially any threat to the social structure and control over society during that period.
In comparison to our modern day capitalistic society where a lot of the power is in the hands of large corporations. Where the use of the imagination as still a form of social control in our modern society. With books such as The Secret that place responsibility for failure, solely within the hands of the individual and does not attribute external factors to… well external factors.
The structure of our society is based on imbalances and in the truth that only a few are able to be successful "to make it to the top" so to speak. Statistically your chances are extremely low. However we are sold into this delusion that we are actually in complete control and therefore hold complete fault for our failures.
I am for no means advocating for delusion on the other side of the spectrum where nothing is in our hands and everything is out of our control. I’m simply saying there is a need to be realistic and in doing so recognise these power imbalances in our current system. Don’t just ascribe to an ideal because that is what has been sold to you. Question everything. We accept this way of thinking because it’s so easy for us to imagine ourselves at the top. Not a care in the word. The American Dream as some would say.
In that I will end this with a quote the thing about the American Dream is “It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” - George Carlin