In my video titled “Undeserved Hate and Rejection,” I talked about why a lot of people
get drawn to this idea that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people:
“because it gives people a sense of control over the world and the good and bad things that happen
to them.” Well, for the same reason, a lot of people get drawn to this idea that the universe or
God grants them good things, or whatever they wish, as long as they do all the right things.
Sound familiar? Well that’s the Law of Attraction and the Prosperity Gospel,
two very similar views on how the universe and God works. In this video,
I'm going to talk about the dark side of the Law of Attraction and the Prosperity Gospel.
Hi! My name is Daniel and I love talking about philosophy, mental health,
and self-improvement. If you’re interested in these topics as well, don’t forget to subscribe.
Now, before I jump right into today’s topic, first, I want to set the right expectations
by clarifying one thing. I’m not going to be covering everything that there
is to know about the Law of Attraction or the Prosperity Gospel. As it says in my title,
this video is just about the dark side of these ideas. Yes, I’m aware that these ideas can
have the effect of steering people toward beneficial things like positive thinking
and finding some kind of purpose in life. But they don't own these things. So I don't plan
on stretching out my video longer than it has to be, talking about their various benefits,
especially those that aren't exclusive to them. And, with that, let’s begin.
The Law of Attraction is this belief that your positive or negative thoughts and visualizations
cause the universe to then bring positive or negative experiences into your life.
Similarly, the prosperity gospel is this belief that your
faith and donations cause God to then bring material wealth into your life.
They’re the same thing repackaged differently for a different target audience: one
for the “spiritual but not religious” crowd and the other for the religious crowd.
In both of these, just as you would with a vending machine, you first look at all of your options,
select the goodies you want, pay some sort of currency that acts as input to the machine,
and then that machine dispenses them to you. Dispense is such a soulless word,
isn't it? Let's go with the word “manifest,” “manifest,” “manifest.”
But things won’t work out as straightforwardly and certainly as they’re advertised. Even their
most influential believers will attest to that. And it's not because there's anything wrong with
these beliefs. Oh, no no. Remember, it's an irrefutable "law." The issue is obviously you.
And if you already believe that, it's not all that hard for them to then convince you
that you've got deficiencies within yourself that prevent you from manifesting effectively.
They’ll tell you that it's got to do with your misaligned energy, frequency, faith,
and so on. Now, with the Prosperity Gospel, they can’t depart too far off from the Bible. But with
the Law of Attraction, there’s really no limit to the number of spiritual deficiencies or competing
forces they can create out of thin air. These deficiencies and competing forces then create an
opportunity… an opportunity for spiritual experts to give... no... sell their advice on how to
address those issues. And so you eat that all up, keep on performing, keep refining your techniques,
keep on going back to your spiritual experts for counsel... and yet, still, you might not see any
results. By this point, it’s totally normal to feel frustrated and question these ideas. But
there's actually no room for any of that. They'll tell you that any frustration or doubt is negative
energy… negative energy that gets in the way of you manifesting. So, not only do they rationalize
for you why things aren't working out, they also steer you away from your doubt by triggering your
fears of manifestational dysfunction. They'll tell you that you need to exercise more faith and more
trust in the universe or God. They'll urge you to become this one-dimensional person who only
feels "good" feelings. So it all comes down to performance. And for a huge number of people who
already believe that what they do is never enough, systems of performance like this one often lead to
very unhealthy perfectionism. But your continued performance will buy these experts more time. More
time for what? Well, much like a casino slot machine, the longer you keep at it, something
good is bound to eventually happen. And when it does, you’re going to get a high out of it.
Now, something quite interesting happens after this. Even if all the things you did leading up
to your eventual win had nothing to do with how things unfolded, just by the simple fact that one
thing happened after the other, you might believe that your actions caused it to happen that way.
And so to make it happen again, you keep doing the same things. You keep on performing,
keep refining your techniques, keep on going back to your spiritual experts for counsel.
This is no different than a sports fan who keeps on wearing his same lucky underwear every playoff
season thinking that his choice of underwear somehow affects the outcome of the playoffs.
But you won’t see this as being superstitious. Instead, you’ll believe that the Law of
Attraction or the Prosperity Gospel actually worked. And you’ll sink even deeper into it.
The people in your life, maybe even your family and friends, might see the toxicity beneath all
of your forced positivity. And out of genuine concern for you, perhaps even for the vulnerable
people you influence, they might challenge you to re-evaluate this way of looking at the universe or
God. But, as you’ve been taught, you won't be able to see their challenge as anything other
than “negative energy.” And as obsessed as you are about manifesting, you’ll rationalize that
the best thing to do is cut these opposers out of your life... kind of like how cults work.
But people won’t even have to go as far as challenging your ideas before you reject them.
All in the name of distancing yourself from what you broadly categorize as “negative energy,”
you’ll end up "othering" people: disadvantaged people, people going through real suffering.
You’ll believe that their suffering is just a consequence of the poor choices they’ve made…
poor choices in how they think and visualize. And as you grow to have
less and less empathy for those who are suffering, people will see that you’re not a safe person...
Certainly not a safe person to be transparent and vulnerable in front of. So, though it may
have started with you rejecting others, in the end, you will be the one being rejected.
Now, let me tell you a little about the ugly business side of all of this… where a lot of
spiritual experts in this industry apply the same scammy sales technique as “Get Rich Quick” gurus.
First, they develop something they can sell. For products, they might have online courses,
and, for services, they might offer one-on-one life coaching. After that,
they’ve got to find ways to reach buyers, right? And that’s where marketing comes in.
Understanding that there’s a bunch of other sellers competing for your money, they develop
and play a simple, memorable character, a character to be the face of their products
and services. So what kind of character is going to look like they’d be the perfect expert to
teach you how to get what you want in life? One, someone who APPEARS to have successfully gotten
everything anyone could ever want. And, two, someone relatable who APPEARS to understand
where you’re at and what kind of limitations you’re working with. When you put these two
qualities together, what you get is the “rags to riches” story. It’s the perfect "Get Rich Quick"
sales story! So perfect that a lot of these guys will do whatever it takes to make you believe that
that’s their story. And that includes exaggerating their story or sometimes even faking it. So they
first grab your attention by showing you how excessively successful, wealthy, happy and free
they are: “Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini, here.” “Here in my backyard…
people always asking me for a tour so I thought I’d show a little bit of my house.” Then, just as
you’re thinking “I think I could be a lot happier if I had all these things in my life. But there’s
no way someone like me could ever do that.” These guys will then tell you that they once were way
worse off than you. A common story they'll use is them once being broke or homeless. So, now
you believe in their expertise. Now you believe it’s even possible for yourself. All that’s left
is to believe in their product. And that’s where testimonials come in. Same thing… exaggerated or
even faked, they’ll tell you all about how this person and that person benefited so much from
their product. Once you believe that, your money will be leaving your wallet and going into theirs.
Now, at any point after your purchase, if anything good happens in your life,
and as I said earlier, "much like a casino slot machine, the longer you keep at it,
something good is bound to eventually happen," the opportunists among them would love to connect
it all back to their products. And so they’ll use your success stories as proof that their products
really work. And with that added credibility, they'll sell even more of their stuff, making
even more money. And then, with all of that money, they re-invest it right back into their business,
doing all the same things: developing more sellable products and services,
exaggerating their success, wealth, happiness and freedom in their marketing materials,
and spending more on ads so that their sales presentation reaches their vulnerable buyers.
Now, I understand that this isn’t everyone’s experience. Just like casino slot machines,
I know that there’s plenty of people doing just fine, light-heartedly playing within their limits.
And I know there’s people making a killing with casino slot machines. But, just like casino slot
machines, there is a dark side… a dark side that has the potential to easily enslave a vulnerable
group of people. Who are they? That’s what I’ll be talking about in my follow-up video to this one.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time.