“Praise God, it’s hard to stay spiritual,
How they got these n––s on the TV selling miracles,
You mean to tell me everything gon be fine,
If I call your hotline and pay $29.99?”
–– J. Cole
In 2006, the world witnessed the publication of the controversial book The Secret. I vividly remember the advertisements on the streets, the discussions about the “Law of Attraction,” and the distinct feeling of holding a one-of-a-kind book; the glossy cover, the fine print in the style of vintage paper, the resonating words that promise you wealth, happiness, and the fulfillment of your dreams and wishes. I carried the book from the “bestseller” shelf to the cash register and paid a sum equivalent to the value of three Agatha Christie novels. I took out the book on our way back from the library and began browsing through the front with difficulty under the streetlights, which faintly illuminated the words on paper. By the time we got home, I had finished reading the first chapter, “The Secret Revealed,” and I came to a realization; the secret is not a secret, the law of attraction is an idea that is promoted in many forms and sold under different names. In other words, it is a business based on selling the hope of limitlessness in the self-help market, where the individual is constantly faced with his own limitations.
The Secret phenomenon is what marketing experts call a “rebranding” of the age-old idea that we are the masters of our own fate, regardless of the state of the world around us. Are you financially distressed due to accumulating debt? Don’t worry, The Secret will help you attract wealth. Have you started to develop the symptoms of a serious illness? Fear not, The Secret will help you attract health. Nothing is impossible in this world that is governed by the hidden forces of our subconscious mind. All we have to do is believe in miracles. But what is the cost for an individual to believe in universal miracles while suffering from the real hardships of life? Don’t we have the right to understand what this spiritual journey guarantees before embarking on it with our money and safety onboard?
To answer these questions, we must take a firm stand on the supposed conflict between science and faith.
Spiritual beliefs and the scientific dilemma
Before dismantling the cosmic forces, let us begin by emphasizing that this article will not be biased towards science at the expense of faith, nor at the expense of the rights of the individual. Rather, it will try to adhere to objective neutrality in presentation and criticism in a way that guarantees the reader’s safety and right to believe, respectively. Scientific bias clearly fuels negative feelings towards science. Psychologists disregarding the value of spiritual beliefs, out of complete ignorance of their cultural and historical dimensions, harmed the credibility of the science-oriented criticism among the general public. In fact, it backfired, to the point that some people began to lean towards spirituality because it is more empathetic to their existential needs.
From this standpoint, we can say that the popularity of cosmic forces is partly due to science failing to contain these ideologies and deal with them properly. We find psychologists repeating the same critical discourse aimed at stripping the law of attraction of scientific status without the slightest attempt to understand it as a phenomenon with historical connotations. Their criticism is limited to proving that the law of attraction is not a law in the academic sense, thereby disregarding the fact that the motivation behind believing in cosmic forces is the moral need for values and promises, not academic labels. The Secret did not achieve its successes because it presented a law to readers, but rather because it marketed the hope that their wishes could be fulfilled. Here lies the problem of science in dealing with the idea. Its disregard for faith stems from the epistemological dilemma of the existence of spiritual values outside the scope of scientific validity, which makes spiritual beliefs immune to scientific logic. To put it simply, whoever believes in something for its faith value will not care about what science thinks; because what a person searches for in faith, he will surely not find in science. In this tangled situation, some enthusiastic scientists rush to accuse those who embrace faith in the cosmic forces of foolishness and naivety, or brand them with mental illnesses. This results in the escalation of the conflict between the two parties, and the formation of what is known as the “anti-institutional” trend based on criticizing the methodologies and practices of science. This leads us – in the most radical cases – to the conspiracy mentality, where obsessive suspicion overpowers all logic, from questioning the credibility of science to completely rejecting its results.
How can we take control before it all leaves the bounds of common sense?
Defending the public from the danger of conspiracies and anti-institutionalism
Let us now draw the limits of where we stand in the conflict between science and anti-institutionalists (i.e., those who have become so extreme in their hostility thereby reaching the point of believing and promoting conspiracy theories). As we previously mentioned, our primary goal is guaranteeing human safety, which puts us against the conspiracy mentality and the threat it poses to the physical and psychological safety of the individual and society. Our other goal is to defend the right to believe, which puts us against the institution’s logic and its marginalization of the value of spiritual beliefs. This puts us in the crossfire between both parties and requires us to further understand the conflict if we want to achieve our goals without prejudice or negligence.
In order to do this, we must review the position of all parties with complete transparency in a way that enables us to cross to safety.
Science, represented by medicine and doctors
What science argues for – and has proven with its standardized clinical trials – is that pathological bodily ailments conflict with the concept of being the master of your own fate, promoted by these spiritual ideologies as the law of attraction, the power of the subconscious mind, etc. There is no hidden force capable of curing a patient without immune resistance or medical intervention, which makes the conspiracy mentality that doubts the efficiency of treatments constitute a real danger that threatens the lives of millions of people.
Here, science links the alleged influence of cosmic forces to the psychological effect of “placebo,” where believing in healing powers manifests into stimulating the nervous-immune system in the patient’s body. However, the results of clinical studies in this field indicate the limited effect of placebo in combating disease, which places it in a lower rank than other medical treatments. Therefore, the promoters of the scientific stance claim that the practices of manifestations accompanied by positive affirmations such as repeating “I am healthy, I am healthy,” have not been proven to have stable and reliable healing values.
The anti-institutional stance
On the other hand, the arguments of anti-institutionalists move away from the laboratory to enter the streets. They move away from clinical studies and closer to political rights; the right to believe, the right to choose, and liberty. For them, the scientific institution is a political tool that tends to monopolize health knowledge and use it to form criteria for distinguishing between “normal” and “sick,” so that it has absolute authority to diagnose and treat, subjecting the patient to control mechanisms under the name of recovery and prevention.
On this basis, the scientific medical discourse turns into an educational, advisory discourse that covers all aspects of life to reshape the individual according to the concept of institutional normalcy. Here lies the objection of anti-institutionalists: they believe that this discourse serves the political interests of institutions over the public interest, as it does not benefit the individual to strip him of his rights, even if study results claim otherwise. It becomes clear to us from this radical position that defending the freedom of individuals represents the motive of anti-institutionalists.
The history of the conflict
After defining the positions of the conflict parties, we must trace their historical narratives to see how they formed and developed over the years. This close reading of the fluctuations in the balance of power between institutional discourse and hostile discourse will provide us with the knowledge necessary to dismantle the phenomenon of the law of attraction and overcome its problems. To do this optimally, we will adopt a diachronic panoramic approach, so that we review the controversial ideas in the context of their era, not ours. The importance of this approach lies in removing our bias towards what is “normal” according to our concepts in the 21st century. If we want to understand the historical conflict from a neutral perspective, we must look at what was “normal” during that era, which in turn would be the result of the power of some institutional authority. In other words, reviewing the history of an intellectual-social conflict (such as the one we are dealing with herein) requires starting from the social authority given to the institutions responsible for crystallizing these ideologies during the contemporary historical stage.
The concepts related to cosmic forces as we know them today can be traced back to the scientific revolution of the 18th century. Therefore, we will begin our historical journey from the institution that dominated the concept of “forces” in that era, which is the Church.
“Exorcism”
Before science took over, there was the authority of the religious institution, represented by the Church, which began to receive philosophical critique regarding the concept of possession (jinn possessing humans) and satanic interpretations. The religious interpretation of the phenomenon of possession was considered a political ploy to keep people under the authority of the church and clergy. With the enlightenment of the 18th century scientific revolution, there were attempts to secularize and scientifically explain demonic phenomena to fit the post-Isaac Newton world; the devil was replaced by energy, the priest was replaced by the doctor, and the church was replaced by the hospital. But the path to secularization was long, and replacement was often mixed with cloning, which produced hybrid theories, outwardly “scientific” and inwardly “supernatural.”
In the 1770s, the priest Johann Joseph Gassner became famous for his miraculous ability to exorcize evil spirits (or jinn in Islamic culture) and heal the sick, so much so that he began to practice his “medicine” in public. People were crowding around him as he waved his cross over the body of the possessed, calling on his demonic enemy, “I order you to come out in the name of the Lord.” It is the Christian narrative of the struggle between good and evil, embodied in the struggle between the priest and the demonic spirit over the patient’s body, captured through the violent climax of the struggle when the evil spirit is exorcized at last, leaving the body convulsive and unconscious on the ground. This state indicates the therapeutic effectiveness of the exorcism in the Christian belief because it represents the moment of expulsion, and thus the patient’s recovery from his illness.
This practice aroused the ire of doctors and local authorities, as it attracted the masses to Gassner and his Christian narrative (a disease resulting from the influence of the forces of Satan on the body). This prompted the Duke of Bavaria, Max Joseph, to appoint a special scientific committee to investigate its credibility in 1774. Among the members of this committee was a doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer from Vienna, the father of energy sciences and cosmic forces, who deconstructed the phenomenon of possession and then reconstructed it using the scientific concepts of his time.
“Animal Magnetism”
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation reshaped the entire world on the basis of the hidden forces that govern our universe, and what was previously attributed to demonic and divine forces became attributed to the mysterious forces of nature as understood by the scientists of that era. Here, a different problem emerged that puzzled scientists and doctors such as Franz Mesmer. How can they replace the Christian narrative of pathology with one that is compatible with the spirit of the scientific revolution? This obsession, coupled with the euphoria of enlightenment, led them to improvise alternative supernatural narratives to replace divine miracles. Therefore, the whole world became governed by the laws of natural forces no one can see.
Mesmer was interested in the medical applications of the law of gravitation, specifically Newton’s suggestion that the human body contained an invisible fluid that responded to planetary gravity and tidal motion. Based on this idea, Mesmer began his own experiments to test the nature of this fluid on his patients in the clinic, where he discovered that moving a magnet over the human body causes it to enter a convulsive state similar to the case of exorcism! Mesmer concluded that the phenomenon of possession, and what was attributed to the forces of Satan, is in scientific reality – according to the context of the era – nothing but this hidden fluid that he called “Animal Magnetism.” In 1775, Mesmer stood up to replicate Gassner’s religious practices, but this time in the name of science, to reveal to everyone that demons and miracles do not exist; thus, he announced the beginning of a new era of treatments using cosmic powers.
In February 1778, Mesmer moved to Paris, the city of wonders, carrying with him the revolutionary knowledge of the forces that surround and penetrate everything in the universe. At that time, he developed his medical concepts to accommodate his theory. He believed, based on his experiments, that the “disease” was the result of an obstruction in the flow of magnetic fluid within the body, which causes dissonance with the universal magnetism of nature. The treatment consists of reversing the obstruction by directing and balancing the fluid until the patient enters a state of therapeutic convulsions, after which the patient regains harmony with nature and recovers from his disease. Here, it becomes clear that Mesmer reintroduced Gassner’s practice within a different theoretical framework but did not really change it to fit academic standards; he combined the concept of hidden forces with the popular scientific terms of his time, without explaining them scientifically. This scientific discrepancy between term and interpretation has prompted official institutions such as academies and universities to disregard Animal Magnetism and its therapeutic applications; from their point of view, Franz Mesmer was nothing but an amateur scientist who flooded the scientific field with hidden liquids without solid proof. Therefore, the door was slammed in his face leaving the Animal Magnetism theory without official recognition. Sensing the betrayal of scientific institutions, Mesmer decided to continue his practice and treat the public, ignoring academic opinion. In doing so, he took the first step towards shaping the anti-institutional discourse espoused by the law of attraction promoters today.
Mesmer became famous in pre-revolutionary France (1789), when ideas of rebellion and opposition to authority began to boil among human rights activists. People came to him to witness his magnetic miracles and learn their various applications, including political thinkers, who saw in Mesmer’s ideas a tendency to challenge authority, class, and social injustice. Their writings on mesmerism carried a revolutionary tone against scientific institutions and their monopoly. They radicalized the movement by introducing political concepts such as “freedom” and “justice” into the core of Mesmer’s ideas, making them an essential part of the idea of health and universal harmony. Jacques-Pierre Brissot, one of Mesmer’s political-oriented students, said: “There will, no doubt, come a day when one will be convinced that the great principle of physical health is the equality of all beings and the independence of opinions and wills.” In his mesmerist pamphlet, he reproached academics by writing, “Don’t you [academicians] see, for example, that mesmerism is a way to bring social classes closer together, to make the rich more humane, to make them into real fathers of the poor?” But he concluded his criticism with a scathing attack: “I’m afraid that the habit of despotism has ossified your souls.”
Mesmer’s students waged their battle against institutions with their radical writings, until, in the spring of 1784, King Louis XVI ordered the appointment of two royal commissions to investigate their practices and end the controversy over Animal Magnetism. After witnessing several private experiments, the committees reached their scientific conclusion: Franz Anton Mesmer was wrong. There is no magnetic fluid floating in the universe and penetrating human bodies, and therapeutic convulsions have nothing to do with the famous “cosmic forces” of the 18th century. Rather, they are the effect of the power of imagination on the body. This shift in ideas regarding the relationship between the mind and the body, promising the birth of a new scientific field, was described in the report of the Royal Academy of Sciences committee as not worth delving into, as the 18th century enlightenment mentality perceived imagination as an enemy of logic and science. Consequently, this revelation concluded the investigation without presenting any novel narratives different from what Mesmer and Gassner presented.
But the story is not over yet, thanks to one of Mesmer’s students, who took it upon himself to develop the concepts of his persecuted teacher, eventually presenting to the world the magnetic phenomenon that took hold of the past two centuries.
“Magnetic Sleep”
The aristocrat Marquis de Puységur studied under Mesmer in Paris, before carrying his knowledge to his vast land in northern France near the town of Soissons, where he began developing and refining mesmerism with his own experiments on his servants and workers. Puységur concluded that he could replace the convulsive state with a silent one that would lead to the same therapeutic result. What was originally physically manifested by Gassner and then Mesmer, became psychologically manifested by Puységur. This state of mind was similar to “Somnambulism,” in which the patient is trapped between consciousness and sleep, completely subject to the will of the practitioner, which puts him under the influence of therapeutic suggestion. All the practitioner – or magnetizer – has to do in this case is inspire the patient to recover; and with miraculous simplicity, the patient wakes up from his slumber free from his ailment, as if his body responded to the suggestions of his mind. With this conclusion, Puységur redefined magnetism by introducing the concept of “hypnosis,” adding a layer of intimacy to the practice by relying on the bilateral relationship between patient and therapist. Magnetism is thereby no longer universal in its standards, nor violent in its results, but rather a psychological phenomenon whose answers lie in the hidden subconscious mind.
But nothing remains hidden for too long. What the Age of Enlightenment deemed unworthy, 19th century Romanticism viewed in higher regard; including the ability of the mind to create tangible physical effects. This led to renewed scientific interest in the basic form and psychological concepts of magnetism.
Carrying the concepts to America
The waves of the magnetic revolution spread across the Atlantic Ocean to America, warmly received by the Reverend La Roy Sunderland in the 1830s, who was interested in the psychological interpretation of religious phenomena using Puységur’s ideas about hypnosis. He therefore established the periodical The Magnet in 1842, which quickly became one of the most important scientific journals published in America. Sunderland was specifically interested in the nature of the “somnambulic state” and its supernatural powers similar to “miracles” in religious beliefs, and wondered whether the circulating stories about the ability of religious people (Allah’s Righteous Servants in Islamic culture) to heal the sick were in fact cases of magnetic somnambulism, similar to what Puységur did with his servants and workers? Can non-religious people perform this practice? What is the miraculous limit to what can be done?
These along with other questions ignited the imagination of young America, inspiring authors and poets. Edgar Allen Poe, one of the most prominent authors of that period, wrote three short stories about hypnosis: The Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844), Mesmeric Revelation (1844), and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845). In the opening lines of Mesmeric Revelation, Poe writes in the words of his fictional character: “Whatever doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession – an unprofitable and disreputable tribe.” Although these words are attributed to a fictional character, they speak to beliefs that were popular in 19th century America. The American individual was naturally more likely than his European counterpart to confront academic institutions and adhere to his own opinions and beliefs.
Thus, magnetic concepts have found in the American religious scene, influenced by the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a fertile environment for growth without disregarding their supernatural aspects. Swedenborgianism, popular in the 1840s, offered a religious system consistent with contemporary scientific thought, which made it intellectually aligned with mesmerism, since it seemed to provide scientific evidence for the existence of the “hidden” spirit of the world that Swedenborg described. Magnetic concepts were harnessed, such as the “somnambulic state,” to communicate with the spiritual world and speak with the dead. The American social scene in the 1850s was described as “spiritual insanity,” where sessions held to communicate with spirits in the metaphysical world were common.
Amidst this environment where science and religion were closely intertwined, William James was born and brought up to be the most prominent American psychologist and philosopher of his time. He built the bridge between the physical and metaphysical worlds by formulating the most significant concept addressed in this article.
“Subconscious Mind”
What intrigued James about the somnambulic state is its “dissociative nature.” When an individual is hypnotized, his conscious mind steps aside, allowing another “mind” to surface, as if there were two minds instead of one. This “other” mind has been called many names, the most famous of which is the “subconscious mind.” Many theories were formulated about the subconscious mind, attributing all the therapeutic miracles of Gassner, Mesmer, and Puységur to it.
James took this concept and developed it in the context of his religious science studies, so that the subconscious mind became the gateway between science and religion, and in another interpretation, the gateway between the physical world and divine miracles (i.e., the miracles of Christ according to the Christian culture of American society). The concept of the subconscious mind played a pivotal role in formulating the intellectual orientations of several spiritual movements gathered under the name, New Thought Movement, which believed in the power of thought over the subconscious mind, and thus, over human health and safety. All the patient has to do is suggest to his subconscious mind that he is healthy and well, then believe that his body will heal itself, without any external interventions. In this regard, Charles F. Haanel – one of the most prominent teachers of New Thought – said during his lectures in 1912, “As the most powerful forces of Nature are the invisible forces, so we find that the most powerful forces of man are his invisible forces, his spiritual force, and the only way in which the spiritual force can manifest is through the process of thinking.” He continues in another instance, “The ability to receive and manifest this power depends upon the ability to recognize the Infinite Energy ever dwelling in man.” He thereby revealed the secret to us nearly a hundred years before The Secret: “Not only can it [the conscious mind] impress other minds, but it can direct the subconscious mind. In this way, the conscious mind becomes the responsible ruler and guardian of the subconscious mind. It is this high function which can completely reverse conditions in your life. It is often true that conditions of fear, worry, poverty, disease, inharmony and evils of all kinds dominate us by reason of false suggestions accepted by the unguarded subconscious mind.” This is the basic principle on which most self-help books are based today; we are masters of our own fate.
Because America believes in capitalism as it believes in Christ, the new intellectual direction developed to match the ambition of the American dream, and the subconscious mind became capable of attracting wealth, happiness, and prosperity. It became a pure American product, made to be traded. Like its predecessors, the New Thought Movement adopted an anti-institutional discourse in order to defend itself in the name of freedom of belief. It gained popularity throughout the 20th century because it aligned with the consumer’s mentality and his desire to achieve his dreams and ambitions.
Like any commercial product, there was an urgent need to rebrand it to suit the developments of the 21st century.
“Law of Attraction”
In 2006, the world witnessed the publication of the controversial book The Secret. I vividly remember the advertisements on the streets, the discussions about the “Law of Attraction,” and the distinct feeling of holding a one-of-a-kind book; the glossy cover, the fine print in the style of vintage paper, the resonating words that promise you wealth, happiness, and the fulfillment of your dreams and wishes …
What’s the conclusion?
Now, after this lengthy historical narration, we have to ask ourselves: Can power be exercised without resistance? Simply put, no. History has never documented a state of complete submission to an institutional authority (whether the authority of a religious or scientific institution). This leaves us with two options: either we fight until the day of judgment (and thereby lose the trust of many people due to factions), or we redistribute the roles according to the scope of each authority (and thus gain the people’s trust because of our understanding of their varying needs). Science cannot fulfill the function of faith, and doctors cannot play the role of Sheikhs. The scientific institution must be aware of the limits of its authority, and work to protect the individual without stripping him of his rights and ridiculing his beliefs. We must not forget that our primary goal is to ensure the safety of society and the individual, not to defend institutions.
References
- Harrington, Anne. The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine.
- Taves, Ann. Fits, Trances & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James.
- Darnton, Robert. Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France.
- Brower, M. Brady. Unruly Spirits: The Science of Psychic Phenomena in Modern France.
- Menand, Louis. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America.
- Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
- Haanel, Charles F. The Master Key System
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