Neale Donald Walsch on the Law of Attraction

For those who haven't encountered Mr Walsh, he has been writing since the mid 1990s about his direct dialogues with God through the media of a yellow legal pad. When life got really tough, this middle aged denim shirt wearing white bearded American vented his anger at his maker through letters - and God channelled some very surprising answers. Neale's published over a dozen books which use more capitals than a seventeenth century novel. His latest is out this week, which I am looking forward to.

There is much in these books to discuss, so I shall keep to Book 1 and the answer to Neale's question to God: When will my life take off?

God explains to Neale how this thick genie-like universe of Abundance Theory and an intelligent powerful and loving God are co-existent. God has set up laws for the universe, and our requests have to follow them. This sounds much like the kind of God I was trying to escape and that Neale's God claims he is not. He says: you do not have to love me in the right way to be blessed and not condemned by me... yet there is a path that you do need to find that's as elusive as mystics, or at least the narrow path to salvation. There's no eternal punishment Hell, replete with Devil in the next world, but you can live a hell in this one, and it seems pretty easy to do. God says he's such a big target that you cannot ultimately miss, but as this God believes in multiple reincarnation it might mean a few centuries of doing so before getting near.

If God is so complex and powerful, why is He/She not able to cope with multiplicity any more than PhD supervisors? Why the singular and simple over the lateral and legion?

In my previous understanding of God, he had the answers and we sought him to find them. Now, in Neale's books, we make our own plan. Neale's God says that we are Gods too, and that there are no boundaries of that we can do in terms of power or rightness; and that we must take responsibility for our own lives and not cast it conveniently onto God. But, I respond: we do get it wrong; and being able to call forth anything doesn't mean than all those things will be good. the apostle Paul (am not much of a saint person) says 'Anything is permissible, but not anything is beneficial'. This would fit with Neale (who takes many Biblical verses and gives them astoundingly new twists). I agree that not everything we can have is good for us, and I am unsure how Neale's God would have us choose. He is the parent who allows his children to play without interference until called upon, allowing us to bruise our knees, and to chose our games freely and without parental interest. this analogy was not helpful. One doesn't wish for a prescriptive parent, but having a plan for your best fulfilment is preferable. It makes our purpose here rather vague and all those many decisions we make all the more daunting.

Can God be so simple as to follow our thoughts and make them real - or have built a system where this universe plasma force does, even when we don't want them? God speaks much of the freewill we have, but having to operate within these elusive and frustrating so called perfect laws is as condemning as any God model I have heard of. If The Secret of the laws of Attraction is so occult (ie hidden) and (unlike God) so easy to miss, how can it be perfect and how can God be loving? I suspect that many people find frustrations with these wonderful promises of the life you've always wanted being possible - particularly those who feel theirs is particularly unsatisfactory. If the trio of boastful doctors at Attraction Made Easy.com feel can charge $2000 for a course on how to master it, it seems that there is potentially many who cannot find the path alone. Despite being self titled super achievers whose time over a 28 day period is worth so much money, the course developers have badly failed too. (These are not attached to Neale).

Neale's books expound how that we have an innate need to grow and learn, and that is why we allow problems to remain in our world - to make it interesting. God explains that our higher selves, Who We Really Are, choose to erase that knowledge and capability to relearn it all in each of our incarnate lives. I am now confused, as at one point he says that we create not discover; and a few pages on that we are remembering, not learning. Are we following a path we chose for ourselves, or not? Are we rediscovering, like a king with amnesia who's washed ashore as a peasant, who we are?

Neale's dialogue also says that we chose what we want to experience; and that the suffering we are having is for a higher soul purpose. If one's higher self set off to earth with a very difficult mission in mind, then perhaps some hard things in our lives do make sense.

I also read that this Law of Attraction is about creating in partnership with God the life that we want, rather than a system to frustrate and elude us. In a recent blog, Neale advised something wise to a struggling reader but which seemed to contradict his earlier books:

My present work in the world did not begin until I was 53 years old. All the rest was preparation. Do not mistake "preparation" for failure. Something immensely important is gained during the years we are preparing to make our major contribution. Do not confuse gain with loss. There is nothing lost in learning, and all the experience of all the years will serve you dramatically one day."

Another reader added that she came to understand that she is in the right place for whether she needs to be, and to be patient when you seem not to be able to move your life forward. (I have paraphrased and not given a URL as although the blog is public, I did not wish to compromise the people who posted by quoting them here without permission.) Both these have meant a great deal and felt very freeing.
The Law of Attraction battle continues.