Attraction

 

The law of attraction is a personalized philosophy familiar to conversations surrounding energy healing. The way in which you give is the way in which you receive is one analogue; and a strict definition can be found in Terry Andrews' The Occult Christ:

“Like attracts like. Energy is magnetic as well as electric. What we put out, we get back” (98-9). Combined we have:

a] The more you give, the more you receive;

b] the less you give, the less you receive.  

It seems that the western world is a counter example to a] and b], or otherwise, a justification of a]. But consider a] and b] individually: are they true? Consider a]. We already have so much. How then can we know if we are getting more when we give some away? And here the response might prove the point: Well surely, we are so blessed. It must be Karma.--But here we look to find reasons for why we are so privileged. 

Perhaps a] is then trivially true, a law of "prudent" capital returns. What of b]? Surely false: many give little, or even take much, and yet receive much. 

a] and b] are philosophically problematic, of course. Kant put the point well when he argued that selfish interests cannot be excluded in a pure interpretation because the notion of good works presupposes merit, which always associates one’s interests, thereby making the testable limit impossible to determine. Bataille talks around this limit in his notion of expenditure. Ideally, which is to say, surpassing prudence, one would give everything until one enters into collective friendship; joy before death. Presumably the spiritual test contra Kant is that if you get nothing in return, can you still find joy? 

The trouble in all of this is the way in which the law of attraction permits interpretation. Of course ambiguity is standard when it comes to occult or hidden knowledge, that is, of knowledge yet to be ‘unconcealed’ or ‘disclosed’--whether, that is to say, knowing non subjectively is even the point of spiritual exercises. And to be clear, I do not think that because the terms of the proposition that I give and receive more to give to receive more, etc., are ambiguous, and Kantian at root, one therefore is permitted to entertain Crowley’s spiritual summation: do as thou will (is the summary of the law) (of Horus). Christ, from the age of Osiris by Crowley’s rendering, of course, interprets Andrews’ well defined law of attraction with a bit of fruitful ambiguity:

“Wherever your treasure lies, there you heart will also” (Luke 12:34)

To give merely in order to receive; to stop the circle from moving through ad(in) infinitum cyclical stages, is the limit (and proof) of Kant’s suspicion about pragmatic moral law and intentionality. Bataille cracks open Kant's notion in a way that coheres with ideal anarchist (nihilist) negation. The decision in ideal nihilist negation is always whether there can ever be rest, a final end in the gifting of ones’ means to the friend that is, or whether rest is just death, that is, the non-metaphorical kind from which one cannot return. To be clear, of course, we are talking about killing our material extensions, not our material substances. As such, we are here delimiting ourselves through transformation unto the gift of bare necessities that Baloo (the bear) was talking about. 

Well then, let's consider the point from fresh angle. Gift-energy involves the notion of uncontainment. So what’s the problem with giving energy to vampires or some ideal that consumes us while producing it? The real question here is: just when is it fruitful to "bind" oneself to an ideology? 

Most people give in order to receive. Even expenditure involves the gift in order to receive another kind of gift, the gift of possible joy before death.--But there is also a gift here to oneself; a learning that one can do with less. If we give it all away, is there any guarantee that we will get things back? Of course not! To repeat, joy before death is to entertain the possibility that we will have nothing afterwards, and even, on a meta level, that we could become nothing in the act of giving. 

Now, is it not the case that we contain our energy for later use precisely because we doubt this limit in both senses, whether supernatural or natural, whether from the Source, or God, or whatever, or from our friends? We might give it all away to strangers or give it all away to our friends; but we probably don’t give everything away precisely because we believe we won't get it back, precisely because we don't believe Karma, precisely because we don't believe our gift will return. Precisely because we fail to desire the qualitative.

The way out of all of this, of course, is to test the proposition. Is a] true? Do I receive more if I give everything away to those that I do not know? Do I receive more if I give everything away to my friends? Does it make a difference? 

And there we stand, immobile, bound to our prudence, bound to our doubts.