Friday, March 4, 2016

The so-called Law of Vibration is drivel







A while ago at the LinkedIn group called Public Speaking Network I saw a post which linked to a recent, very slick, ten-minute YouTube video by Bob Proctor on The Law of Vibration. Bob is a gray-haired gentleman who looks like your grandfather or a crazy uncle (there’s a web page about him over at the Encyclopedia of American Loons). But, his notion of how the universe works really just is a fairy tale. Here is a transcript of that video:

“In the movie ‘The Secret’ I quoted Dr. Wernher von Braun, who is considered by many as the father of the space program. He said: ‘the natural laws of this universe are so precise that we don’t have any difficulty building a spaceship, sending people to the moon, and we can time the landing with a precision of a fraction of a second.’ He also said these laws must have been set by someone.

And you know, it’s strange, It’s not that long ago when science and religion were really considered antagonistic. That’s not so today. It’s looked at it now one’s studying the cause and the other’s studying the effect. And von Braun said after studying the spectacular mysteries of the cosmos for many years he had arrived at the firm conviction that there is a God. I see the laws as God’s modus operandi It’s how everything happens.

The Secret was based on the concept of the Law of Attraction. and, because the movie went viral, it was all over the world. Everyone everywhere was talking about the Law of Attraction. People writing books on it that don’t really understand it. People speaking on it that many of them advertise their ignorance when they talk about it. I’m of the conclusion that attraction is not understood in any depth by most people.

Now, I’ve studied this every day for fifty-some years, and I can assure you attraction is a law, but it’s a secondary law. The primary law is the Law of Vibration. The Law of Vibration is one of the basic laws of the universe. It decrees that everything moves, nothing rests. We literally live in an ocean of motion. Do you know that everything is an expression of the same thing? The leaves, the tree, the cement, the body, the clothes. It’s all energy at a different rate of vibration.

You see, your body is a molecular structure at a very high speed of vibration. Your brain is an electronic switching station. Your brain does not think, but you think with your brain. There’s a difference. As you activate brain cells, you set up a vibration in your body. For me to just move my hand like that, I had to activate brain cells, or my hand wouldn’t have done it. If a person’s had a stroke, where the just blood stops going to a section of the brain, those brain cells become dead. The movement in the body, in that part of the body that is controlled by those cells stops.  

Vibration is something that must be understood if you’re going to take control of your health. It must be understood if you’re gonna take control of your relationships. It must be understood if you want to become wealthy. And if you want to really master the art of selling, vibration is an essential. You’ve got to understand that. And yet, almost all the sales training programs that are done worldwide have nothing about the Law of Vibration in them.

Robert Louis Stevenson said everybody’s selling. You’re selling a idea, a product, or a service. And it’s true. The teacher is selling the student. The parent is selling the child. The child is selling the parent. Well, what do we mean selling? Well, the professional sales person understands that selling is doing something for someone, not to someone. And the professional will sit down and they will get to know the prospect. They will find as much about the prospect as they can.

They will have permission to ask the prospect questions. They will gather a lot of information, and they find out where the prospect wants to go, what they want to accomplish. They mentally get on the prospect’s frequency and help the prospect go to where they want to go. My old mentor called that empathy ego balance, where you’re able to get into the other person’s mind and see the world from where they see it. Get on their frequency, get in their vibration.          

The vibration you’re in is gonna dictate what you attract into your life. And if you’re troubled, you’re worried, you’re gonna attract a lot of bad energy. That’s why the great sufferer in the Bible (Job 3:25) said “Lo, the thing I fear is come to visit upon me.” Well, fear is a very negative vibration. It’s a very negative emotion. It’s caused by doubt and worry, and doubt and worry is really caused by ignorance. That’s why Solomon said (Proverbs 4:7) “In all your getting, get understanding.” What do we want to understand?  I think we want to understand the laws that govern our being, the laws that govern our universe. And then we want to understand how to get in harmony with the law. Everything you want will come to you when you get in harmony with it. 

Vibration is essential to understand. But only one person, maybe (in) ten has any grasp of it at all. If you ask a person how they feel, what they’re really telling you is their conscious awareness of the vibration they’re in. If a person says I just don’t feel very well, that person’s probably in a very negative vibration. A person said I feel wonderful, they’re in a very good vibration. If you’re in a really good vibration, and you’re with a person that’s very negative, you will not feel comfortable in their presence. Feeling, conscious awareness, vibration, you don’t feel comfortable in their energy and you want to get away from them. Now, if you were negative and they’re negative, you’re going to come together. Misery loves company. See, these old sayings are all based on laws. It’s hard to believe that two miserable people would be comfortable together, but if you understand they’re both on the same frequency. They’re both listening both to the same music.

You’ll often hear a person that went for a walk in the woods and they said it was so pleasant. Why? The vibration of nature is perfect. That’s why a walk in the woods leaves you feeling so good.

What do you understand about The Law of Vibration? That’s a good question to ask yourself. I’m going to give you a small exercise. The next time you’re around a person that’s complaining about anything, or that obviously doesn’t feel very well, start changing the subject. Start talking to them about them, about something good about them. Compliment them. But make it a sincere merited compliment, not false praise. No flattery. Pick out something good that they do, and slowly turn the subject around to that. Let them know how much you admire how well they do it. And you know something, like that their energy will change. You have caused them to change their vibration. Now the beautiful truth about this, when you do, you’ll learn how to do it to yourself when you’re not feeling very good. That’s the beautiful truth. We are in control of how we feel.        

I was reading something by Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, a Viennese psychiatrist  who spent the war years in a concentration camp. He said in every situation there is a space between the situation and how you respond to it, and in that space you can decide how you’re going to respond. Now, that space may only be a millisecond, but in that space you can decide. Are you going to react, or are you going to respond? Think of it. In every situation between the situation and your response, there is a space, and in that space you can decide how you’re going to respond.

Vibration is something that I love studying. When you’re in a restaurant or in a store or anyplace where the energy is really good, you feel very comfortable. It’s the vibration in the place. You’ve gone into a restaurant and sat down, and before you ordered it and all the sudden you don’t want to eat there. It’s the energy, it’s the vibration of that place. You should get up and leave.

Go where you feel comfortable. Do what makes you feel good. That’s why people that are doing what they love never have to work again. They spend their whole life in a wonderful vibration. The person who truly understands how to pray puts himself in a wonderful vibration. I want to suggest you study it and understand this. You will attract to you whatever you’re in harmonious vibration with. You are in control of the vibration you’re in.”
            

The first thing you should know is the idea that “everything moves, nothing rests” goes back about 2500 years to the philosopher Heraclitus.

Mr. Proctor says a sales person should:

“Get on their frequency, get in their vibration.”

But, there’s nothing that says a thing or person should have just ONE frequency. First we can look at some things that are big enough to see with our naked eye. Let’s look at how a string, a one-dimensional object, can vibrate.

Watch this YouTube video of a Vibrating string - normal modes. Note that they show different frequencies with n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Next, watch another YouTube video of a two-dimensional object - Amazing resonance experiment (square plate). Is The Frequency 345, 1033, 1820, 2041, 3240, 3835, 3975, 4049, 4129,   4173, 4221, 4280, 4444, 4671, 4840, 5201, 5284, 5907, or 6051 Hz?


























What about something we can’t see, like a water molecule. If we can’t describe how it vibrates, then we have no hope of understanding how the universe behaves. As shown above, it has three different ways to vibrate. You can watch an animation of them on the Wikipedia page about Electromagnetic absorption by water (look under Vibrational spectrum). 




















That Wikipedia page also shows the more complicated Absorption Spectrum (attenuation coefficient) versus wavelength (or frequency) for water as a liquid (red), solid ice (blue), or a gas (green). Ask a chemist to explain it to you.   

The real universe is a lot more complicated than Bob Proctor’s fairy tale version. 

Images of sine waves, a ball model for water, and the absorption spectrum for water all came from Wikimedia Commons.

UPDATE - March 10, 2016

At The Atlantic on March 9th Michael Graziano has an article titled Most Popular Theories of Consciousness Are Worse Than Wrong. He mentions the oscillation theory, which may be where Mr. Proctor got his vibrations from.
 

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