Are you serious?
A woman in Texas, Esther Hicks, claims a non-physical group called "Abraham" speaks to her, teaching her ideas and techniques that anyone can use to realize their desires. She and her husband, Jerry Hicks, have toured the country since the late 1980s giving seminars on these teachings, produced numerous books, and recorded audio and video. Their most famous work, Ask and It Is Given, was published in 2004 and remains popular in the New Age Law of Attraction crowd.
"I'm not going to take advice from a weirdo who claims to hear voices from the outer dimension. They belong in an institution," you might say. Well, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater quite yet. Keep reading; I'll explain.
The first part of the book explains how the Hicks first came into contact with "Abraham" and the concepts they teach. Through about 100 pages of repetitive content and lots of odd terminology, it boils down to this:
If you want to listen to country music on the radio, what do you do? Would you leave it on the contemporary hits station and whine that you’re not hearing country music? No, you change the channel to the right one so you get the music you want.
Abraham-Hicks teaches you're mind is like a radio. Your thinking chooses what “channel” you want and God/ The Universe/Your Subconscious (however you want to look at it) picks up those signals, or "vibrations," as Abraham-Hicks calls it. Your feelings, thoughts, and emotions send signals to the “Universe” that, in turn, manifest circumstances to reinforce those same feelings, thoughts, and emotions. This is essentially the Law of Attraction. Like attracts like.
Your job is to figure out what you really desire, send out the right "signals" to the Universe by aligning your thoughts and feelings, and then reduce your own internal resistances and allow the Universe to work out your desires.
The second half of the book is a series of 22 different processes or "games" that you can use to align yourself with your desires and have the Universe work to your advantage. Abraham-Hicks teaches you to use your internal compass or what they call the "Emotional Guidance System" to steer your signals or "vibrations." If you combine this with relaxed detachment or what they call the "art of allowing," your desires will manifest.
"Wait, that's just nonsense! The Universe is random chance. It doesn't care what you think or feel at all. I'm not going to play dumb games!" you might say.
Why it might work anyway
Are you familiar with the placebo effect? It's an unusual pattern discovered in medical science where people receiving fake medicine often had positive effects as good as or even better than the actual treatment. The patients got better because they sincerely believed they took real medicine. Now, this doesn't mean fake medicine is better or always appropriate, but it does raise the question: why would belief have such an effect?
There's a similar idea in psychology, philosophy, and mythology known as the "self-fulfilling prophecy." The famous Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James was once invited to give a speech summarizing 100 years of psychological research up until that time. Allegedly, his speech was less than a minute, and he said, "People by and large become what they think of themselves."
One more example. In an episode of South Park, a Mormon family moves into town, and the young son, Gary, tries to make new friends with the main characters. Gary tells the origin story of his religion and of his prophet Joseph Smith. Of course, South Park pokes lots of fun at the LDS Church, but there is a plot twist at the ending. See the one-minute video below to find out.
(For the record, I'm not saying religion is equivalent to a placebo, nor do I think South Park makes that argument. The point is that powerful lessons and wisdom can come from anywhere and do not necessarily need a logical materialistic explanation.)
"Yeah, smarty pants. Where are you going with this?", the skeptic continues. Even if the Abraham thing and the recommended techniques are made up, what if they're actually helpful? What if by using them you change how you think of yourself and you change your destiny?
There's an old quote that goes, "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
"Ok fine, but what are you supposed to do?" As I mentioned earlier, the second part of the book has 22 different techniques. While some of them may be old hat, I do have to give credit to the authors as this is the first time I've seen such an array of different tips consolidated together.
I see the techniques falling into one of two categories.
Mental games
Writing games
None of them are difficult or time-consuming, though they might feel awkward or odd at first.
The mental game
Some of the mental games include the usual recommendations of meditation and visualization, or what the authors call "virtual reality." But what makes these tips different is the reasoning behind them.
For example, they recommend no more than 10 to 15 minutes of meditation daily, and they say the point is not to magically manifest something by itself. Meditation is meant to teach you to relax and learn to allow things or the Universe to naturally flow. An analogy I can think of is that doing body stretches isn't going to magically make you into an athlete but helps you to maneuver better in whatever athletic activity you plan to do.
The same idea applies to visualization or what they call "virtual reality." Imagining yourself accomplishing your desires is meant to increase your feelings of well-being and confidence. Those, in turn, increase your chances for success. Remember the self-fulfilling prophecy? Might sound silly, but even Olympic athletes and professional basketball teams use it.
Abraham-Hicks teaches that a mere 17 seconds of thinking about something is enough time to start making a difference. Doing four cycles of it, 68 seconds, makes it even more powerful. It can be surprisingly challenging to focus on a singular thing for 68 seconds straight without getting distracted!
Supposedly there were studies where they divided players into three groups—group A does practices, group B does not practice, and group C only visualizes practicing. As the story goes: Group B doesn’t improve (as expected) but Group C improves almost just as much as Group A even thought they didn’t physically practice.
I’ve heard variations of the above story in different contexts such as basketball players or Soviet Olympic athletes. I tried finding actual studies online. Some had a sampling sizes I thought were too small or the reported results were mixed, but this one involving 65 tennis players caught my attention. They had players combine visualization with a dual-goal setup where they imagined (1) gaining mastery of tennis and (2) improving specific skills and exercises. The researchers found those who used imagery techniques with both the mastery and performance type goals improved more than the other players.
Moving on. There were new techniques I haven't heard before. One example is "The Wallet Process," where you carry around a $100 bill in your wallet or keep it at your desk. As you come across different stores or offers, you see yourself having the ability to purchase it and imagine what it would feel like. Repeating this process over and over helps build what's called an abundance mindset and may open your mind to more possibilities and opportunities than you initially realized.
Write it out
The writing games require slightly more work but might have better results for some people. One game is simply "scripting." Pretend you are a novelist or Hollywood screenwriter describing yourself having your desires. Make it as detailed as possible—Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why. What do you feel, see, hear, touch, taste, and think?
Another is the "placemat" technique, so called because Esther created it at a restaurant on the back of a paper placemat. Are you drowning in an endless queue of tasks you need to do? Try this. Draw a line down the middle of a large sheet of paper. On the left side, title it "Things I need to do today." On the other side, write "Things I'd like the Universe to handle today." You can't possibly accomplish everything you want because some of it is out of your direct control. Maybe try asking the Universe to help with it. I did a version of this before going to bed one night because I needed several people at work to give me status updates. By the time I logged on at work the next morning, everything was addressed. Perhaps a coincidence but it was surprising all the same.
Use the 80/20 rule
For brevity's sake, I'm not going to go over all 22 games here. If you really want to do it, it’s better if you get a copy of the book and read for yourself. I did notice some of the games sounded like variations of each other. For example, Process #20 "Turning It Over to the Manager" and Process #10 "Placemat Process" (described above) both center around the Universe helping manage things for you. One was a mental game, and the other a written exercise.
The most powerful of all the techniques? Maybe the funnily titled "Rampage of Appreciation." In essence, the more you appreciate and have an attitude of gratitude, the more you'll find to appreciate and welcome into your life. It's a positive cycle feeding itself.
Like most things, the 80/20 rule applies. I don't think you have to do all 22 games all the time. I would try finding the 20% of the techniques that produce 80% of the results. In other words, finding the two or three techniques that give the best results. This will require trial and error, of course.
[Special thanks to one of my subscribers, Sean, for recommending this book and discussing it with me!]