More Powerful Than Affirmations – Part I

The idea of making a positive statement with anticipation that it will have a beneficial influence in our life has an historical precedent from long ago.

It stems from a time where affirmations were associated with or were identical to the decrees and invocations made by individuals who were extraordinarily advanced in consciousness. (There is a memory of this era in the human collective unconscious.) Such beings were so advanced that in many cases they achieved legendary status with respect to their abilities to manifest powerful change.

These master teachers and healers have been called by various names, and have been revered worldwide.  Sometimes they were shamans from aboriginal tribes, sometimes they were monks in lineages of Zen or Tibetan Buddhism.  Sometimes they were called Masters of the White Brotherhood. The names are not important. What is critically important for this discussion is to recognize the advanced state of consciousness these individuals possessed.

When such beings spoke words with intention, they were highly coherent within themselves, and inhabited a state of mindfulness far beyond the comprehension of the average person.  When they uttered decrees or invocations (what we might call “affirmations”), they were immersed in God Presence. They were invoking the I AM energy that is mentioned in A Course in Miracles.  In the case of highly aware and extremely advanced individuals (or individuals who were born with what Tibetans monks call “accumulated merit”), decrees, invocations and affirmations truly can have power and can cause major change, because there are no negative subconscious beliefs opposing them.

It is very misleading, however, to think that the average person can plan on the same kind of change occurring in his life by simply adopting positive conscious beliefs, repeating positive statements, AND even by adding the dimension of “feeling” that the statement is true.  Whether affirmations have an effect has to do with a type of coherence that links and aligns intention with the subconscious mind. (Sometimes this “linking” can occur in a deep meditative state or in a particular “feeling” state.) If an affirmation (which arises from an intention in our conscious mind) does not somehow interface and connect deeply with the subconscious mind, it is likely that it will have no effect. And if there is a negative opposing subconscious belief, the affirmation will not have a positive outcome because the negative subconscious belief overrides positive conscious intentions.

This is not speculation.  I witness it every day in my clinic. It is proven every day by clinicians trained in an emerging field (called “thought field therapy” or “energy psychology) whose origins date back 20-30 years. Let’s take a look at the time when the discovery was made relating to why and when affirmations don’t work.