I feel like such a sucker for thinking so much about the topic of winning the lottery, but I can’t help it - it embodies everything I care about, in a poetic sense.  Perhaps I just use it as an excuse to think about hard topics? ;-P

I was laying in bed, throwing my orange ball up at the ceiling, debating with myself about the morality of winning the lottery.  If I could find a way to win, would it be cheating?  What overall goal am I aiming for, and is this goal moral?  Am I just doing it because I want to escape the rat race of living paycheck to paycheck?  Or is there an honest and healthy reason for my obsession?

I can’t lie to myself… I know that part of me desperately wants to transcend society’s dependence on money.  By winning the jackpot, I will essentially free myself from years of burden and conformity required by society in order to pay for the necessities of life.  But free myself to what end?  What would I do with my time, once liberated?

There is a divine balance to reality.  Any push away from truth creates a perfectly calculated, equal and opposite push towards truth.

If my theories are correct, then society has made a gamble against truth.  Society has taken the stance of “random things happen, and sometimes it’s just coincidence”.  The lottery embodies this assumption by society.

But if the assumption is false - if things happen for a reason, and there is an underlying meaning in everything - then I should be able to win the lottery.  Not for the money - but for the point of demonstrating the falseness of society’s assumption.  After all, who am I to say that I am right, and society is wrong?  What evidence have I presented society with?  As far as society is concerned, I’m just a peebrain with a blog :-).

So, my goal is to demonstrate to society that the assumption of “random things happen, and sometimes it’s just coincidence” is false.  Now maybe I am wrong - maybe society’s assumption is correct.  In which case, I won’t win the lottery, and my failed demonstration can be used as evidence that some things are random.  Of course, that’s not the outcome I believe will come to pass :-), but reality will be the judge of that.

Now - I believe that this goal is moral.  My goal is rooted in revealing truth - whether I’m correct or incorrect.  However, does this answer the question of what to do with the money, once I win?

Yes, I believe it does.  Now that I’ve defined my goal, and my goal is moral, I can more easily see what follows.

After demonstrating that society’s assumption is false, I must spend the money on discovering the truth.  It’s the only moral way to balance out the situation.  I can’t take advantage of society’s ignorance, then disappear with the money to lead a selfish life of abundance.  Once I win, it will become my responsibility to spend the money on restoring balance.

So, let it be known:

If I win the jackpot, then I will use the money to research the topic of both how society allows itself to become deceived, and what the truth actually is.  I will create an organization in order to accomplish this research.  I am announcing this because, in the event that I win, I want to ensure that everyone keeps me honest.  I am human, and I will definitely be tempted to just pack up my bags, and live a peaceful private life.  However, since I know that using society’s ignorance for my own personal gain is immoral, I want to declare my intention publicly.  I will do everything in my power to remain faithful to my word - but, if I start to flake out, then I hope those reading this proclamation will remind me of my obligation.

Oh boy :-P.

The most annoying problem that holds us back from perceiving truth is the uncultivated mind.

First and foremost, let me say this: I do not claim ownership of any special truth, nor do I claim that I have realized anything amazing or awesome.  I am not talking about truth.  I’m talking about our ability to perceive truth.

The term “cultivating” is chosen because that’s exactly what needs to be done.  You cultivate land to prepare it to grow crops.  Uncultivated land has overgrown weeds everywhere.  In order to make it useful, you must remove the weeds, ripping them out by their roots, and tend to the land to ensure it has rich soil.

The exact same is true of the mind.  Self-deception and ego are the weeds of an uncultivated mind.  It takes a lot of effort in order to remove the roots of these illusions, but in the end, you are better prepared to perceive truth.

A lot people don’t see their mind as something that needs that sort of investment.  A lot of times we are distracted from our internal world by the shiny external world.  It’s a shame that our society doesn’t put more emphasis on developing healthy thought patterns, and investigating the ways our egos fool us.  Instead, sometimes it seems as though society rewards inflated egos, and encourages self-deception.

Society isn’t reality though.

I would like to think that those reading this blog entry are here for the same reason I am: through pursuit of truth.  My number one priority is not to be rich, nor create a family, nor be a rock star.  Not that those things wouldn’t be great :-).  But my number one priority is to perceive truth.

The ego of one person can destroy a nation.  The ego of a handful of men and women can destroy the world.  That’s pretty powerful stuff.  I feel bad for the race that has auctioned it’s future off to the ego of man… oh wait :-P.

There are two struggles I constantly fight.  One is against my own ego and self-delusion, which I passionately fight my hardest to overcome.  The second is the egos and self-delusions of others, which I am slowly becoming more and more tired of fighting against.

I don’t have any divine truth to convey.  I can’t give you any answers.  The best I can do is point you in - what I feel is - the correct direction.  Cultivate your mind.  Value truth over existance.

Twenty-five years on this earth.  So far so good :-).

Science is great.  And I’m not just saying that.

I used to consider myself very scientific… but really I never understood why science was correct.  I just knew that it was suppose to be the best system of discovery, so I should trust it.  It came down to trust.

When I discovered that psychic abilities were actually real, I felt like my trust was betrayed.  I felt like science had led me down a faulty path, and that path had turned out to be incorrect.  Science had failed me.  My trust was broken.  So I started to look towards other things to trust in.

Nothing really grabbed my eye, though I did try a lot of belief structures over the years.  I would always end up rejecting it because it wasn’t scientific enough :-).  Eventually I did settle somewhat on the idea of personal development.  It was scientific to a point, but there was a lot of intuition and psychic ideas in it as well.  Sounds perfect :-).

But lately, I’ve come to discover that the personal development mentality is flawed as well.  The flaws are very clever and creative, and very hard to detect.  Ideas like meta-beliefs can really screw your mind over… Intention manifestation is a very clever idea as well.  Ultimately, I do not believe in intention manifestation, and the things that are incorrect with the intention manifestation model can be detected by being scientific.

Which is why I feel that science is the best method for discovery.  At this point, it doesn’t feel like before - I don’t feel like I “trust” science, instead I feel like I’ve derived the scientific method by trial and error.  Every other belief system I’ve tried out has failed because there are gaping holes that are easily prevented using logic, reason, experimentation, and evidence.

I can disprove intention manifestation pretty quickly.  Let’s make an experiment.  Intend to win the lottery for a month straight.  And if you win, then intention manifestation has some evidence to support it.  And if you fail, then intention manifestation has some evidence to disprove it.

It just so happens I did that exact experiment :-).  I believed 100%.  I visualized.  I intended.  I put my heart into it.  I got my emotions going.  I did this religiously for a month.  And I got zero results.

Now before everyone flips a lid, let me make something clear: there is evidence that the process of intention manifestation actually does affect reality.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes, with different intentions.  However!  It is NOT as simple as “placing your order” with the universe.  The universe is not a genie.  Or at least - that’s not what the evidence suggests.

In the future I may delve further into the raw evidence, and look for alternate explanations.  However, the point of this post is to express the simple point of view that: science produces the most accurate observations about reality.

Period.

The best way to learn about reality is to actually play around with reality and see what happens.  I know this seems obvious.  But that’s not what a lot of us do.  A lot of us form our opinion of how reality should function - and then we play around with reality until we notice the results that confirm our opinion.

Or we play around with reality until we form an opinion on something… then we only do things to confirm our premature assumptions.  There is actually an amazing idea in psychology that looks into this phenomenon - it’s called confirmation bias.  I recommend reading about the experiments they did to observe this phenomenon - it’s very interesting.

-

It’s hard for me to express why science is important while in the same breath say that psychic abilities and intention manifestation do produce results.  But here I am :-P.

I think it’s important to separate skepticism from science.  The scientific method says nothing about skepticism.  The scientific method can be executed by a computer program.  But in the real world, we are humans, with emotions and opinions - and it’s very very hard to remain objective and judge the outcome of something fairly.  Especially once we start investing a lot of emotional energy into one outcome or another.  The skeptical person usually displays a heavy emotional tendency towards evading admittance of ignorance, among other obsessions.  But hey - no ones perfect :-P.

The scientific method - the idea that we need to objectively play around with reality to understand reality - and that we need to constantly change and evolve our understanding fairly and without bias - is a beautiful goal.  It might be impossible to be 100% scientific, but putting our focus on evidence, experimentation, playfulness, and objectivity (even if objectivity is inherently impossible), is the most rewarding belief structure for learning about reality.

(Sorry for the small break - I might be moving apartments and we canceled our internet service and cable in response.  Now I’m on a new connection…)

I reject New Age.

There was a period where I thought to myself, “Well now, let’s give New Age a chance.  After all, they are basically the only group that really delves into psychic abilities.”

Well, I gave New Age a chance.  And New Age failed.

It’s such bullshit.  For every ounce of usable information, there are 300 pounds of backwards illogical bullshit.

I re-read some of my New Age books I have on my bookshelf.  All I did was change my perspective from, “Wow this is interesting” to “How do they know this?”  Holy crap what a difference.

Let me give a quote from one of the books on my shelf (random book, random page):

Generally speaking, you are here to expand your consciousness, to learn the ways of creativity as directed through conscious thought.  The aware mind can change its beliefs, and so to a large extent it can alter its bodily experience.

[another random quote…]

Man is so highly verbal that he finds it difficult to understand that other species work with idea-complexes of a different kind, in which of course thought as you consider it is not involved.  But an equivalent exists; using an analogy, it is as if ideas are built up not like “mental” patterns structured through touch and scent - in other words, thinking, but within a framework entirely different and alien to you.

If you read the quotes from a perspective of, “How interesting this is!”, then everything is jim dandy.  But if you slightly change the perspective to, “How do we know this is true?”, then everything falls apart.  These quotes were taken from “The Nature of Personal Reality”, by Jane Roberts - usually considered somewhat of a classic in New Age culture.

After picking up these books after years, I almost feel offended reading them again.  Who the hell are you to tell me why I’m here?  Maybe I came here to shrink my consciousness, and destroy creativity?  I don’t believe that to be true, but you have no authority to tell me otherwise.

What does “expand your consciousness” even mean?!  Honestly.  “Learn the ways of creativity”?  Says who?  Heh.

And how the hell do you know how a cat thinks?  What makes you qualified to write about how other species think?  Have you DONE anything?  Other than sitting in a chair and spout out nonsense as it floats around in your mind…

I am now very cynical towards New Age (if you couldn’t tell :-P).  I went along for a ride, assuming it would eventually lead somewhere… but it doesn’t.  It’s a circle.  Just like any other belief structure.  Where is the real growth?  Where is the self-destruction?

It’s funny… if you have one requirement for a belief - that there needs to be evidence to support it - then 95% of the belief structures on Earth fail.  Even science and atheism fail quite a bit.

New Age is just another example of how creative human beings can fail at understanding the world around them.  Another one for the recycle bin…

“Mind is not Buddha. Learning is not the path.” -Nansen

Personal liberation is great.

But I get stuck. See, it turns out that everyone is already free. So if I sit here and say that I can help free you, then I’m lying. You are free.

But I see a lot of people using their freedom to enslave themselves. Then they cry because they are enslaved. What am I suppose to do? Help them to stop crying? The only way to stop them from crying is to get them to realize they are already free. But to get them to realize they are already free, they must free themselves from their own enslavement. So I have to tell them that they aren’t free. But they are.

If I tell you, “The only way to become free is to strive for truth in all things”, then that is nice. It’s a nice little statement, which is very useful. But it’s a lie. And very hypocritical at that… I’m lying about striving for truth!

But if I tell you, “You are already free”, it is true. But it’s not useful to you. You are suffering, you feel enslaved, and you want to be free. What good is it to know that you are already free? If anything, that makes it worse!

So I must do the compassionate thing… I must lie in order to help out. Everyone is free, but a lot of us don’t realize it.

So how do you free yourself? Fuck if I know :-).

Personal liberation is one of those things you gotta do for yourself. There’s a lot of bullshit out there… including this post :-). Some idiot thinks he has things figured out, and wants to share his distorted perspective with the world. That’s life. Every person you see is expressing their personalized slavery. So join them if you want… though I wouldn’t recommend it :-P.

People who make sense only make sense because they reflect the things that make sense in our own head. Someone doesn’t help us or hurt us… we help and hurt ourself. The person is only a reflection of this self-process.

So how do you free yourself anyway? I suppose the best way would be to stop taking shit so seriously. And don’t take that advice too seriously either :-).

It’s one big contradiction. If I tell you how to free yourself, then how can you be free of my instruction? Teaching is enslavement. If I give advice, then are you free to not take my advice? Or do you feel compelled to take my advice? If you don’t take my advice, you are enslaved, and if you take my advice, you are enslaved. Good luck! (don’t worry, there’s a third path :-P).

Avoid people who know what they’re talking about. They ruin truth. I’m sure I’m guilty of it… sorry :-P.

I think about the nature of choice and free will quite a bit.

I already know that free will exists. Philosophy majors can bite me :-P. Free will exists because I see myself using it all the time. I’m not going to get into a debate about determinism.

But how do we make decisions? What is a decision? Can we break it down to a chemical reaction in our brains? Or a specific electric current flowing through the neurons in our noggins? I believe we could find some things in my head that relate to my decisions, but I don’t think that’s the starting point of the decision. The chemical reactions are simply side effects.

The only possibility I see is that decisions originate from the quantum world. “Spritual” or whatever. I don’t see any other option (of course, just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean another option doesn’t exist :-P).

Then I think: I think way too much! Does this even matter? I make decisions all the time. I don’t need to know how it functions to use it. Here it is… some mysterious decision making process. Now what will I do with it?

Well, I want to win the lottery, and I believe that I can choose to win. So how am I going to do that. Hmm.

My brain tells me there are two angles for attack: 1. perceive the winning numbers (ESP), or 2. affect the drawing (Micro-PK).  However, my intuition says that there is a third option… and my intuition tells me that this third option is related to intention manifestation.

Let’s explore the intuition some more…

Don’t worry so much! :-)  Yes, intention manifestation is the starting point.  The brain fails you in this situation because ESP and Micro-PK are dependent on the idea that the observer is separate from the observed.  Intention manifestation is more correct because it uses the truth that we are all in the same pool of reality, interconnected.  Even if you don’t want to accept that, then look at the facts.  Remember that intention manifestation actually produced results in the past - ESP and Micro-PK didn’t come close.  Now, the intention manifestation model isn’t perfect… you’ve already torn it apart in previous posts.  But it is useful at this stage, and a step forward.  My recommendation is to start intending again.  Forget about all the theories, explanations, and thought-junk; Just Do It.

I’ve learned how to make a training regiment and stick to it.  I’ve proven this with my physical training.  Perhaps it’s time to start exercising my ability to manifest as well.

Start low, increase slowly.  I’ll start today, intending to win the MegaMillions Jackpot, visualizing myself having the winning ticket.  I’ll focus on this for one minute without interruption.  And I’ll increase it by a minute every day.  By the end of September, I’ll be intending for over 30 minutes.

Sounds like a plan :-).

Hey everyone,

I’ve really enjoyed A Little Weird (ALW) so far. I like it better than PsiPog.net (my old paranormal website) for a variety of reasons. I know that ALW doesn’t provide as much value to the audience compared to PsiPog.net, but I still feel I’m more on the “right path” with ALW than with PsiPog.net.

I want to add more features, but I’m having a hard time deciding what direction to move in. I want to do something original. I don’t want to add all the same generic website staples that exist in every community. Forums are nice, but just plopping up some forums with no direction doesn’t feel right. It’s too bland.

I want a real community. I want everyone to feel as though they are truly a part of something. I want members to take pride in the community, and feel a sense of ownership.

One idea that I keep returning to in my head is that disagreement is vital. I want to attract people with drastically different beliefs and opinions. On PsiPog.net, it felt like we kept trying to get everyone to agree on things. When we failed, we got frustrated, and when we succeeded, things became boring. I don’t like either outcome. I think reality is far too enigmatic to be in agreement on how it functions. I want every member to express themselves as individuals. I want disagreement.

Not that I want members to fight with each other. I simply want healthy and vibrant discussion. I think we can disagree without being mean about it :-).

It’s nice to focus on weird topics because there is so much to discuss. With a focus on the bizarre nature of reality, there is so much unknown. There are no definite answers. I like that. It allows the mind to really think freely and breeds intriguing ideas.

I’m not sure how to build this community. It’s still foggy in my head. I have a collection of ideas, but they aren’t connected yet into one game plan. I’m also not sure how to guard against our natural drive to make others agree with ourselves. It’s natural for a human to try and get people to agree with him/her. I want people to express themselves, and have vibrant discussions, but I don’t want people to gravitate towards those they agree with. If anything, I want the opposite. I want members to gravitate towards people they adamantly disagree with. I’m not sure how to create an environment for that to happen naturally.

I was about to fall asleep one night, when I came up with some ideals for this community in my head. They went something like this:

1. Strength from Contrast

2. Unity through Diversity

3. Know Thyself, or maybe, Courageous Self-Expression

The first one means that contrast is what makes us strong. Our strength, as a group, comes from our differences. The second one means that we should embrace our diversity, and unite under the idea that we are different. So many groups exist because the members have the same beliefs… I want the opposite of that. I want a community that exists because we are all different. The third one I have trouble putting into words, and I’ll probably change it. But the idea is that we each need to be personally strong, and know who we are as individuals. We need to stick up for what makes us who we are, and not be easily swayed by our insecurities.

These are all just ideas at this point. Just floating around inside of my head (and now floating around on the internet :-P). I’m curious if anyone has any further input. I will be solidifying this idea over the next month or so, and once I get a clear vision, I’ll start moving towards it. What do you think?

Oh goodie :-).  A provoking topic.

Everyone takes jabs at religion.  It’s pretty easy to attack something people believe in, no matter what that belief is.  I encourage people to believe in things - even if your belief is incorrect (which it most likely is :-P), then at least you stood up for something.  That’s better than believing in nothing, and acting cynical.

However, I will now be hypocritical, and attack religion.  There are a lot of things about each religion that I disagree with, but there is one specific thing that I adamantly disagree with that exists in most religions.  It is the belief that their path is the only correct path.

To believe that your path is the only path that can lead to God or truth is ridiculous.  In fact, it denies God.  Each human is on their own path, and if you believe in God, then you believe that God put us on these paths.  To claim a path is “wrong” is to deny God’s intentions.

A sharp person will read the above paragraph and see how much of a hypocrite I really am.  If I’m preaching that no path is wrong, then how can I claim that religion is wrong?  I can’t.  I’ve just bitch-slapped myself.  Ow.

If there was one rule I could etch into the universal unconscious mind - one rule that people should just fucking follow no matter what - it would be this: No Killing.  Fuck love, fuck understanding, fuck compassion… let’s just focus on one thing.  No Killing.  Period.  Could we do that?  But I am a hypocrite.  The act of “etching rules” is in fact killing, in disguise.  Oh enigma!  That’s two bitch-slaps.

“Wrong”?  Who am I to say something is wrong anyways?  At best, I can tell others what I personally think is right… but even that doesn’t mean that it is right.  I’ve disagreed with myself more times than the community at large has.  I’ve change my beliefs and opinions so many times… when can I start preaching?  Where do I begin?  The second I start is the second I change my mind, and have to disprove what I’ve just proven.  Those that listen just inherit my struggles on top of their own.  Eek!

However, if I try to convey this observation to those that have yet to observe it, then I’m a victim of my own palm.  And if I do nothing, then my realizations are worthless.

Where is the illusion?  I’ve found it.

Truth cannot be conveyed.  Any attempts to teach truth to someone else is an immediate failure.  This sentence fails.  Truth can only be attained by the self.  No one else can attain it for us.

Is religion wrong?  Or does mind make it wrong?  If I can change my mind on what my favorite movie is, then can’t I change my religion as well?  Who is right?  The me that is religious, or the me that is anti-religious? 

Bahaha :-).

You’ll have to forgive me.

I was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, when suddenly a bolt of lightning struck me.

My subconscious made a comment to me. A very calm and seemingly innocent comment. Perhaps I’m just insane :-). That’s a much more comforting explanation at this point, it seems :-).

My subconscious revealed the metaphor guiding me these past months. And now I can come to no other conclusion than this reality is a form of dream. This idea is so overplayed in religion that it leaves a bad taste on my mouth to say it, but now I’ve seen it with my eyes… so I have no other choice but to admit it’s true.

Ok whoa whoa whoa. Hehehe. I am insane :-). Or maybe I just mind-fucked myself. I don’t know.

There is a deeper meaning behind our personal realities. Everything does happen for a reason.

Look… I don’t want to go into the realization I made, because it’s pretty personal, and I don’t feel like spilling my heart all over the internet for everyone to see :-P. I mean, I like you guys and everything, but not that much :-P. But I can break it down from another perspective that is understandable, now that I have some hindsight.

When I say that “reality is a form of dream”, what I’m talking about is how dreams have deeper meaning when looked at from a metaphorical perspective. So does this reality.

It’s very interesting to analyze your own dreams and see how things manifest. For example, dreaming of taking a shit can represent unloading emotional waste that’s built up inside of yourself, and be a sign of growth and psychological cleansing. So in real life, perhaps you are dealing with old problems that you feel need to be taken care of for you to move on, and tying up loose ends. As a result, one night you dream of taking a massive shit in a bathroom. You wake up thinking, “Now where did that come from? Very bizarre!” But there is an underlying meaning. It’s a metaphor.

So, what I’m saying is that this reality also has this same exact sort of deeper meaning. What we manifest in this reality is a reflection of who we are and what we are dealing with - just like in dreams. It’s a metaphor. This is what intention manifestation tries to talk about (but fails, I believe).

What I’m saying is that this reality uses the exact same metaphor function that dreams use. The exact same function. This is why this reality is a form of dream. This is also why intention manifestation actually produces results. It hijacks and focuses this metaphorical function of reality to produce an outcome.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this correctly or not. Maybe I’m not giving enough examples. Let me try again.

If you’re walking outside, what do you do if it suddenly starts to rain? Do you run for shelter? Do you pause and enjoy the sprinkles? Depending on your personal reality, this reaction means different things. If you run for shelter, perhaps you do this because you feel you need to run from your problems. Other problems you experience in life, you run from. Do you curse the weather? This might mean you feel you’re being treated unjustly by “God”. The weather could represent a system that is out of man’s control, and therefore only under the control of “God”. If it rains on you, you feel that “God” is unjustly making your life miserable, so you curse the rain. It’s a metaphor. Do you see how this is the same function as dreaming as well?

It’s all connected. All the ideas in your head, all the beliefs you hold, all the emotions you feel, all the experiences you have in this reality… it’s all connected.

I’m not saying that if you run from the rain, that you run from your problems. It depends on who you are as a person. Just like your dreams… if you dream about being in the bathroom, it might represent a time period where you need to do some psychological cleansing. But if you are a janitor for a living, then the idea of being in a bathroom would have a completely different meaning to you, since you probably clean a lot of bathrooms for a living. Perhaps it means it’s time to clean up someone else’s mess?

Ok… so anyways. The important part about this is that reality does this. The experiences you’ve had in your life have meaning. They happened for a reason. Think of it like a dream. What is the metaphor? What does it emotionally mean to you? Decode it like you would decode waking up from a bizarre dream.

Now I really do need to get to sleep. This realization has interrupted me :-P. I’ll probably read this in the morning and face-palm :-P.

READ: This is a huge post. I’m sorry - I can’t help myself - my thoughts must move! I realize that most people probably won’t read it all - that’s fine, I don’t expect anyone to. This post is more for my own documentation than it is to share my ideas with everyone. In a future post, I will condense this down into a more readable format. Until then, I need to document my thoughts before the next lottery drawing…

So anyways… I lost the lottery on June 15th, and it really pissed me off, and got me thinking. Look - there’s an important lesson here that needs to be learned by the majority of people on this planet. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. It’s not reality’s fault - it’s mine. When your model of reality is incorrect, you DO NOT force reality to fit into your arbitrary mold. You change your model, and learn from your mistakes. That’s what this post is about.

I was wrong about intention manifestation. I believe intention manifestation is a very nice model of reality, but there are some flaws, and these flaws are holding me back. All models of reality have partial truths in them, so I must take what is true out of the intention manifestation model of reality, and create a new model that can help me win the lottery.

I was breaking the news to a friend of mine, and he responded that first I rejected randomness, and now I’m rejecting intention manifestation… what next? Perhaps I enjoy rejecting models of reality a little too much :-). Either way, I have an updated understanding (which will someday be replaced by yet another, I’m sure). On to version 3.0…

The realization I made originated in my second lottery adventure, which is documented in text and video. What sparked that experience was that I went to the store, and tried to force a win from the scratch off machine. And I failed. Being pissed, I decided to listen instead of forcing things, and documented one of my biggest wins on video as a result.

Where intention manifestation fails is that it gives you the sense that you can accomplish anything, as long as you believe it through and through. This is false. I hate to be a downer, and I hate to sound negative… but I have to conclude it’s false based on the evidence. Belief can help by filtering and aligning your perspective on reality - but belief alone can not create. All it does is change the filter, which can help you in finding opportunities, and things of that nature. With an open belief system, your eyes are more open to success. Belief is important - but belief alone does not do the creation.

Intention manifestation agrees with this mostly. Intention manifestation states that you have to have belief, but you also have to have feelings - you have to visualize and feel as though your goal is true in this moment. Intention manifestation states it’s more than just positive thinking… it’s more than just filtering your perspective. Adding emotions into the mix, and really FEELING it, will produce results. This is false.

Now you might jump out of your seat and yell - “Wait a second, you’ve been using intention manifestation to do all sorts of things, and you’ve gotten results! How can you say that intention manifestation is false?! You’ve used it and seen it with your own eyes!”

True enough. I have used intention manifestation to produce results that can’t be explained by simply altering your beliefs, and changing your filter. On the surface, it seems as though intention manifestation is true, and that’s whats so tricky about it. But we have to dig a little deeper.

The truth is that sometimes intentions come true, and sometimes they don’t. The truth is that sometimes we go through all the steps, and it just doesn’t work. Sometimes it does! And it’s awesome! But sometimes it doesn’t. So obviously we’re missing something in the equation. Some other factor that plays an important role, or some other understanding.

Hopefully I haven’t lost you just yet. Let me review everything, from the beginning, to clear up what I’m about to do.

Ok. So we have these models for reality. Everyone has models for reality in their own minds… we might call them “belief systems”, or “the way things are”, or “how things work”, or “religion” … etc. We all have an internal model of reality that we use in our minds.

Now there are some popular models that a lot of people share. For example, the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0). If I were to tell a skeptic that I plan on winning the lottery, they might respond that it is POSSIBLE for me to win… but in all likelihood, I won’t. They might use concepts found in statistics and probability to talk about how the world works, and how the lottery is designed to make a profit for the government. They might say that the lottery is the tax for the stupid. Stuff like that. This is all in their model of reality. Now the skeptic usually has trouble telling the difference between actual reality, and the model of reality in their head. They think they see reality perfectly clear, and usually have a hard time admitting that they just might be wrong. They haven’t made the distinction that it’s simply a model in their own mind. But that’s ok, we can forgive them for now.

In the New Age and Personal Development circles, we have the intention manifestation model of reality (version 2.0). If I tell people who subscribe to this model that I plan on winning the lottery, most would probably cheer me on saying that it’s certainly possible if I do what intention manifestation tells me to do. Some people might argue that because I’m getting “something for nothing”, that I will fail, because I don’t have a noble cause. But most would probably admit that it’s possible. They would tell me that I have to really believe that I can win, and that I have to meditate and visualize myself winning, and feel all the emotions associated with that. Really put myself in the moment and feel like a winner. Feel like I just won. See it in my mind so clearly that it becomes superimposed on my subconscious mind, and transmitted out to the universe to attract it using “vibrations” and such. Ok.

Now, those are just two models of reality. Sure, they are each interesting in their own right, and they each have a body of literature and history. They each have truths that can’t be denied. But both of them are still just models of reality made by humans… they inherently have faults in them. The trick is to separate yourself from the model you hold in your mind. Don’t become attached to the model - become attached to reality. Reality is the judge. Not the model in your mind. Reality determines what is possible, and what isn’t possible. Not your human understanding. So we must constantly evolve our own internal models based on what we observe in reality. We might not be able to create a 100% perfect model, but that’s ok. We just need to be flexible enough to modify our model when the situation calls for it. We need to be willing to change.

So… my interest in the lottery was sparked by internalizing the realization that the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0, dealing with probability and statistics) isn’t entirely true. There is a vital flaw in this model. I outline the flaw in three posts on this website, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. If you don’t want to read all those, I will summarize the flaw briefly here.

The flaw with the skeptical/cynical model of reality is that it can’t explain how people win the lottery twice. It simply can’t. Now, if you think that it can explain it, then I encourage you to take classes in probability and statistics to truly understand what our modern views of reality tell us about someone winning the lottery twice. If you grasp probability and statistics correctly, then there is only one conclusion to make: people should never win the lottery twice. Yet, people do. So we must admit that the skeptical/cynical model is incorrect.

Now we reach another crossroad. Reality is not behaving as the intention manifestation model states that it should. Just like reality doesn’t behave like the skeptical/cynical model says it should. What is our response? Modify our model of reality. We are forced to reject intention manifestation, the same way we were forced to reject modern ideas of probability and statistics.

When we rejected probability and statistics, we didn’t reject everything. We can’t. A lot of probability and statistics is completely correct and accurate! I would say probably 99% of it :-). But there is a vital flaw. Probability and statistics rely on the existence of the concept of randomness. However, it is my understanding that randomness does not exist. Therefore, while probability and statistics are great tools, we have to realize what they are doing. They are not modeling random numbers. They are modeling choice. Making that simple correction does not undermine all the work that’s gone into the fields of probability and statistics. It simply tweaks it slightly to more accurately fit reality - and it works.

Now that we’re rejecting intention manifestation, we have to realize that a lot of intention manifestation is completely correct. But we need to tweak again. We need to observe reality, and realize where the holes are in our model. Then we need to patch the holes, and use this modified model of reality to accomplish our goals. If reality throws experiences at us that contradict our modified model (which will certainly happen at some point), then we will be forced to tweak again.

So - where does intention manifestation fail?

It fails when we try to manifest something, following the instructions correctly, and it doesn’t work. Our goal isn’t accomplished. We experienced the feelings, we did the visualization, we focused, felt good, believed… and then nothing. No results. Instead of beating ourselves up, let’s beat up intention manifestation :-).

Let’s try to understand how humans created intention manifestation to begin with. We were pretty smart about it… What we did was go around, and interview and talk to all these successful people. We asked them, “How did you do it? What is your story? What made you succeed where everyone else failed?” This is a great idea! Asking questions is a brilliant idea.

Successful people responded with their stories. And a lot of these stories had things in common. So, being the smart human race that we are, we looked at the patterns. We noticed that a lot of successful people had a burning desire to succeed. And this desire consumed their thoughts. We noticed that a lot of successful people believed they would succeed before they did - even when they logically shouldn’t have believed it. We noticed that this burning desire and belief were the very things that made them succeed. Story after story, we noticed that it was this burning desire and belief that got these people through the tough times, and allowed them to create opportunities for them, that led to success. Amazing!

So, after we noticed this, we proclaimed: Successful people had a burning desire and unwavering belief before they were successful. If you want to be successful, you need a burning desire and unwavering belief. Tada!

This idea is outlined in hundreds of books, the most popular of which is undoubtedly Napoleon Hill’s, Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937. A lot of books influenced the creation of the intention manifestation model of reality, but it is my opinion that this book is one of the major ones.

Over time, the intention manifestation model has evolved into what we see presented today, by programs like “The Secret“, and all the other ripoffs. It has evolved from this idea of burning desire and belief, into visualization and feeling your goal is already achieved.

So where is the mistake? Where is the flaw?

I will tell you. It’s very clear to me now that I have hindsight. The flaw is that we think belief, expectation, and feelings cause our goal to be accomplished. This is incorrect.

This is the mistake that we made. We saw that successful people have strong beliefs, and having this sense of “knowing” that they would succeed, before they actually succeeded. This sense of “knowing” is very important - and anyone who has applied intention manifestation knows specifically what it is. This sense of simply knowing that your goal WILL be accomplished. You just know. The mistake that we made is thinking that this sense of knowing caused the goal to be accomplished.

It’s actually a pretty normal mistake that we make all the time. The cynics have solved this problem already for us (hey, what can I say, I owe you a beer :-P). It’s a logical fallacy, called Post Hoc. We noticed that this sense of knowing came before the success, so we assumed this sense of knowing caused the success. Incorrect. Just because it came before does not mean that it caused it.

Our techniques for intention manifestation are based on the idea that we need to induce this sense of knowing. We need to alter our beliefs. We need to create a burning desire. We need to make ourselves believe. We need to convince ourselves that our goal is accomplished. Once we do that, we will have our sense of knowing. And once we have this sense of knowing, then success will follow.

But now we have to reconcile the fact that people can brainwash a sense of knowing in themselves, and the goal still isn’t accomplished. How do you reconcile that? All you intention manifestation people out there reading this… how do you explain how a person can believe 100%, feel it, visualize it, get into it… and then fail? You can’t. Not with the intention manifestation model. It’s time for a new model.

We run into some tension here, because some people might fear that if intention manifestation is incorrect, then we must downgrade to the skeptical/cynical model of reality. Hey, don’t beat yourself up too bad. We don’t have to move in that direction. We can create a new model that incorporates everything we’ve learned. And since our new model is going to be based on personal experience and open mindedness, we’ll be sure to include everything we possibly can, which will in turn help us to accomplish our goals even faster than before.

So now that we know the history of all this bullshit, what is our new model going to be? I propose version 3.0, the choice model :-). Please be aware that I didn’t come up with this all on my own. My current understanding is a result of reading, experimenting, discussing, and stealing ideas from other smart people (one good location for that is Steve’s forum on intention manifestation).

(This is a long post, I’m sorry. I want to get this down on paper before the next lottery drawing, even if that means no one will read the entire post :-P.)

My current understanding is that choice is the root to achieving a goal. This choice is made before the goal is actually manifested, ranging anywhere from a few microseconds, to decades. When this choice is made, we feel a sense of knowing that the goal will be accomplished. Perhaps this sense of knowing comes from a precognitive facility in our minds that actually sees the goal being accomplished - I’m not sure.

What I want to point out is that this choice has a supernatural quality about it that creates the reality we will someday experience. This isn’t simply a normal decision that we experience all the time… this choice is on a different level. English doesn’t have the vocabulary for it.

Ok, look. This isn’t your normal decision. I’m not sure if I can explain it to someone whose never made a decision like this before. To people who have used intention manifestation, you’ve already done it, and you can probably understand what I’m getting at. There comes a point when you say to yourself, “I AM going to do this. Period.” And that sentence alone isn’t what’s so powerful about it. It’s all the emotion… it’s every cell in your body saying “YES” to this. It is a true decision, a real choice. Not the wishy-washy crap that we do daily. It’s the type of choice that makes you slam your fist down on the table, stand up tall, and stare reality in it’s eye. It’s not anger, it’s not fear, it’s not happiness, it’s not joyfulness. It’s the raw emotion of “am”. “To be”. I AM going to do this.

That’s where the power is. It’s not about good or bad, or noble, or evil. It’s raw “YES”. It’s raw “GO”. This is the emotion that is the root to the burning desire. This is the emotion that is the root to belief. To the sense of knowing. This emotion - this choice - is the origin. Maybe you’ve never made a decision like this before, but you’ve probably seen someone make this decision. To look in their eye, and see their resolve. It’s almost like their decision convinces you. You don’t know how they’re going to accomplish their goal, but just by looking at them you know they are going to.

It’s not stubbornness, though it might look a little similar. It’s different. Stubbornness is forceful in nature… this type of decision that I’m describing really isn’t forceful. It’s self-evident. It’s true because it’s true. Stubbornness shuts down your mind… this type of decision opens your mind up. That’s one way to tell the difference.

When you make a decision like this, the world moves. Shit that’s in your way gets out of your way. Shit you need to experience starts to bee-line in your direction.

Now - there are different degrees, which is important to realize. It’s not all about emotion, even though that’s the picture I painted above. Emotion does help though. We can throw all the emotion out the window, and still be left with this choice. However, if you want to make the choice consciously, it would probably be in your best interest to use emotion to help you.

It’s about existence. It’s about being. It’s not inducing a sense of knowing… it’s behind that. Once you hit it, you feel a sense of knowing. Don’t identify it as the sense of knowing - that’s where intention manifestation made it’s mistake. It’s behind the sense of knowing. It’s the root.

Intention manifestation points us in the right direction, which is why it’s successful. But it fails because it’s not precise. It gets us in the right area, but it misses the exact location. We may stumble upon the exact location while using intention manifestation, but only because it’s in such close proximity. These are the times when we succeed. Other times, we are still in the same ballpark, but we fail because we didn’t precisely hit where we need to be.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly. Sometimes my mind gets carried away… let me try again :-P.

Ultimately, it is a choice. Wash away the extra bullshit, and you’re left with a choice. Now, in reality, we have a real hard time washing away the extra bullshit :-P. So we have to deal with the bullshit instead. That’s where things start getting hard to understand. Everyone has different stuff piled on their consciousness, so we all have different things to deal with when it comes to making this choice. It’s tough to get through and make the choice, because there’s so much crap. That’s why we have techniques, methods, exercises, models, ideas, discussions, growth, etc.

Look, if you believe that you can’t win the lottery, then that is extra bullshit piled on your consciousness that needs to be dealt with before you can win the lottery. But it’s not even that simple. If that’s all you had to deal with, then that would be easy! In reality, we have miles of shit to wade through. A simple belief that you can’t win is just an ounce.

Here, let me draw a picture:

Alrighty!

All hope is not lost… yet :-P.

My point is that we have a lot of stuff that goes on inside of our head that stops us from making these powerful choices all the time. The intention manifestation model does a pretty good job of cutting through a lot of that shit, but it’s not good enough. We can accomplish a lot of wonderful things with intention manifestation, but it falls short when it comes to winning the lottery. We might be able to use intention manifestation to win the lottery, but there is a better way.

I failed to win the lottery this past time because I focused on inducing a sense of knowing, assuming that it was the sense of knowing that created the success. This is false, hence I failed.

Now that I see that this supernatural choice is my goal, I know where to aim. And I’ll know when I get it, because I’ll feel a sense of knowing.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

What does it all mean?!

It means I’m changing my strategy for picking lottery numbers. In the past, I just picked random numbers while filling out the lottery sheet. This method may produce a win, but I want to be smarter about it. My new method is to write down lottery numbers on paper, and examine my “sense of knowing” about them. Then tweak the numbers over and over again, until I find my maximum “sense of knowing”. Then play those numbers.

This “sense of knowing” is something that needs to be polled. It needs to be examined and used. NOT FORCED. Not induced. It’s already in us, so let’s use it! I’m much more confident with this strategy than my strategy in the past, and it feels much more correct.

We shall see where it leads.

If you’ve made it this far, amazing. I really didn’t expect anyone to read this entire post. You must be bored :-). Like I said at the start, I intend on making a much more smaller version of this post in the future. I simply didn’t have the time, and I wanted to get my ideas out before the next lottery drawing. If you’ve skipped to the end, then you’re a lousy cheater! JERK! :-P. Anyways… this post took three days to write. And my thoughts are still bouncing around. They will eventually settle down. Thanks! See ya.