The Law of Attraction

Have you ever noticed how focusing on something—whether it’s a fear, a dream, or a daily frustration—seems to invite more of it into your life? Esther and Jerry Hicks, channeling the collective consciousness known as Abraham, use this everyday observation to build the foundation of The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham. They argue that the universe operates through a simple but profound principle: you attract what you give your attention to. This, they say, is not only a metaphysical theory but the central organizing law of existence—“that which is like unto itself is drawn.”

The book presents a system of spiritual mechanics that you can use to deliberately shape your experience, replacing unconscious creation with conscious, joyous co-creation with the universe. Abraham teaches that every thought carries a vibration, and those vibrations summon experiences that match them, much like a radio tuning into a specific frequency. You are always broadcasting, always attracting—and whether you do so deliberately or by default determines the quality of your life.

What the Book Argues

At its heart, the book asserts that you create your reality through your thoughts, emotions, and attention. By becoming aware of where your mental energy flows, you can align with what Abraham calls your Inner Being—the nonphysical source energy that always guides you toward expansion and joy. When your thoughts and emotions harmonize with that inner guidance, you experience positive emotion, synchronicities, and ease. When they conflict, you experience struggle, resistance, and unwanted outcomes. This emotional feedback is your built-in navigation system.

Abraham’s intention is not to give you another belief system, but to remind you that you are an extension of Source Energy. Instead of struggling to fix an external world, you start by adjusting your internal vibration—your feelings and thoughts—and the outer world shifts in response. It’s a mindset echoed in works like Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, both emphasizing mental alignment as the foundation of material and emotional fulfillment.

The Three Universal Laws

Abraham organizes their philosophy into three interconnected Universal Laws:

• The Law of Attraction: Like energy attracts like energy. Whatever you focus on—wanted or unwanted—expands.
• The Science of Deliberate Creation: You can create intentionally by focusing your thoughts in alignment with your desires rather than drifting by default.
• The Art of Allowing: True mastery comes when you stop resisting and allow all things—including others—to be as they are, freeing your own energy flow.

Each law builds upon the previous one. Without understanding the Law of Attraction, you cannot truly create deliberately. Without practicing deliberate creation, you cannot master allowing. The process is evolutionary—it’s about learning to align, create, and ultimately release control into effortless co-creation with life itself.

Why It Matters

Abraham’s teachings speak to a universal yearning for agency and peace. In a world that often feels chaotic, the idea that your emotions and focus literally shape reality is both empowering and daunting. The Law of Attraction reframes “life happens to me” thinking into “life responds to me.” Instead of reacting to circumstances, you begin consciously designing them. This is not wishful thinking—it’s vibrational management. As you learn to calibrate your emotional frequency toward joy, you magnetize experiences that reflect that joy.

For example, Jerry Hicks recalls that once he began to apply these principles, his lifelong pattern of struggle gave way to ease. Business opportunities flowed, relationships softened, and synchronicities multiplied. The teachings are unapologetically optimistic: you are a deliberate creator, not a victim of fate, and the forces of the universe are on your side—if you choose to align with them.

The Framework of the Book

The book unfolds through five parts. Part I tells the story of Esther’s extraordinary channeled connection with Abraham, transforming skepticism into revelation. Part II explains the Law of Attraction in practical terms—why you can’t attract prosperity while feeling poor or attract love while feeling unworthy. Part III dives into the Science of Deliberate Creation, revealing how focused desire and expectation bring your imagined intentions into form. Part IV explores the Art of Allowing, showing that resistance—whether in judgment, fear, or control—is the only thing that blocks flow. Finally, Part V introduces Segment Intending, a tool for consciously setting intentions throughout your day.

Together, these principles form a kind of metaphysical “user’s manual” for reality creation. The Hickses’ contribution is not a new religion but a clear, experiential system that blends spirituality, psychology, and quantum-like metaphors into an accessible practice of feeling better first and watching external results follow. If you’ve ever suspected that your emotions hold more creative power than you’ve been taught, The Law of Attraction gives you both the rationale and the routines to prove it true in your own life.

Abraham calls the Law of Attraction “the most powerful law in the universe,” emphasizing that it is as consistent as gravity. Whether you believe in it or not, it’s at work 24/7. The law states that whatever you hold in your mind—through focus, attention, or emotion—magnetically draws to itself matching vibrations. You might think of it like a tuning fork: when you strike one, another of the same frequency begins to vibrate in harmony.

You Get What You Focus On

Abraham insists that there’s no such thing as exclusion in an attraction-based universe. When you say, “I don’t want to be broke,” you’re still offering attention to the vibration of lack, which magnetizes scarcity experiences. Likewise, “I don’t want to be alone” tunes your frequency to loneliness. The universe doesn’t hear your words; it responds to your emotional broadcast. Thus, the key skill is to pivot your focus toward what you want—even when current reality tempts you to complain.

“That which is like unto itself is drawn.” The universe does not discriminate—it simply matches your vibration.

Abraham uses simple imagery: if you set your radio dial to 101.5 FM, you wouldn’t expect to hear what’s broadcasting on 89.7. To receive a new frequency, you must tune differently. The same principle applies to your thoughts: your mood tells you which ‘station’ you’re currently tuned to. Negative emotion indicates resistance; positive emotion signals alignment with your Inner Being. Your job, then, is not to control the world but to adjust your own tuner.

Real-World Manifestations

Every example Abraham shares—from Jerry’s shift from scarcity to prosperity to ordinary individuals reversing illness—illustrates this principle. A man focusing on debt attracts surprise bills; another feeling abundant finds new opportunities. Even collective events, like waves of social unrest, follow the same pattern: mass attention to fear and outrage amplifies vibration until it manifests outwardly in shared experience. As author Rhonda Byrne later distilled in The Secret, “The universe is mirroring who you are being.” Abraham’s teaching predates and deepens that idea by making emotion your real-time feedback from the universe.

Emotions as Your Compass

Perhaps the most empowering aspect of this law is the awareness that your feelings are immediate indicators of your vibrational direction. Instead of judging emotions as good or bad, you read them as messages. Frustration means, “you’re focused on what you don’t want.” Relief means, “you’re turning back toward what you do want.” This emotional guidance system replaces blind striving with moment-to-moment course correction. As Abraham says, “You can always tell whether you’re creating what you want or what you don’t by how you feel right now.”

Ultimately, the Law of Attraction is less about forced positive thinking and more about awareness. You become a participant rather than a reactor. When you deliberately give thought to what you desire and practice feeling its presence before it arrives, you align both your consciousness and the cosmic laws themselves. The outer world, sooner or later, must follow suit.

Once you understand that thoughts attract matching experiences, the next step is applying that understanding intentionally. Abraham calls this the Science of Deliberate Creation—a process where you no longer create by accident or reaction but consciously craft your outcomes through focus, belief, and emotional alignment.

From Default to Design

Most people, Abraham explains, spend their lives observing reality and reacting to it. They see what is, comment on it, and thereby amplify it. The job you dislike, the lack of money, the tension in relationships—all persist because you focus upon them. Deliberate creation reverses this order: instead of responding to existing conditions, you first imagine the condition you prefer, feel its presence, and let emotion draw it into your experience.

The authors suggest a structured practice called the Creative Workshop. Set aside 15 minutes daily to enter a “mental studio” where you sculpt your desired reality in thought. You might see yourself in thriving health, abundant finances, or enjoyable relationships. The key is not daydreaming but generating genuine, positive emotion—the vibrational fuel that summons your creation.

The Two Sides of the Equation

Abraham summarizes the creative equation this way: Desire + Belief = Manifestation. Wanting alone isn’t enough; you must expect what you want to occur. Many people desire success but simultaneously doubt it; this contradiction acts as a short circuit. Your work is to reduce resistance—to bridge negative beliefs into supportive ones until desire and expectation align. Only then can the universe deliver the physical correlates of your thought.

“Attention to what-is creates more of what-is. Attention to what is becoming creates your future.”

Abraham compares this to tuning a radio signal: if you desire jazz but continually broadcast static, you can’t receive music. Through deliberate focus, thought becomes refined into clarity, and clarity becomes magnetism. This method echoes modern cognitive psychology’s emphasis on selective attention and expectancy—proving that what you expect truly colors what you perceive and experience.

Emotion and Energy Alignment

The feeling of joy is not just an outcome—it’s the creative engine itself. When you think about what you want and it evokes enthusiasm, you are fully aligned with your Inner Being, and manifestation is immediate on the vibrational level. As this alignment stabilizes, experiences corresponding to that feeling begin appearing. Conversely, when you think about a goal and feel anxiety or frustration, that emotional discord indicates your signal is mixed. You’re asking for one thing while vibrating another.

Deliberate Creation, then, is not about willpower or frantic visualization; it’s about consistent emotional calibration. Like an artist blending colors, you mix thoughts and emotions until they produce the tone that matches your vision. When belief and desire strike resonance, creation moves swiftly and often effortlessly. As Jerry and Esther emphasize, this law isn’t mystical—it’s mechanical. Thought is energy; energy seeks harmony; harmony manifests form.

If the Law of Attraction brings experiences to you and Deliberate Creation lets you design them, the Art of Allowing ensures you don’t block them. Abraham describes this final mastery as the art of being at peace with what is while still eagerly anticipating what’s next. It is the practice of releasing control—not through apathy, but through trust in the benevolent order of the universe.

Letting Go of Resistance

Resistance, Abraham says, is the only thing that ever slows your manifestation. It appears as doubt, criticism, guilt, or obsession with problems. When you vibrate resistance, the universe must respond with delay or contradiction. Allowing is therefore not passive—it’s an active choice to no longer push against unwanted things. As in Taoist philosophy, it’s the power of flow over force. You stop fighting circumstances and start tuning your state of being.

The Hickses recount how Jerry once wrestled with his impulse to “fix” friends’ negativity. Abraham taught him that the best way to uplift others is by maintaining his own joy. “True Allowing,” they say, “is maintaining your balance no matter what others are doing.” When you cease needing agreement, your vibration stabilizes—and paradoxically, others around you begin to harmonize naturally.

Allowing Versus Tolerating

Many confuse Allowing with mere tolerance, but Abraham distinguishes them sharply. Tolerating means you grit your teeth through others’ behavior while feeling upset. Allowing means you release resistance completely and feel peace regardless. Tolerance still vibrates negativity; Allowing vibrates freedom. By practicing it, you free not only others but yourself from emotional bondage. As the Buddha might say, you stop arguing with reality and thereby end suffering.

One Law, Infinite Diversity

A cornerstone of Allowing is recognizing that diversity sustains creation. Trying to make everyone conform to your preferences halts evolution. Abraham frames this planet as a cosmic buffet: your job is simply to choose and enjoy, not to police others’ choices. This attitude transforms envy and judgment into gratitude and curiosity. When you understand that their abundance does not diminish yours, you finally experience limitless prosperity.

In practical terms, this means refusing to react defensively. Instead of constructing energetic “walls” against unwanted people or events, you trust that nothing can enter your experience without your vibrational invitation. This understanding dissolves fear and restores creative control. You no longer need to fight injustice or scarcity—you outgrow them vibrationally.

By mastering the Art of Allowing, you return to the essence of what Abraham calls “continuing joy.” When you feel good, you allow. When you allow, you attract. And when you attract, you expand. Joy becomes both the path and the destination.

In the final chapters, Abraham introduces Segment Intending, a practical application of all preceding laws. It’s a method for creating on purpose throughout your day by briefly pausing before each new activity to define your clear intention for that ‘segment’ of time. Think of it as spiritual time management: you reset your vibration before entering each interaction, ensuring alignment and focus.

Dividing the Day Into Segments

Each time your setting or purpose changes—waking up, commuting, working, eating, meeting someone—you begin a new segment. Before proceeding, ask: “What do I want most from this segment?” You might intend to feel calm on your drive, to connect meaningfully in a meeting, or to enjoy vitality while exercising. This small pause transforms automatic behavior into deliberate creation. Over time, you prepave each part of your life with clarity.

The Power of Prepaving

Abraham calls it prepaving—laying energetic groundwork so that when you arrive at a future moment, it meets you in harmony with your intentions. If you repeatedly imagine safe, pleasant commutes, you tune your frequency so that only such experiences can rendezvous with you. The more you practice, the fewer 'accidents'—literal or emotional—occur, because your vibration anticipates them differently. Segment Intending thus transforms potential disarray into synchronized flow.

Jerry Hicks shares that by beginning each day with a single overarching intention—“Today, no matter what I’m doing, my dominant intent is to see what I want to see”—he experienced smoother business dealings, gentler conversations, and greater productivity with less effort. The approach reduced his reliance on willpower and replaced it with effortless alignment.

From Reaction to Mastery

The genius of Segment Intending is its simplicity. Instead of wrestling to control big outcomes, you focus on many small moments of clarity. You gradually replace unconscious patterns with deliberate thought. Eventually, your vibration becomes so consistent that positive outcomes compound automatically—a self-sustaining upward spiral. You spend less time repairing problems and more time enjoying synchronicities.

As Abraham concludes, freedom is not escaping circumstance but mastering vibration within it. With Segment Intending, you take charge of that power in real time, moment by moment. Each intention becomes a brushstroke in the artwork of your day—and together, they paint the masterpiece of a deliberately created life.

Among the most transformative teachings in the book is the idea of your Inner Being—the nonphysical, ever-present aspect of you that is fully aligned with Source. Abraham describes it as your higher self, constantly broadcasting love, clarity, and guidance. Your emotions reveal your degree of alignment with it: positive emotion means resonance; negative emotion means discord.

Emotion as Spiritual Guidance

Abraham reframes emotion from a byproduct of experience to an instrument panel for creation. Every feeling you experience is communication from your broader consciousness. When you feel excitement, relief, or appreciation, your Inner Being is saying, “Yes, that’s the direction.” When you feel frustration, fear, or guilt, it’s signaling misalignment. With practice, this awareness becomes second nature, turning life itself into an interactive dialogue with Source Energy.

This idea echoes other spiritual frameworks—the ‘Higher Self’ in Theosophy, the ‘Atman’ in Hinduism, or the concept of ‘Christ within’ in Christian mysticism. Yet Abraham’s version is uniquely practical: you don’t have to meditate for decades to hear your Inner Being; you just need to notice how you feel in real time.

Trusting Your Inner Guidance

Throughout the book, Jerry recounts his gradual shift from seeking external authorities—teachers, religions, even channeled entities—to trusting his own joy as truth. Abraham continually reminds readers: “Words do not teach. Life experience teaches.” By acting on the impulses that feel genuinely good, you reestablish trust in your intuitive wisdom. This doesn’t mean blind impulsiveness; it means discernment through feeling. When something feels light, uplifting, and freeing, it’s aligned. When it feels heavy, fearful, or obligatory, it’s not.

Living in alignment with your Inner Being transforms spirituality from dogma into daily experience. You stop asking, “What should I do?” and start asking, “What feels like flow?” In that subtle shift, creative power awakens. You realize that guidance has never been absent—it simply manifests as the next joyful step.