These two concepts are often used interchangeably, but they represent fundamentally different approaches to manifestation. Understanding the distinction isn't academic — it changes how you practice, what you expect, and how effective your manifestation becomes.
The Law of Attraction: Overview
The Law of Attraction, popularized by books like The Secret and teachers like Abraham Hicks, states that like attracts like. Positive thoughts attract positive outcomes. Negative thoughts attract negative outcomes. You send out a vibration, and the universe matches it.
In this framework, you are a transmitter. You broadcast a frequency through your thoughts and emotions, and the universe is a vast matching system that delivers experiences on the same frequency. The key practice is raising your vibration — thinking positively, feeling good, and maintaining high-frequency emotions like joy, love, and gratitude.
The Law of Assumption: Overview
The Law of Assumption, taught primarily by Neville Goddard, states that whatever you assume to be true and sustain with feeling will harden into fact. You don't attract your reality — you create it through your assumptions and state of consciousness.
In this framework, you are not a transmitter waiting for delivery. You are the creator. There is no external universe to petition. Your consciousness is the only reality, and your assumptions are the operative creative power. What you assume, persists, and feels to be real becomes your experience.
The Core Differences
Who Has the Power?
Law of Attraction: The universe has the power. You ask, the universe delivers. You are making a request to an external force.
Law of Assumption: You have the power. There is no external force to petition. Your consciousness is the cause, and your reality is the effect. You are the universe experiencing itself through your assumptions.
This difference matters because it changes your posture. Under the Law of Attraction, you can feel like a dependent waiting for a package. Under the Law of Assumption, you recognize that you are already the source of everything in your experience.
The Role of Positivity
Law of Attraction: You must maintain positive thoughts and high vibrations. Negative thoughts are dangerous because they attract negative outcomes. This can create anxiety about thinking the "wrong" thoughts.
Law of Assumption: You don't need to be positive all the time. You need to be persistent. You can have a bad day, feel frustrated, or experience doubt — as long as you return to your chosen assumption. The emphasis is on the dominant assumption, not on moment-to-moment emotional perfection.
This is a significant practical difference. The Law of Attraction can create what practitioners call "thought policing" — an anxious monitoring of every thought for fear of attracting something negative. The Law of Assumption is more forgiving — it acknowledges that humans have bad days, and the key is the overall direction of your assumptions, not each individual thought.
Vibration vs. Assumption
Law of Attraction: Works through vibration. You need to match the vibrational frequency of what you want.
Law of Assumption: Works through assumption. You need to assume the state of having what you want and sustain that assumption. There's no frequency to match — there's a state to occupy.
Asking vs. Assuming
Law of Attraction: Involves asking (setting intentions), believing (maintaining faith), and receiving (allowing it in). The three-step process implies there's something to ask and something to wait for.
Law of Assumption: Involves assuming (deciding it's true), feeling (occupying the state of fulfillment), and persisting (maintaining the assumption regardless of evidence). There's nothing to ask for because you're not requesting — you're declaring.
External Alignment vs. Internal State
Law of Attraction: Often emphasizes external practices — vision boards, gratitude lists, abundance checks, alignment rituals. The focus is on creating external conditions that support your vibration.
Law of Assumption: Emphasizes internal state exclusively. Your inner state is the only thing that matters. External practices are useful only to the degree that they help you shift your inner assumption. The vision board doesn't work because of magic — it works if looking at it shifts your feeling.
Which Is More Effective?
Both approaches produce results for practitioners who commit to them. The debate isn't about which is "true" — it's about which framework gives you more agency, less anxiety, and more consistent results.
The Law of Assumption tends to be more effective for several reasons:
It places full responsibility and power on you, which eliminates the passive waiting that can plague Law of Attraction practitioners. It doesn't require emotional perfection, which makes it sustainable in real life. It provides specific, actionable techniques (SATS, revision, living in the end) rather than general advice to "think positive." And it addresses self-concept directly, which is the root cause of most manifestation failures.
Can You Use Both?
Many people arrive at the Law of Assumption through the Law of Attraction. There's nothing wrong with taking useful elements from both approaches. Gratitude practices, visualization, and positive focus are all valuable regardless of which framework you subscribe to.
The important shift is recognizing that you are not begging an external force for help. You are the operative power. Once that shift happens, every technique becomes more effective because you're operating from sovereignty rather than dependency.
Which Should You Study?
If you're new to manifestation, the Law of Attraction provides an accessible entry point. If you've tried the Law of Attraction and found it inconsistent or anxiety-inducing, the Law of Assumption provides a more empowering and practical framework.
For the deepest understanding, read Neville Goddard directly — particularly The Power of Awareness and The Feeling Is the Secret. These texts lay out the Law of Assumption in its purest form.
Recommended Reading
- The Power of Awareness by Neville Goddard — the definitive text on the Law of Assumption
- The Feeling Is the Secret by Neville Goddard — how feeling creates reality
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