Armations

(New Age)

Armations in New Thought

and New Age terminology refer
primarily to the practice of
positive thinking and self-
empowermentfostering a
belief that "a positive mental
attitude supported by
armations will achieve
success in anything."[1] More
specically, an armation is a
carefully formatted statement
that should be repeated to
one's self and written down
frequently. For armations to
be eective, it is said that they
needs to be present tense,
positive, personal and
specic.[2]

New Thought
The New Thought movement is
not part of New Age but does
share certain practices. This
concept has grown popular
due to Rhonda Byrne's The
Secret (also a 2006 lm) These
books and teachers express
similar ideas to Napoleon Hill's
classic book Think and Grow
Rich. Byrne was inspired in
particular by New Thought
pioneer Wallace D. Wattles'
1910 book The Science of
Getting Rich. Armations are
also referred to in
Neurolinguistic Programming
(NLP), Neuro Associative
Conditioning "NAC" as
popularized by Anthony
Robbins, and hypnosis.

A related belief is that a certain

critical mass of people with a
highly spiritual consciousness
will bring about a sudden
change in the whole
population.[3] And that humans
have a responsibility to take
part in positive creative activity
and to work to heal ourselves,
each other and the Earth.[4]

In 1984 Louise Hay a Religious

Science Practitioner published
You Can Heal Your Life, a guide
to changing thoughts and
beliefs. Hay's armations are
designed to help the user re-
program their thought
patterns, the intention being
that harmful underlying beliefs
which Hay believes
psychologically support illness
will be replaced with healing
beliefs, and thus remove a
barrier to healing.[5]

New Age
Esther Hicks, author of the Law
of Attraction series,[6]
advocates using armations
when one is already in a state
of happiness and peace.

New-Age armations come in

dierent forms:

spiritual talks
lectures
classes
armative images,[7]
armative words
armative videos
mantra chants

Proponents of New-Age
armations say that with our
thoughts, desires and
emotions, we create our
world.[8]

According to Brendan Baker,

founder of The Start of
Happiness, armations work
best when they encompass
three elements:

1. visualisation of the
armation in one's life
2. feeling the armation in
one's physiology
3. vocalizing the armation in
a way that one is already
congruent with that
armation.[9]

Rhonda Britten
According to Rhonda Britten,
armations work best when
combined with
acknowledgements because
the acknowledgements build
up a backlog of results in one's
mind to prove that one can do
what one is arming.[10] So,
for example, the
acknowledgement "I bought a
good pair of sneakers and
some gym clothes" could
complement the armation "I
can reach my goal of losing 20
pounds." The goal is to focus
on steps one has taken toward
accomplishing one's goals
rather than criticizing oneself
for what one hasn't yet
accomplished, or could
theoretically have
accomplished but didn't.

Scientic research
A 2009 study found that
positive armation had a
small, positive eect on people
with high self-esteem, but a
detrimental eect on those
with low self esteem.
Individuals with low self-
esteem who made positive
armations felt worse than
individuals who made positive
statements but were allowed to
consider ways in which the
statements were false.[11]

Some studies have found that

self-armations, which involve
writing about one's core values
rather than repeating a
positive self-statement, can
improve performance under
stress.[12]

See also
Armative prayer
Autogenic training
Cosmic ordering
Creative visualization
Gratitude
Rationality

References
1. Supercharged Armations
The Salem New Age Center,
Salem Massachusetts USA .
Accessed August 2007.
2. Armation Class May
2007.
3. Carroll, Robert Todd (2005).
"The Hundredth Monkey
Phenomenon" . Skeptic's
Dictionary. Archived from the
original on 3 September 2007.
Retrieved 2007-08-23.
4. Accepting Total and
Complete Responsibility: New
Age NeoFeminist Violence
against Sethna Feminism
Psychology.1992; 2: pages
113119
5. Hay, Louise (1984). You
Can Heal Your Life . Carlsbad,
California: Hay House Inc.
p.251.
ISBN 978-0-937611-01-2.
6. The Law of Attraction: The
Basics of the Teachings of
Abraham, by (Spirit) Abraham,
Abraham, Esther Hicks, Jerry
Hicks, published by Hay House,
2006,ISBN 1-4019-1227-3,
ISBN 978-1-4019-1227-7
7. Various forms of New Age
Armations Everyday
Armations Organisation.
Accessed February 2013.
8. https://www.amazon.com
/Armations-Visualizations-
The-Ultimate-Secret-ebook/dp
/B008EDNAP2 Armations
and Visualizations: The
Ultimate Secret by Sakshi
Chetana, Inner Light
Publishers, 2012, ISBK
978-938-2123-15-6.
9.
http://www.startofhappiness.c
om/positive-armations/
10. Britten, Rhonda. "No
Beating Yourself Up". Fearless
Living. p.232.
11. Wood, Joanne V.;
Perunovic, W. Q. Elaine; Lee,
John W. (July 2009). "Positive
self-statements: power for
some, peril for others" .
Psychological Science. 20 (7):
860866. ISSN 1467-9280 .
PMID 19493324 .
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.200
9.02370.x .
12. Cohen, Georey L.;
Sherman, David K. (2014).
"The psychology of change:
self-armation and social
psychological intervention" .
Annual Review of Psychology.
65: 333371.
ISSN 1545-2085 .
PMID 24405362 .
doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-
010213-115137 .

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