January is a big month for the self-help industry, a business valued at €40 billion by Forbes a couple of years ago and now said to be a multiple of that. Driving much of the growth in recent years is manifesting – a type of wishful thinking billed as a “miracle” form of self-improvement.
If you are not familiar with the concept, manifesting operates on the assumption that you can have the life of your dreams by consciously thinking it will happen. There are, of course, various workshops, books and materials needed to “think your aspirations into reality”. Self-help doesn’t come cheap these days.
It’s tempting to see manifesting as harmless fun. “Shut up! I’m manifesting” was a meme of Covid lockdowns. “Lucky girl syndrome” – whereby wannabe influencers attribute good fortune to affirmations – has been a craze on TikTok for the last few years. More recently, “delulu is the solulu” – i.e. delusional thinking is the way to achieve your goals – has been trending through earnest, rather than ironic, devotees.
Critics of manifesting say it’s a classic case of confirmation bias. If you have faith in the method to start with you’re more likely to attribute good fortune to the power of your thoughts.
The “law of attraction”, popularised by the Oprah-endorsed self-help best-seller The Secret, gives a pseudoscientific veneer to the belief system. This claims that positive thoughts reap positive rewards. (You first need to sync your “vibrations” to the correct “frequency”.)
Psychologists have warned that manifesting risks heaping more anxiety on people. If things don’t go your way you may be inclined to feel a bigger failure. There are also concerns about the influence of the craze on people’s judgment. Researchers at University of Queensland in Australia last year found that people who believe they are able to manifest their own financial success are more inclined to make risky investments and have a higher chance of ending up bankrupt.
But apart from its dodgy scientific claims, its exploitation of psychological weaknesses and its reliance on what many would call “toxic positivity”, has manifesting anything going for it? Strangely enough, it does – at least to the extent that it is not unlike some more ancient belief systems.
In particular, manifesting borrows some of the tools of Stoicism. Both have their own methods for turning negative situations into opportunities for growth. Crucially, both also believe everything happens for a reason.
Stoics take the universe to be rationally-organised and therefore accept their status in life as the outworking of cosmic will. Manifesting goes further, claiming the universe is not only benevolent but capable of listening to “cosmic orders” that we place with it for change (a bit like requesting goodies from an intergalactic menu).
Both tap into a very human instinct known as promiscuous teleology. This is the tendency to see purpose in everything – teleology coming from the Greek telos “end” and logos “reason”.
Teleological thinking – or ascribing purpose to events – is baked into religion. However, studies carried out by American psychologist Deborah Kelemen show that children raised in non-religious homes, as well as atheistic scientists, share an unconscious bias towards believing things happen for a reason. Such is the power of teleology, humans are generally loath to admit that sh*t happens – that things occur for no reason.
Whether belief in a “higher” purpose makes you happier is an open question. However, religious belief – in which teleology plays a central part – has been linked to greater life satisfaction and longevity. A study of obituaries in the United States found those who had a religious affiliation lived five years longer on average, though cause-and-effect was not proven.
Looked at this way, manifesting may be tapping into a dividend from faith without having to accept religious baggage such as morality.
It might even get succour from the American philosopher-psychologist William James who had a pragmatic justification for religious belief. Faith motivated us to do great things – things that would not otherwise happen, the celebrated, late-19th century thinker argued. “The desire for a certain kind of truth in certain cases brings about that special truth’s existence.”
However, its doubtful James would have supported manifesting, particularly its heavily commercialised variant. Any belief system divorced from the moral life would have been anathema to him. As is it would for any philosopher in the 2,000 years preceding him.
Here we hit upon the crunch issue with manifesting. Go on YouTube and you can find videos on how to manifest $1 million, a better physique and your first Lamborghini. But, you won’t find any videos on how to manifest becoming a more ethical individual. Self-improvement was once seen as a moral quest – a matter of developing virtuous character. In this more secular age, it has become a hunt for material success and personal acclaim. Manifesting is a natural end point in this transition, making it the perfect religion for our times.