They’re braided together to buttress a central idea that thoughts create reality. New Thought isn’t grounded in any particular religious tradition but incorporates threads from Jesus’s teachings, ancient Greek philosophy, and pop psychology, among other sources. Manifestation traces its roots to the 19th century New Thought movement. (The creator’s goal was to reach 30,000 followers on TikTok.) “The results happened in 3 days,” reads the caption beneath her video, which has more than 150,000 likes.įor high-profile coaches such as Lacy Phillips, with seven-figure business revenues and a team of paid staff, the methods are more elaborate: months-long programs training students to recognize what they really want, rewire their subconsciouses, and sharpen their intuition in order to receive what the universe wants to deliver. In one TikTok video, over ethereal background music, a young woman instructs viewers to write what they want three times, why they’re manifesting it six times, and how the desire makes them feel nine times-from the perspective of having already achieved their goal. The methods for manifestation are as bountiful as the coaches. Over the last few years, manifestation experts and programs have flooded Instagram and TikTok. I also knew that the world is full of schemers eager to make money off people’s hopes and dreams.īut manifestation was clearly popular, and I was eager to understand why it appealed to people-even as I knew all the reasons for skepticism. I knew that our lives are rarely so predictable, determined by simple formulas. The idea that people could obtain what they wanted most through sheer power of thought cut against both my theology and my own experience. Phillips promised access to a world where people could make their dreams come true, for just $27 a month. “I have the autonomy, the power.”Īs a United Methodist minister, I immediately heard alarm bells in my head. “There’s a road map to have whatever story I want, and to create whatever story I want,” she said. According to Phillips, the universe collaborates with us to make good things happen.
Manifestation, she explained, is the intentional practice of bringing our desires into existence. The first time I heard of “manifestation” was in 2019, as I coasted up California’s Highway 5, listening to a podcast with Lacy Phillips, an actor turned manifestation coach. This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday.
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