Opinion | ‘Manifesting’ Is a Modern Version of a Centuries-Old Idea - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/opinion/manifesting-spirituality-america-reality.html
By Tara Isabella Burton
Dr. Burton is the author of “Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From da Vinci to the Kardashians” and the novel “Here in Avalon.”
Reality is what you make it — at least according to those who believe in manifesting, the art and quasi-spiritual science of willing things into existence through the power of desire, attention and focus.
Want to improve your health or make more money or get more Instagram followers? Believe hard enough, a host of TikTok “manifesting” influencers insist, and the vibes of the universe will bring what you desire into existence.
In some ways, this is a new trend. The idea of manifesting as it is understood today rose to popularity as part of a boom in online spiritualism and self-help philosophy that emerged during the pandemic. According to Google data, online searches for “manifesting” rose more than 600 percent during the first few months of the pandemic.
But while the idea of manifesting may seem modern, the instinct to conflate spiritual forces, political and economic outcomes and our own personal desires is part of a longstanding American tradition that dates back much, much farther than the pandemic.
In this way, the capitalist pursuit of profit was swiftly recast as a religion whose only tenet was desire.
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But this Gilded Age optimism about human potential had a dark side. After all, if anyone could achieve health, wealth and success simply by wanting it badly enough, logic held that the converse was also true: The poor, the sick and the vulnerable had brought their conditions upon themselves by failing to possess the requisite will to change.
Unsurprisingly, throughout the 20th century, New Thought ideology was frequently invoked to justify the denial of social services to the poor — on the ground that it would interfere with the purposeful workings of the energies of the universe, which wished to reward only those at the top of the proverbial heap.