Like so many other quarantine trends - homemaking, bread baking, tie-dyeing, or learning TikTok dances - manifesting feels like a way to accomplish something we have control over in a time when we’re mostly powerless to effect any real change. In a moment where all any average citizen can really do, ultimately, is hope for a better future than the one we’re all currently living in, it’s no wonder the practice of manifesting has exploded. One of them even made it to the presidential primary debate stage.
At the same time as stereotypically woo-woo practices involving crystals, essential oils, tarot, and energy wavelengths were reaching the general consciousness, professionals and influencers touting these methods were making bank (Goop’s Gwyneth Paltrow, for instance). Yet even pre-pandemic, interest had been gradually rising since around 2017, alongside burgeoning conversations around wellness and self-care. “Manifesting,” or the practice of thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real, has never been more popular: From late March to mid-July, Google searches for the term have skyrocketed 669 percent “shut up I’m manifesting” is among the defining memes of 2020. On Instagram, someone will write that $20,000 will soon land in your hands, and all you have to do is comment “YES.” On Twitter, stans will, ironically or not, attempt to manifest the release of a new Lorde album.Ī post shared by Spiritful Thoughts on at 6:38pm PDT
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On YouTube, vloggers lead tutorials on how to properly manifest your dream future. On TikTok, teenagers share stories about how “scripting,” or repeatedly writing down a wish, caused a crush to finally text them back. Which is why, more than a decade after The Secret, a new generation is discovering its central thesis, except this time on social media. It doesn’t take much critical thought to understand why The Secret and books like it - The Power of Positive Thinking, The Science of Getting Rich, Think and Grow Rich - are so popular: They offer a portrait of the world that is extraordinarily alluring, one where the only obstacle to achieving every dream we might have is to focus very hard on it, as though pretending like we’re already gorgeous, successful, deliriously happy human beings will make it real. Besides, it was Byrne who had the last laugh: The Secret has sold 30 million copies since then, and is among the most successful self-help books of all time. Her central ideas fall apart with the tiniest prodding: People don’t die of cancer because they fail to manifest enough positive thoughts to ward off the disease, for instance. This wasn’t necessarily unwarranted Byrne’s assertion that positive things will happen to you if only you think enough positive thoughts is crammed with unscientific New Ageisms that feel like truth no matter how untrue they actually are. When the Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne published The Secret in 2006, book critics responded, for the most part, by laughing at it.
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