The power of positive thinking is making a comeback
By the time he was nine, Jerome Lamaar had learned how to seize on his heartβs desire. βI was hoping to get my hands on the Power Ranger Flip Heads,β says Lamaar, a 35-year-old, Bronx-bred fashion designer. βI never told anyone, but I wanted these toys so bad. I sat in my room holding this scenario in my head of how I would feel when I got them.β
He had, in his New Age-tinctured phrase, βlaunched his dreams into the universeβ. And, as he tells it, the universe heeded his call. βThe very next day, my dad got me the Flip Heads,β he says. βThatβs when I realised that there was something to this.β
He could not have named it at the time, but Lamaar says now that he was manifesting, achieving material and psychic rewards through sheer force of mind.
Part magical thinking, part struggle for agency at a time when it is in short supply, the practice he describes, an eons-old variant of positive thinking β or at least the term that describes it β has re-entered the mainstream.Read more
Manifesting sits alongside a smattering of belief systems β astrology, tarot, paganism and their metaphysical cousins β being resurrected by a youthful generation in the name of wellness. βFor Gen Z in particular, it can be a form of self-soothing,β says Lucie Greene, a writer and trend forecaster in New York. βItβs a way to make sense of things in a moment where nothing makes sense.β
It is especially meaningful, Greene goes on, to those tribes of teenagers and people in their early 20s whose hopes have been flattened or derailed by a pandemic-imposed social and economic malaise. In a such a fraught climate, she says, βItβs cathartic to feel you have some control over your destiny.β
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This born-again phenomenon is dismissed in some quarters as little more than a quarantine fad, like βbread baking, tie-dyeing, or learning TikTok dances,β as Rebecca Jennings put it in a recent post on Vox. ββShut up Iβm manifesting,ββ she says, βis among the defining memes of 2020.β
Its practitioners, in contrast, view it as a coping mechanism, a legitimate alternative that organised religion or psychotherapy may not always provide. The βlaw of attractionβ, a belief that your experiences have a direct correlation to your thoughts, is one aspect of Princess Asata Loudenβs spiritual practice. Others include journaling and meditation, which Louden, a 24-year-old dancer and graduate student at UCLA, likes to perform by candlelight or near an open window.
βI also communicate with my ancestors and spirit guides,β Louden says, rituals that make her feel βdivinely protected and guidedβ.
βManifesting has gotten me through all of this pandemic stuff,β says Louden, who goes by the stage name Sygga. She is not religious but takes on faith βthat we have this power to manipulate energyβ.
Many of her contemporaries preach a similar gospel of self-realisation on YouTube, TikTok and other social platforms. These days, the internet teems with their slogans and self-affirmations: βReceiving blessings from the universeβ or βThereβs no competition when youβre manifesting in your own laneβ.
Marta Langston, 18, a high school student in Northern California, shares her credo on TikTok and Instagram. βYou would be surprised how many people my age that Iβve met are actively using βthe law of attractionβ,β Langston says. βI really think our generation is here to push this idea into the mainstream β we see it as part of a new enlightenment.β
The law of attraction is tainted as well by an undercurrent of racism, one obvious enough to have spawned its own meme: βMaybe you manifested. Maybe itβs white privilegeβ
That concept has a lofty ring. But for some of its youngest adherents, manifesting is just the latest extension of a romance with the gaudy totems of the early aughts. Among them is The Secret (recently updated as The Greatest Secret, published in November), a wildly popular 2006 self-help bible of an older generation, and a brand in itself, that lured readers with the slick assurance, stating that manifesting βis exactly like placing an order from a catalogβ. As its author, Rhonda Byrne, writes, βYou must know that what you want is yours from the moment you ask.β
Such a modish, and mercantile, spin on wishful thinking has spawned its own litter of films and self-help guides. There is The Secret: Dare to Dream, a Hallmark-worthy fantasy starring Katie Holmes. Rife with the requisite catchphrases β βthe more you think about something, the more you draw it to youβ β the movie is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Strength β or shortcut?
The law of attraction is tainted as well by an undercurrent of racism, one obvious enough to have spawned its own meme: βMaybe you manifested. Maybe itβs white privilege.β
Manifesting βfeels entitled and dirtyβ, Ruth Anne Stearns posted on Medium.com, going on to assert that its promise of wealth and abundance is grounded in βthe real advantage that you live in this white body, in this time and place, that you have tremendous resourcesβ that most of the world does not have.
Rhonda Byrne has written, βYou must know that what you want is yours from the moment you askβ
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Manifesting carries an implicit rebuke to members of impoverished or disenfranchised communities, says Denise Fournier, a psychotherapist in Miami. Subtle or not, the message is insidious. βItβs βWhy arenβt you manifesting a trip to Tulum? Why arenβt we seeing you on Instagram? You must not be a good manifester.β Thatβs problematic,β she says.
Some find it selfish, or simply unrealistic. βIt can be a way of bypassing the legitimate work of therapy,β which takes into account the idea of responsibility, discipline and the impact of oneβs choices on other people, Fournier says. βWhat makes it so βwooβ is that people want to believe that they can close their eyes and wish for a mega-mansion, that having that having the right crystals can make it happen. But it just doesnβt work that way.β
Protracted self-seclusion βhas forced us to think a bit more about what we want to do with our livesβ
Elise Gill, film producer
Gabriele Oettingen, a scholar and professor of psychology at New York University, underscores the point. βDreamers are not often doers,β she writes in Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, a study of the sources and perils of unexamined optimism. βThe pleasurable act of dreaming saps our energy to perform the hard work of meeting the challenges in real life.β
Lamaar finds solace in the practice just the same, partly in the strength to push back against the socioculturally imposed limitations of race and class. That makes it democratic, he suggests: βItβs a muscle that, if you take a moment to be present, everybody can use.β
By the time he was 15, he had visualised his way into the world of style, landing his dream job working alongside designer Kimora Lee Simmons at Baby Phat, Lamaar says. More recently he has worked with Samsung, Google, Adidas and Amazon, among others.
Manifesting works for him partly, he says, because he abides by his own somewhat stringent set of rules. βYou have to create this memory of a thing as having already happened,β he says. βWhat was the weather like that day? What were you wearing? Did you receive a call at the time?β
βManifesting gives people hope, something weβve lacked during the pandemic,β says Elise Gill, 30, a film producer for an advertising agency in London. Protracted self-seclusion βhas forced us to think a bit more about what we want to do with our lives,β she says.
Norman Vincent Peale, Christian preacher and author, was a progenitor of the theory of βpositive thinkingβ
(Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection)
To Carlos Garbiras, a 36-year-old insurance salesman in Sonoma County, California, who grew up in Colombia during a politically turbulent time, the practice provides an emotional safety net. βAs an immigrant, I was brought up to imagine the world as a dangerous place,β he says. βYou grew up distrustful, seeing the bad even when it wasnβt necessarily there. Manifesting is asking you to do the opposite. I think of it as a correction.β
Some of his ideas are rooted in New Thought, a movement in the early 19th century that promoted, among other concepts, the idea that divine thought is a force for good and βright thinkingβ a potential source of healing.
That doctrine was echoed in the mid-20th-century teachings of Norman Vincent Peale, an American clergyman widely known as βGodβs salesmanβ, whose 1952 bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking, urged followers: βExpect great things and great things will come.β
Among Pealeβs cheery bromides, reportedly embraced by Donald Trumpβs father, Fred, and later by Trump himself, is the oft-quoted challenge βShoot for the moon, and, even if you miss, youβll land among the stars.β
She canβt afford the rent, not yet. But to maximise her chances of moving in one day, she makes regular tours of the neighbourhood, checks out the local stores and landmarks
That idea today has high-profile champions. They include Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow. At the primary debate in Detroit last summer, she urged viewers, in an effusion of mystic-speak, βSay βyesβ to what we know can be true.β Another adherent is Lizzo, who insisted in Marie Claire last summer: βEverything in my life has been a manifestation. Like you really have to speak it.β
She is joined by a rising chorus of internet evangelists offering guidance and healing via Zoom and other virtual platforms. Business has picked up, says Courtney Love Gavin, 34, a life coach in Los Angeles. βI look at this time as being the Super Bowl for the coaching industry,β she says.
Gavin says that she teaches manifesting but prefers the term βcoachingβ. βYou donβt want to lose people. You want to speak to them in their language,β he explains.
Roxie Nafousi, 30, who practises as an emotional health adviser in London, does not apologise for a lack of formal training. βYou donβt have to have qualifications to be a manifesting expert,β she says, adding brightly, βLike singers who were born to sing, I was born to help people.β
βIn recent months weβve had an opportunity to pause, to look inward and reflect on our lives pre-pandemic, to consider the things we want to changeβ
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A year ago, 100 people attended Nafousiβs manifesting workshop, she says; by November 2020, 400 attended a virtual workshop. βThatβs because in recent months weβve had an opportunity to pause, to look inward and reflect on our lives pre-pandemic, to consider the things we want to change,β she says. βWeβve never had so much time and space for self-development.β
Yet the practice of manifesting remains suspect and associated with youthful self-absorption. βItβs all about me,β says Fournier, who treats a number of 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds in her practice. She points to βa culture of specialnessβ: the use of spirituality to create this idea of being exceptional, supremely gifted. βThe thought is βhow can I use my spirituality to serve my own person?ββ
Such reservations have yet to put off the most ardent believers, some of whom have been projecting themselves conceptually into a covetable living space or long dreamed of destination.
βI have my eye on moving to New York City within a few years,β Langston says. She isnβt just dreaming, she says. βI get on Pinterest and save photos of what I want my life to look like, pictures of peoplesβ decorated apartments, pictures of people wearing outfits, people who look like they belong in the city. I even use Google Street Views and picture myself in those neighbourhoods.βRead more
Loudenβs goals are more circumscribed. βIβm sitting right now, manifesting this apartment that I want in downtown Los Angeles,β she says. She canβt afford the rent, not yet. But to maximise her chances of moving in one day, she makes regular tours of the neighbourhood, checks out the local stores and landmarks, writes in her journal and decorates the apartment in her head.
βI have so much faith that this will happen,β Louden says. Can you fault her? After all, she adds calmly, βI manifested the place that Iβm living in now.β