“Manifesting and why we do it, because between the thin balance of life and death all that matters is Friendship, Unity, Peace, and Love” — Paul Ebeling
Manifesting is the practice of thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real, has never been more popular.
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 is no wonder the practice of manifesting has exploded. All you need are your dreams, and to think about how nice it will be when they come true.
The act of manifesting either has a lots of complicated rules or is whatever you want it to be, depending on who you ask. Some say that there’s no “right” way to manifest while others claim it will not work if you do not “connect to the spiritual world” 1st.
Like many New Age practices, manifesting comes with paradoxes, where if you think about it too hard, none of it makes any sense. And yet its ideas have stood the test of time.
The Law of Attraction is the belief that all thoughts eventually become things, and if you think positively, positive things will come to you, has existed since the New Thought spiritual movement of the 19th Century.
New Thought popularized terms like “creative visualization” and spiritual healing. About 6 in 10 American adults, regardless of whether they describe themselves as religious or not, believe in at least 1 belief from the New Age movement of the 1960s and ’70s, such as reincarnation, astrology, psychics, and spiritual energy in objects, according to a 2018 Pew Research study, with women being more likely than men to say they believe.
The mainstreaming of New Age and beliefs has been a boon for social-media-savvy self-help gurus and spiritual teachers, to whom followers go to for guidance on manifesting or other alternatives to traditional psychotherapy.
The more positively people dream about the future, the better they feel at the moment. People relax and their blood pressure goes down.
It is not that our desires do not matter. We need to take the positives seriously because they signal where we have needs. To make our dreams come true and satisfy our needs, though, we have to garner our energy.
Perhaps whether manifesting works is not the point.
If there is a cultural trend that most resembles manifesting, it is Astrology, the oldest religion in the world, which in the mid-2010s exploded into the mainstream via social media, memes, and broader interpretations of what wellness could be.
Now that fewer Americans consider themselves religious, and like many new-wellness practices, the interest in manifesting blossomed out of an absence of needs once filled by organized religion.
Have a healthy, Happy Christmas Holiday, Keep the Faith!
