The dark side of manifesting your dreams

If you have been at all aware of popular thinking about wealth over the past 20 years or so, you have probably come across the phenomenon of manifesting. Apparently it’s very popular on TikTok at the moment; it was beloved of the New Age teachers long before that.

'To manifest something means to make your dreams, goals, and aspirations a reality by believing you can achieve them' says one popular website. It is based on a so-called 'law of attraction', positing that if you think about something often enough, hard enough and positively enough, you can make it happen by the power of your thought alone. It focuses your 'energy' to affect future events out there in the universe.

This might sound familiar to Christians, even if you don’t frequent manifesting circles yourself. That’s because it’s very similar to a prosperity gospel, which teaches the same thing, just with a gullible god as the mechanism. If you have enough faith, if you pray hard enough, give enough money, God will give you the things you want.