Ever wish that you could make all your wishes come true just by wishing? Wouldn't you like to be able to do magic? Simply will something and watch it happen just as you will it? Wouldn't you like to be able to make all your dreams come true? If so, then 'Manifesting 101: as course in Practical Metaphysics" may be just what you need.
The University of California at Davis's Experimental College offers just such a course. Manifesting 101 centers on the assumption that each person is "magical" and is easily capable of achieving wonders far beyond traditional limits, according to a blurb in our local newspaper. The course is taught by Christian Thomas, "a professional educator and counselor." Being an educator myself, and having known many counselors through the years, I wondered why I had never heard of manifesting until now. Was this another truth of nature my university professors hid from me while pretending to give me an education? I had to investigate further. I did a little research and was not amazed at what I found.
Manifesting is an eclectic hodgepodge of CYOR (create your own reality), TM, visualization techniques, positive thinking, goal-setting, self-analysis, selective thinking, post hoc reasoning, and tons of anecdotes. I do not expect a control study to be done in the near future to validate any of the claims for manifesting, though it may be an empirical hypothesis which could be tested and falsified. Its advocates and adherents are not scientists, however, and have not come to their beliefs by scientific testing. This is, of course, not to deny that their beliefs are defended by numerous appeals to personal experiences. In fact, personal experience is the main appeal of manifesting, and the main evidence offered in support of it. One "study", Manifesting Your Heart's Desire, is hailed as a three year study, but it is little more than a collection of stories from a group of people who met regularly to learn a variety of manifesting techniques. However, there are alternative explanations for the wonders of manifesting, which we will consider below. But first, a bit about manifesting.
David Spangler wrote a book titled Manifestation and another one titled Everyday Miracles: The Inner Art of Manifestation. Here is what those selling the book have to say about Everyday Miracles:
Some people call it luck or coincidence--or just plain magic. It is the gift of being in the right place at the right time, of having opportunity fall into your lap. But what if you could create your own luck, make "coincidences" happen, even bring a few miracles into your daily life? Drawing on over twenty years of teaching the art of manifestation, David Spangler shows you how to do just that. Called a "strikingly new, spiritually aware approach to personal power and the fulfillment of your dreams," this new book is a complete rewriting and updating of David's classic book, Manifestation.
Manifesting is a way for the average person, without need of paranormal or divine powers, to do magic and perform miracles. All you need is the will to exercise your magic on the universe. You are potentially powerful beyond your wildest dreams. It's also easier than the Celestine path and cheaper than A Course in Miracles.
Before exploring this amazing power within us, however, we should note that some manifesters prefer the term 'affirmation.' For example, Anne Marie Evers has written a book titled Affirmations: Your Passport To Happiness. She describes her practical metaphysics this way:
What Is An Affirmation: An Affirmation is a declaration of acceptance used to fill oneself with an abundance of freedom, prosperity and peace. An Affirmation is the vehicle of the manifestation of your desires. Affirmations are powerful, positive statements of belief recited consistently out loud and sent out into the Universe. The spoken word drives thoughts and images deep into both our conscious and subconscious minds. Slowly, firmly, concentrate on each word, phrase and the idea behind it. We know repetition is the Mother of Learning.
Repetition is the Mother of Learning! Isn't that beautiful! Maybe that's why I learn so much watching television. In college, I learned that repetition is the mother of propaganda and the mother of selling through advertising and the mother of indoctrination, but I was wrong. Of course, there was a conspiracy to prevent such useful courses as Manifesting 101 from being taught at the universities I attended. Now things are different. The truth can no longer be hidden from the masses! (Was it Dorothy Parker who said the masses are asses? Well, not any more, by golly.)
I was curious as to how manifesting actually works in a practical setting. Fortunately, I found Manifesting your dreams, hosted by Fred Fengler and Todd Varnum. They are the authors of Manifesting Your Heart's Desire and share with the universe blurbs from a "Leading Edge" review:
If you ever made the connection between past thought and current reality then you probably know something about manifesting....Manifesting Your Heart's Desire is excellent for the novice or expert alike.
Who hasn't made a connection between some past thought and some current reality? A novice? An expert? At what? Making connections? We can't all be James Burke, I'm afraid. Here is an example of how you work magic by sheer force of will power:
I decided 18 months ago to sell my business. Because it is a service business, it's only asset is the customer base, advertising it for sale was not a option. I struggled for 16 months with how to accomplish the sale, and finally hired a business consultant to assist me. Two months went by with some interest but no real action. At this point I decided to manifest using my will power. [emphasis added]
As I went to sleep, I said out loud, "OK universe, this is what I want. I want an offer. I want a good offer. In fact I want TWO offers. In fact I want them TOMORROW!"
The next day was perfectly normal. I "reminded" the universe it was 4 PM and the office would close at 5:30. I felt confident that the universe would take care of me no matter what happened. Within ten minutes, I had a call from one prospect who said he had an offer and would be right over. Ten minutes after he left the offer off, I got a call from my business consultant. He told me that a second offer was being written and it would be on my desk in 24 hours, which it was.
I accepted the first offer, and we flawlessly closed the deal in less than two weeks.
That's all there is to it. You let the universe know what you want and you'll get it! Damn all those people who have kept this truth from us for all these aeons! Damn them all to eternal hellfire!
But you should know that there is a catch.
A note from Todd:
The value of Will Power is the extra energy that the emotion puts into the manifestation. As you can see, this person is putting a lot of energy into her request. But the use of Will Power can be tricky. If behind the emotion there is fear, it will attract more of what is being feared. This person wanted to sell her business right now but at the same time she was still open to what might happen. Notice on the second day with the day almost over, her reaction did not come from a place of fear but from a place of acceptance. If she was in a needy or fearful place, her reaction would have been very different.
Mustn't wish for what you need. That's a big no-no. Todd's caveat reminds me of the warnings of faith healers who tell those who can't get rid of their cancer by faith that they don't really have faith. If the universe fails to give you what you demand, it is because your desire is not coming from the right place. How do you tell whether or not your desire is coming from the right place? Well, if you get your desire then it came from the right place. If you didn't, then it didn't. What could be more true than that? Of course, if you have the slightest doubt about getting what you want just by desiring it in the right way, then you'll never be magical or work miracles. You gotta believe!
My favorite manifesting story, though, is this one:
Repairing a Lazyboy Chair Effortlessly
When a spring in my lazyboy recliner broke I thought it would be easy to get it repaired. To my consternation I found out that not only would it mean driving well out of town to have it repaired but I would have to leave it for a couple of weeks because the repairman could not give me a definite time when he could fix it. He estimated the cost at $45. I kept procrastinating. I didn't want to make the trip and then not have it for my daily use. It was still usable although "soft" in the middle. Almost every day I sat in it and was reminded how I wanted to have it repaired but I didn't want to be inconvenienced. I didn't do any heavy visualization. It was more like a wishful desire that it would continue to be functional and comfortable whether that meant having some repair done or not. I just didn't want to be inconvenienced.
About four months after the spring broke I was sitting outside on my porch when a man approached me and handed me a card. He did odd jobs and saw me outside while he was exercising and decided to give me his card. While he was walking away I glanced at the list of things he did. In bold type were the words FURNITURE REPAIR. I yelled after him and asked him whether he could fix the spring in my Lazyboy recliner. He returned looked at it and said he would return in an hour to fix it. He did, it works fine, I never left my house and he only charged me $30.
So, manifesting is manifestly for those who want something but don't want to do anything to get what they want. If you want something and are willing to wait long enough, it will come to you. Ask and you shall receive....someday.
But are there no stories of people with broken chairs who want them fixed, don't want to bother going to the trouble of getting their chair repaired and who die in their broken chairs? Of course there are. Those are the ones whose wishes did not come from the right place!
So, if my lifelong dream has been to be able to read my morning newspaper by sitting on it, I may not get my wish. Even if for years I dutifully bring in the paper, set in on the kitchen chair and drink my coffee while intensely desiring to read with my butt, I may not get my wish. Why? Because my wish doesn't come from the right place. It is the wrong kind of wish. And if I wish for a new car and I get one, well, that is due to manifesting. I had the will and I made it happen. My desire came from the right place.
Another kind of manifesting involves visualizing. One anecdote involves a girl who was having trouble learning to ride a horse. She visualized riding the way her instructor told her to ride and at the next lesson she was riding well. Visualization seems quite different, however, from sitting on your porch not wanting to be bothered taking your chair to get it fixed. Visualization is mental practice. It is a way to boost confidence. And it requires clarifying goals. All of these can help a person who is trying to accomplish some physical feat, like riding a horse or hitting a golf ball. But no amount of visualization will create reality. A golfer can visualize hitting a hole-in-one from now until doomsday without it ever happening. There are some people who believe they can fight cancer by visualizing little cellular warriors killing off cancer cells. The likelihood of such visualization creating the reality desired is near zero. You might as well visualize yourself flying or being in six places at once.
Visualization seems quite different from the manifesting which involves wanting something which then happens. Yet, they share some similarities. For example, manifesting in the form of repeating a desire or demanding the universe fulfill your wishes requires you to clarify what you want; it requires you to specify a goal. If you do not specify a goal, but merely express some vague wish like "someday I'm going to go to New Zealand," then you probably won't ever get your wish. But if you specify your desire, insist on having it satisfied, clarify the obstacles in the way of having it satisifed, determine what is needed to have your will be done, then you have a very good chance of getting what you want. On the other hand, a lot of manifesting seems to be little more than refusing to accept co-incidence as a fact of life. For example, another anecdote supporting the power of manifesting involves a guy who wants a Martin 000-16 guitar but can't afford one. His father buys a 1943 Martin 000-28 for $5.00 and gives it to him, thinking it's a toy. The guy is ecstatic and thinks his good luck is not due to chance and his father's ignorance of the value of guitars but is due to manifesting. I've been wishing for a Gibson Hummingbird for thirty years. If I ever get one, it won't be because I finally decided to spend the money on it, but because of manifesting. And all those poor guys with other similar desires who don't get the guitar of their dreams? Well, their desires just didn't come from the right place.
One good thing I can see about manifesting is that it could take a person's attention away from the many bad things in life over which we have no control. By focusing on what you want, you may not dwell so much on the bad hand life has dealt you. By specifying your goals, you will be likely to consider obstacles you must overcome, a necessary condition for achieving many goals. On the other hand, it could also be very depressing to think that the only reason you are not getting what you want is because your desires are not coming from the right place.
Some of the ideas of those promoting manifesting are obviously false or extremely questionable and one wonders why anyone would believe them. For example, John Payne of Omni World claims
Manifesting is the art of creating what you want at the time that you want it. Many of you are becoming aware that you create your own reality....Each and every object and event in your life has been created by you, whether or not you are conscious of the fact. Your reality, the Earth plane, is the result of the mass consciousness of all souls that are incarnate within your system of things. Each and every event in your life can be traced back to a belief and emotion that originated the impulse for it to manifest itself into reality as you experience it at present. In our realms, the realms of pure essence and light, we can create what we want at an instant. We the Beings of Light have mastered our emotions and thoughts and can therefore direct our energies with precision and clarity so that we may create what we want. You are also learning this skill in this lifetime and you can choose to change what you experience in your reality at any moment you wish to.
John declares he is a "Being of Light" and I suppose this is supposed to impress us and lead us to give weight to his weighty claims. If John and the other beings of light can create what they want in an instant, then they must not want very much, except maybe a few followers who might buy their books, tapes, crystals, etc. If these beings are so powerful why don't they end the ethnic hatred in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, etc. John is telling us he and the other beings of pure essence and light could make this world a better place but for some reason they choose not to. I think I know the reason.
John continues:
Seeded within you are the Flames of Divine Desire, they are of Pink, Green, Gold and Turquoise, with a Heart of Pure White. They represent your Divine inheritance, The Pink Flame for Un-conditional Love, The Green Flame for radiant health, The Gold Flame for Universal Abundance and the Turquoise Flame for Divine Creativity. The White Flame represents your unending and pure Divine Essence, your Unity with the Divine and your Oneness with All That Is.
Isn't that beautiful! Yes, but is it true? How can you doubt a Being of Light? Easy.
If John continued with this gibberish he might be able to start a new religion, but it is because of the sensible advice he sprinkles amongst the metaphysical gobbledygook, that John is worthy of consideration. For example, he offers the quite reasonable advice to write down a list of things that give you joy and things you desire to "create." (Let's give John the benefit of loose linguistics and call the desire to quite smoking, for example, the desire to create yourself as a non-smoker.) He also advises that you write up a list of fears you have regarding what you want to create, i.e., consider the obstacles to achieving your goal. Then he goes off into the realm of light beings and claims that you can quit smoking, or whatever, if you want to. The only real obstacle to anything on your list is your lack of will power and your "limiting beliefs" which hinder you from getting what you want.
I have to agree with John about the value of writing things down as a powerful way of uncovering beliefs. When asked why I am writing the Skeptic's Dictionary I sometimes say that I do it in order to find out what I really think about certain things and what I believe. Writing is a form of "thinking out loud." But the difference between thinking about quitting smoking and writing down the words "I am going to quit smoking on November 17th" and saying those words to others is enormous. A silent thought or wish does not pack the wallop of a stated commitment, nor is it as likely to be acted upon.
Of course, John can't stand being too down to earth for long. He recommends that you write your goals down
...making use of the non-dominant hand. If you are right handed then the non-dominant hand is the left hand and if you are left handed, the non-dominant hand is the right hand. By using your non-dominant hand to write out the answers when uncovering your hidden beliefs, you can tap into the deep inner wisdom of the inner child and your soul. This system of uncovering your inner self and it's truths can lead to unprecedented levels of healing and harmony.
Why using your non-dominant hand should be the gateway to deep anything is beyond me. But expressions like "inner child" and "soul" have resonances which send chills up the spine of certain spiritually inclined people. In any case, John's not interested in mere goal-setting. He wants you to believe that the self you know is not your real self. You have another self, a deeper self, a higher self, waiting to be released and revealed to you and the universe. You're special; you just haven't met the real you yet.
John also recommends visualizing the achievement of your goals and keeping a diary or journal. Nothing wrong with that. Good advice, I think, for people who have trouble clearly identifying their goals and ways to achieve them. Good advice, too, for those who have so many goals that it difficult to keep track of them all, much less develop plans to fulfil them. He also advises that you set aside some time each day where you will not be disturbed. I would use this time to write in my journal, to think and plan. John, on the other hand, advises you to use to time to pray, create sacred ceremonies or write a mantra.
John also recommends networking with friends. Create a group where you discuss your goals and plans for achieving them. Not a bad idea if you have friends with the same goals you have, but unlikely to work if you all have different goals unless the focus of the group is something very general such as "achieving your goals." But then John, not one to leave well enough alone, advises that we call out his name three times when we start our group so he can energize our goals. Indeed.
In conclusion, I would like to offer up an anecdote which may or may not confirm the manifesting hypothesis. Twenty years ago three young men kidnapped a bus full of young school children in Chowchilla, California. Two of the young men were Eagle scouts and the other was an heir to a fortune. They had a dream to prove to their parents, themselves and the world that they could be somebody and do something important on their own. So they terrorized 26 kids and their bus driver by kidnapping them at gunpoint, driving them around for eleven hours in darkend vans and then burying them alive. The trio are still in prison twenty years later. Their plan had been little more than a vague idea for a year before something happened which led to their manifesting their desire. One of the trio was in hock for $50 grand. The need for a vast sum of money is a great spur to visualization. As one of the kidnappers wrote: "We had to try it. Everyone has one goal in life, we had that....It was a good plan. Everything worked good until that night." I presume he means until the night they were caught. That wasn't part of the plan. They hadn't visualized getting caught. Fortunately, however, the children and their driver did not sit around visualizing their rescue or howling at the universe to save them. They did pray, but what got them out was not prayer. They dug their way out and made their own way to safety. They realized their desire the old fashioned way: they set a goal, determined the means to achieve it, considered the obstacles in their way and how to overcome them and then set to work. I wonder where they would be if they had followed the lead of the LazyBoy man who didn't want to be inconvenienced taking his chair in for repair. Would they still be waiting for someone to drop by and set them free?
Of course, defenders of manifesting your own reality might point out that it was not coincidence that led to there being an article about the Chowchilla kidnapping on the very day I was finishing up this article on manifesting. Could it be that I somehow made it happen that the newspaper article would appear when it did? Considering that the news article was probably conceived weeks, if not months ago, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the kidnapping, it seems a bit farfetched for me to take credit for causing it to happen. I usually don't mind taking credit even when it isn't due, but not this time.
See related entry on control studies.