Reading Room · Metaphysical Practices · Method
What is manifesting, and where did the idea come from?
Manifesting is a modern self-help practice of clearly imagining a desired outcome and believing it is possible. Its ideas trace to 19th-century New Thought, were popularised by later positive-thinking writers, and reached wide audiences through Rhonda Byrne's 2006 book The Secret.
Facts checked on against 17 sources, 10 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| 1st–2nd century | Paul Rand says the idea of external powers responding to one's own positive energy began in hermetic philosophy.1 |
|---|---|
| 1800s | According to Burton, New Thought traces its roots to the 1800s and to the New England faith healer Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.23 |
| 1906 | William Walker Atkinson's Thought Vibration in The New Thought presents the law of attraction in the thought world.45 |
| 1952 | Norman Vincent Peale publishes The Power of Positive Thinking.678 |
| 2024 | Cambridge Dictionary names manifest(ing) its Word of the Year, defining it as clearly imagining a desired outcome and believing it is possible.9 |
What the practice claims
Dixon, Hornsey and Hartley describe manifestation as the ability to cosmically attract success through positive self-talk, visualization, and symbolic actions such as acting as if something is true.64
Manifesting takes the idea of a positive mental attitude and applies it to specific goals and outcomes, with the belief that focused positive thoughts can make those things happen.10
Tara Isabella Burton describes manifesting as the art and quasi-spiritual science of willing things into existence through the power of desire, attention and focus.2
Idil Ahmed defines manifestation as the ability to attract, create, and turn any vision into reality, and describes manifesting now as seeing oneself in the desired state in the present rather than in the future.11
Spread through self-help and the Law of Attraction
Esther and Jerry Hicks present the Teachings of Abraham, a series that the catalog page says helped define modern Law of Attraction and manifestation teachings.1213
Jerry Hicks wrote that the teachings of Abraham were published in books, CDs, DVDs, card decks, workshops and by other best-selling authors who incorporated them.13
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Hermeticism attributed to Hermes Trismegistus explored the idea that like attracts like, according to the Law of Attraction Institute's history article, and the Emerald Tablet contains the maxim 'As above, so below; as below, so above.'7
Abraham, as recorded in the Teachings of Abraham, states that the Law of Attraction is responsible for the things a person experiences, including those they do not want.14
Manifesting practitioners describe the process as co-creating with the universe, as stated by Moon Onyx Starr.10
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
In three studies with a collective sample of 1,023 participants, Dixon, Hornsey and Hartley developed a measure called the Manifestation Scale, and found that over one third of participants endorsed manifestation beliefs.4
In the Dixon, Hornsey and Hartley studies, higher scorers on the Manifestation Scale perceived themselves as more successful, had stronger aspirations for success, and believed they were more likely to achieve future success.4
Pronin and colleagues (2006) found that spectators induced to visualize an athlete's success were more likely to believe they had influenced the athlete's subsequent performance, as reported by Dixon, Hornsey and Hartley.615
Gabriele Oettingen reported over 20 years of research establishing a link between picturing success and inaction, and her 2012 research on future thought found that manifestation can feel productive because it creates clarity and confidence at the start.169
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- Manifesting's core ideas run back to 19th-century New Thought, and the modern form was widened by mid-20th-century success writing and then by The Secret in 2006.641710
- Accounts of manifesting disagree on how much the idea owes to ancient Hermetic thought and how much to 19th-century New Thought. Paul Rand traces it to hermetic philosophy, while Burton and Dixon, Hornsey and Hartley start from New Thought.126
Not yet confirmed
- How far did Hermetic ideas of like attracting like shape the 19th-century New Thought writers who first taught the law of attraction?
- Why did manifesting spread widely among young people in the 2020s after decades as a self-help idea?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- news.uchicago.edu: How to manifest your future using neuroscience: Big Brains podcast with James Doty | University of Chicago News. Read on · University
- shamanportal.org: The Long, Strange History of ‘Manifesting’ - Shaman Portal. Read on · Reference
- nationalgeographic.com: The ancient origins of ‘manifesting’—and why it’s making a comeback. Read on · Reference
- pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: "The Secret" to Success? The Psychology of Belief in Manifestation - PubMed. Read on · University
- Internet Archive: Thought Vibration, Or, The Law of Attraction in the Thought World. Read on · Primary text
- journals.sagepub.com: “The Secret” to Success? The Psychology of Belief in Manifestation - Lucas J. Dixon, Matthew J. Hornsey, Nicole Hartley, 2025. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- lawofattractioninstitute.org: Origin And History of The Law of Attraction - Law of Attraction Institute. Read on · Reference
- ebsco.com: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale | Literature and Writing | Research Starters | EBSCOhost. Read on · Reference
- rmit.edu.vn: How students can manifest academic success in 2026. Read on · University
- theguardian.com: Making dreams come true: inside the new age world of manifesting | Life and style | The Guardian. Read on · Reference
- Open Library: Manifest Now By Ahmed, Idil [ Ahmed, Idil] (z Lib.org). Read on · Primary text
- wplc.overdrive.com: The Law of Attraction Audio Collection - Wisconsin Public Library Consortium - OverDrive. Read on · Library
- archive.org: Full text of "Abraham Hicks The Law Of Attraction". Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: Abraham Hicks The Law Of Attraction. Read on · Primary text
- pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: “The Secret” to Success? The Psychology of Belief in ... - PMC. Read on · University
- theguardian.com: Is ‘manifesting’ dangerous magical thinking or a formula for success? | Life and style | The Guardian. Read on · Reference
- vox.com: What is manifesting and does it actually work? | Vox. Read on · Reference