Does Manifesting Really Work?

 

I've written several posts about the Law of Attraction (LOA)/manifesting. Also, the Law of Assumption (a theory developed/popularised by Barbadian writer, speaker and mystic Neville Goddard) more recently. After year of trying out techniques related to LOA and working on changing my mindset etc., but still not seeing many results, I started wondering if it really works. So I'm going to explore that further today.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, so if you're having mental/physical issues please seek medical help in addition to reading this. :)

 

Here are some of my previous LOA/manifesting posts:

Law of Attraction (basic intro): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2013/08/law-of-attraction.html

LOA Round-up: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2019/04/loa-round-up.html

LOA 2.0: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/law-of-attraction-loa-20.html

Law of Assumption- An Alternative Way of Manifesting: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2022/05/law-of-assumption-alternative-way-of.html

In my Law of Assumption post, I concluded that it does work and there is "something" (some force) that enables you to manifest. But it's more like a "co-creation". I don't believe that you can control everything because there are other factors (which could be seen as a limiting belief but that's how I see it right now!). Unfortunately, not everyone is in an equal position in the world and things like discrimination, life circumstances etc. can affect things when it comes to manifesting

Like many people, one of my first introductions to LOA/manifesting was through the book The Secret (based on the film of the same name) by Rhonda Byrne. I believe now that it oversimplifies the concept. Rhonda has also been criticised for encouraging things like ignoring overweight people if you don't want to put on weight! And some think following what it says can make you worse off than you were before.

Kimberly Wenya has a good post about manifesting in general and The Secret "craze": https://kimberleywenya.substack.com/p/manifestation-hate-it-or-love-it

I think what inspires many is the idea that we can make things better for ourselves, "create our lives". Lots of people want to improve their lives, hence the popularity of the self-help/personal development industry in the past 40 years or so.

While some manifesting books were written in the early to mid-20th century (such as As a man thinketh. by James Allen, The Game of Life and How to Play it by Florence Scovel Shinn) and Neville Goddard's books) during a time when "New Thought" and spiritual concepts were popular, the Law of Attraction started to gain more traction from the late 90s/early 00s onwards.

Ask and it is Given by Abraham Hicks and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (accompanied by the documentary) are two of the most popular manifesting books in more recent years. 

I also remember a book I had years ago, that was called something like "You Can Have Anything You Want but Not Everything". However, that can't have been the actual title because I can't find it! It was written by two male authors.

It was a self-help book (written in the 90s, I think) but used some techniques that later became more "mainstream" LOA ones, such as visualisation and possibly vision boards. One thing that stood out to me was that the authors said that "But" stands for "Behold the underlying truth". I think what they meant is that we can use "But" when we don't really believe or want to do something. E.g. "I'd love to come to your party but I'm really tired" or, "I'd love to have more kids but I've already got my hands full!"

Anyway, it was interesting. I read it around 2011 but lost it somewhere. If anyone knows which book I'm talking about, please let me know! :)

Taking a deeper look at manifesting

In the book Mind Magic by Dr James R Doty, he says that he sees manifesting as "a practice of wellbeing, engagement with the world and living a good life". And that by practising it, we cultivate "dispositional optimism", a tendency to expect good outcomes across life. 

Believing that good things can happen is something that many of us find hard. I included a section on this in my post How to REALLY Believe (LOA): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2021/11/how-to-really-believe-loa.html

Sometimes to me (and I expect quite a few other people as well) it feels like there is more bad than good in the world. With the world in general seeming to become increasingly unstable, it can make you question why we would be manifesting bad things. Here's a good post by Living with Bry asking the question of whether we're unintentionally manifesting global chaos: https://livingwithbry.com/are-we-unintentionally-manifesting-our-global-chaos/

 

There is a system in the brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) a bundle of nerves in our brain stem) which enables you to see more of what you're focused on. I previously wrote a bit about this in my Law of Attraction (LOA) 2.0 post: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/law-of-attraction-loa-20.html 

I was actually reminded of the RAS in a book I'm currently reading, You Don't Need Therapy: 7 Steps to Sort Your Sh*t Out by Alan Lucas. It's a general self-help book but also mentions the Law of Attraction and techniques for achieving goals in life. 

If you consider LOA/manifesting too "out there", it may help to think of it in this way instead. The Mind Magic book I mentioned above may also be a good fit for you, as it takes a scientific approach. 

Anyway, if we're seeing negativity all around (e.g. the media is very negatively focused) and feeling negative, feeling trapped in our life circumstances, going through trauma etc., it can be really hard to focus on good things and our brains will likely be primed to look for more "threat". 

As human beings, our brains are wired to focus on the negative more anyway, the "negativity bias", which is described in this article by The Decision Lab as a "cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events".

This explains why we focus more on things we consider "bad" rather than things we consider "good, e.g. dwell on events which didn't work our how we hoped, negative comments etc, rather than times where everything went well or positive comments. I've written about the negativity bias before, here, here and here.  

 

Other factors that affect manifesting

A couple of other things that can make it hard to manifest are if you're feeling physically unsafe and also mental health issues. I've previously written a couple of posts about manifesting and mental health:

Manifesting and Mental Health- Part 1: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2019/08/manifesting-and-mental-health-part-1.html

Manifesting and Mental Health- Part 2: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2019/12/manifesting-and-mental-health-part-2.html

 

 

Also despite the phrase "circumstances don't matter" that you'll come across in Law of Assumption circles, they often very much do matter! While I believe it's good to be positive, I don't think that it helps to be dismissive of how we all experiencing the world differently. Things like illness and/or disabilities, suffering discrimination/racism or being homeless for example, will all affect your manifesting abilities, or just make it harder to move forward in life. 

I wrot a bit about this in my Law of Asumption post: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2022/05/law-of-assumption-alternative-way-of.html

 

I think if you don't have a good "baseline" it can make things harder generally. I've explored different emotions on the blog in my Feeling Your Emotions (FYE) series, and written about the subjects of happiness and feeling better before. You can find a few of the posts below:

 

 

FYE- Happiness (Part 1)-: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/01/feeling-your-emotions-happiness-part-1.html

FYE- Happiness (Part 2): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/feeling-your-emotions-happiness-part-2.html

Feeling More Positive: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/11/feeling-more-positive.html

 

 

Does it actually work?

I believe that yes, manifesting does work but it's not as simple as it's often made out to be. Physical circumstances, mental health and inequality are all factors that affect the results you'll get. Changing your life in general can be hard, which is probably why it's much easier to manifest "small" things like free cups of coffee and parking spaces, than "big" things, such as relationships and jobs. We just don't have as much attachment to them, or fear around acquiring them because thy don't change our lives much.

I've found it harder to manifest a long term relationship and travel goals, compared to seeing signs (like yellow Minis!) and root beer, lol. I wrote about feeling stuck in this post last year: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2024/02/feeling-stuck-when-your-dreams-seem-far.html

I came to a similar conclusion about manifesting at the end of my Law of Assumption post. I still believe as I said then, that we are "co-creating" with some "force" outside of us, that worthiness/self-love definitely affects it and and so does the fact that everyone is not in equal situations.

 To be honest, sometimes I'm tempted to give up. I've been struggling lately, due to various things (including health anxiety). But I try to think more positively (while not ignoring my "negative" emotions) and move forward.  

 

So, that's it for now! I hope you found this post useful. :) What has your experience been with manifesting?

I haven't written as much on here in the past couple of years after just having a difficult time. But I'd like to do more posts about manifesting when I feel inspired to. If you'd like to explore the subject further, check out the posts linked above.

And here are a couple of posts by Malavika from Hello Malavika. She believes that manifesting is a "powerful practice that can change your life when done with a certain level of awareness". 

Does The Secret (The Law of Attraction) really work?: https://hellomalavika.com/2019/02/23/does-the-secret-the-law-of-attraction-really-work/

How to use the Law of Attraction- a daily meditation/visualization practice for you: https://hellomalavika.com/2019/03/03/how-to-use-the-law-of-attraction-a-daily-meditation-visualization-practice-for-you/

 

 

 

Photo: Tesco Holmbush, Shoreham-by-sea. Moonsparkle 2025.