People might laugh that ‘manifest’ is a word of the year but I’m pretty sure I manifested my husband
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I love reading about all the ‘words of the year’. They are like little time capsules, revealing the peculiar obsessions or idiosyncrasies of the culture that play out over a particular 12 months. This week the Cambridge Dictionary announced that ‘manifest’ was its word of the year. In recent times, celebrities and influencers have led the charge in using the word in a new way, so much so that the dictionary is updating its meaning, adding: “to imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen”. ‘Manifest’ was looked up almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, making it one of the most-viewed words of 2024.
Dua Lipa is one high-profile fan of manifesting, telling the crowd when she headlined Glastonbury this summer that she had "written this moment down". “Manifesting is a big thing for me," she said. "I stand very firmly in the belief of putting things into the world." Simone Biles is another famous person who believes in the power of manifesting. The GOAT and star gymnast of the Paris Olympics has apparently done it since childhood.
Social psychology professor Dr Sander van der Linden from the University of Cambridge warned that while there was good research on the value of positive thinking and goal setting, there was no scientific validity to manifesting. “Manifesting is what psychologists call ‘magical thinking’ or the general illusion that specific mental rituals can change the world around us,” he said. In short, celebrities and TikTokers might encourage us to manifest wealth, love or fame, but more fool us to believe we can change our lives by sheer will. After all, Dua Lipa has an incredible voice and Simone Biles has spent thousands of hours on a gym mat.
I agree that on the surface manifesting sounds like a bunch of hooey. I am generally quite a sceptical person. I’m not religious, I don’t believe in fate or the afterlife. But manifesting? Well, I’m not so sure. And the reason for my fondness towards this pseudoscience is simple. I’m pretty sure I manifested my husband. In fact, I think I did it twice: by reading a book about manifesting love and by writing something in a notebook. Let me take you through it.