Making dreams come true: inside the new age world of manifesting

“I think particularly for people who have been abused, who have lived in poverty, who have dealt with real traumatic hardship, it can feed into and deepen this belief of, like, I am the reason that bad things happen to me,” she says. “They really believe these things in their life were caused by their beliefs.”

The latter may sound silly, but it’s indicative of where a belief in manifesting can easily end up: that everything bad that happens is also your fault. You just didn’t manifest your life well enough.

Perhaps more than any other age group, Gen Z suddenly felt their fate was not their own. Manifesting became a way to take back control.

Part of manifestation, I was learning, essentially involved looking on the extreme bright side of everything. After all, once you believe events are the direct result of your manifestations, then the logic follows that even negative consequences must be the result of them, too – and therefore must actually be positive.

Traditional prayer is all well and good when you’re wishing for the wellbeing of others, but it’s slightly frowned upon to get God on the case when you simply want a new partner or a Porsche. Most manifesting sessions, I noted, end with our palms pressed together in a prayer-like pose, though it’s “the universe” we’re told to give thanks to.

All promise a future far brighter than the present. But it’s only manifesting that also requires you to put on happy face.

Now, Silicon Valley tapped into millennial ennui – or, depending on your amount of cynicism, self-obsession – by taking astrology into the app age.

It’s hardly the first time people have sought answers in faith following trauma. After the First World War, for instance, there was a sharp rise in spiritualism: after so much death, people found comfort in the thought that death itself wasn’t the end.

“You can only manifest in line with your higher purpose.” (Essentially, the universe can say no, which is often the explanation when things don’t happen.)