Certain words when they are mispronounced, overused, misused or applied carelessly drive my wife Rhonda a bit crazy.

Mispronounced words would include words like February. A misuse would include“irregardless” and “mischievious”—versus mischievous.

Perhaps the most overused word of the year is: iconic. Also a word that has jumped to the top of careless conversation more recently is “manifesting.”

Make no mistake. We’re not simply dealing with “positive thinking” here. Nor is it a heightened belief that wishing and hoping will make this happen. (I tried that back in high school with a girl I liked.)

No, this idea of manifesting yields up a sort of mystical power to influence outcomes. And it’s not new. National Geographic explained this a year ago in their article, “The ancient origins of ‘manifesting’—and why it’s making a comeback.”

As they pointed out,

“Before vision boards and TikTok affirmations, ancient cultures also believed that the power of thought could reshape their reality.”

So in short form, manifesting is a self-development practice that turns desires into reality through focused intention.

These ideas of thoughts shaping reality have deep roots in some ancient spiritual traditions. Hinduism thrives on the concepts of karma. This fosters the belief that “actions and intentions influence future outcomes—and the law of attraction, which mirrors modern manifestation ideas.”

Christopher Key Chapple, an Indic and comparative theology professor at Loyola Marymount University, explains that “the law of attraction is rehashed karma theory.” Furthermore, references to manifestation-like principles appear as early as a 3,500-year-old Sanskrit text.

Chapple explains that in later Hindu traditions,

“The idea is that if you want money, you think about Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth; if you want to enhance your overall well-being and luck you participate in Ganesh Puja, (a Hindu prayer ceremony that is performed for good luck) and so on.” 

In the late 19th century, we find proponents of modern manifesting traceable in this country to the New Thought Movement. These voices were significantly influenced by Hindu philosophy. Mary Baker Eddy was one of the founders of the New Thought Movement. Her book, Science and Health, quoted liberally from ancient Sanskrit texts. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson also studied and quoted the Bhagavad Gita and other Hindu writings..

“Manifesting” saw a major resurgence in the early 2000s, largely driven by Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 bestseller The Secret, which sold over 30 million copies. Celebrity endorsements—from figures like Oprah Winfrey, who credits the practice with shaping her success—helped solidify its mainstream appeal.

In the last five years manifesting truly gained renewed popularity. During the COVID-19 pandemic a renewed interest in self-improvement found people turning to positive thinking to regain control over their lives. Google reports searches for “manifesting” increased by over 600 percent during the first few months of 2020.

Social media has also had an effect, particularly among younger generations. Today, TikTok alone hosts over 110 million posts on the subject, and in 2024, the Cambridge Dictionary named “manifesting” its Word of the Year.

With all of this attention to manifesting, one should realize that this concept is not foreign to the Bible! A wonderful review of the difference between Scripture and modern use of the word is explained by Reagan Rose.

Reagan is the founder of Redeeming Productivity, a media ministry focused on a biblical approach to personal productivity. Reagan has a Master of Divinity from The Master’s Seminary. He has a podcast and several books. (I.e. Redeeming Productivity from Moody Publishers.)

Reagan explains,

“In the Bible, when something is ‘made manifest,’ it means it is unveiled, brought to light, or made clearly visible and known. The phrase comes from the Greek word phaneroō, which means “to reveal what was hidden” or “to make apparent.” It has nothing to do with modern New Age “manifesting” (using thoughts to attract wealth or success). Instead, biblical manifestation is always about truth and reality being exposed by God.”

Please check out Reagan’s article noted above.

In the meantime, remember Colossians 2:8:

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (ESV)