I must have been a teenager when I found this strange, thin book gathering dust on my mum’s bookshelf. The Cosmic Ordering Service, the cover read, the text spread across an image of dandelion seeds floating into a blue sky. A Guide to Realizing Your Dreams, by Bärbel Mohr. There was something appealing about this odd, practical-sounding book. “It’s fantastic,” read a quote on the front from Noel Edmonds. At the time, I was too young to know who Noel Edmonds was. But still—fantastic.

While The Secret, Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 self-help phenomenon, gets more attention, it was The Cosmic Ordering Service, published a few years earlier, that first hooked me on the idea of manifestation. The book’s premise was simple: if you wanted something, you could just “place an order” with the universe. Write it down, set a deadline, and wait for it to arrive. As long as you asked with positivity, didn’t obsess over the outcome, and—most importantly—believed, it would happen. What could be more tempting?

For the next decade or so, I was a firm believer in manifestation. I didn’t preach about it—this was my own private ritual—but I genuinely felt like it worked. I “manifested” jobs, relationships, even unexpected windfalls. I’d ask for a specific amount of money, and then get an unexpected tax refund. I’d wish for the right partner, and then meet her in a bar. Every time an “order” arrived, I’d feel grateful (the book encouraged gratitude—it supposedly fueled manifestation). I am such a lucky girl, I’d think, completely unironically. If only people knew how easy it could be.

Then, I suppose, my brain caught up with reality. The things I wanted—the things I expected to have by now—became harder to will into existence. Friends with family wealth bought houses or started families without financial strain. I noticed how some people could freely pursue creative passions while others, less privileged, were stuck in unrelated day jobs. I don’t mean to sound like a wide-eyed student just discovering class inequality—only that the cracks in my belief system started showing. By my late twenties, the magic had begun to fade.

The core idea of manifestation—whether through The Secret, TikTok gurus, or apps like To Be Magnetic—puts all responsibility on the individual, never on society or circumstance. If you’re not wealthy, you must not believe hard enough. If you’re stuck in your career, you’re not visualizing success properly. But how can you look at the world—its injustices, its systemic failures—and still think we get exactly what we wish for? I didn’t want to stop believing—I loved it, it felt real—but the certainty was slipping away.

That said, I don’t think manifestation is entirely useless. In 2011, illusionist Derren Brown did a Channel 4 series called The Experiments. One episode, The Secret of Luck, explored why some people seemed luckier than others. His conclusion? Those who believed they were lucky were more open to opportunities, while the fatalistic ones missed them (like ignoring a winning lottery ticket on the ground). Maybe all my “manifested” successes were just me putting myself out there. I didn’t “manifest” a book deal—I wrote a book.

Even some neuroscientists acknowledge the power of manifestation—though with less mysticism and more science.Scientific explanations offer a different perspective on manifestation. James Doty, MD, a neurosurgeon and author of Mind Magic, describes manifestation as “value tagging”—the brain’s unconscious way of prioritizing certain goals, which then influences our actions and outcomes. “When we focus on our goals, the brain treats them as important,” he explains. “Once that goal is set, our brain actively seeks ways to make it happen.”

For me, this logical approach creates a dilemma: If we take out the idea of a “higher power” (for me, the universe), does that weaken the driving force behind belief? Asking my own brain for a new house feels a bit pointless—even though that’s likely what I was doing all along. As irrational as it may be, it felt more meaningful when I was directing my hopes toward something greater than myself.

I don’t manifest with the same fervor I did in my 20s, but I haven’t turned into a hardened skeptic either. Like anything slightly mystical, I think there’s a balance—one where you can “call in” a promotion and believe it’s possible, without assuming positive thinking alone can overcome tragedy, illness, or systemic injustice. I haven’t touched my worn-out copy of The Cosmic Ordering Service in years, and I don’t plan to. Still, I haven’t thrown it away. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll need it again.