Something strange keeps happening to me. I’ll be at a party chatting to a successful woman – say, a doctor or businesswoman – and upon mentioning that I’m single, she suggests I should draw up a list of qualities I’m looking for in my ideal man, in order to “manifest” him into my life by the power of thought. I feel taken aback and unsure how to respond. Sure, the advice is well-intentioned. But it’s strange hearing people who have built careers on following the evidence suggest such an irrational idea: that my thoughts can summon another human being.
Maybe this won’t surprise you – much has been said about my generation’s propensity towards spirituality. Just last week, The Times had a piece about under-35s talking to the dead via spiritualist churches, and the Wall Street Journal published “Gen Z, social media is a gateway to spiritual life”. Last month, the Evangelical Alliance, which brings together thousands of UK churches, launched a guide for its churches to take advantage of the popularity of “New Age spirituality”, covering “tarot, manifesting and crystals”. But amid the hype, we seem to tiptoe around a rather more awkward point: it’s disproportionately women who are embracing it.
At the last count, YouGov found that nearly half of British women described themselves as superstitious, versus less than a quarter of men. Superstition and manifestation fit under the umbrella of spirituality, insofar as they can involve a belief that unseen forces connect our thoughts or actions to events in the world. YouGov polling published in July 2025 found that 31 per cent of British women thought astrology was definitely or probably real, compared with 14 per cent of men. Nearly a quarter of women thought there could be truth in crystal healing, against one in 10 men. The most popular social media posts and videos about spirituality (whether it be about manifesting, crystals, or horoscopes) are performed for women, by women.
It’s easy to laugh at the idea that a crystal might improve your finances. But it’s harder to dismiss the anxiety that makes such a promise attractive. Ridicule tells us little about why women seek these assurances. Especially given, in my experience, it isn’t the women you might expect who are into spirituality. These beliefs aren’t confined to people whose lives revolve around alternative therapies. Female acquaintances who are civil servants go for tarot readings. I hear women with several degrees talking about a woman’s intuition (a term used in spiritual frameworks as a sixth sense only women possess).
Women aren’t just using spirituality, as the old caricature of women casting love spells might suggest, to find a man either. A lot of content online is around how to attract money and success – or to borrow the more enlightened terminology: “abundance”. There’s “scripting” – writing about a desired future as though it’s already happened, assembling “vision boards” of the life you want, and the “369 method” which involves writing an intention three times in the morning, six in the afternoon and nine at night. Influencers tell you to leave crystals out under a full moon to recharge them, and launch your business on an auspicious date. Researchers term this “spiritual entrepreneurship”.
Other times the content is around looksmaxxing. Many watch content with subliminals – affirmations beneath music at a volume or speed intended to make them imperceptible to the conscious mind, in order to reach the subconscious. One video with subliminal beauty affirmations around facial symmetry and flawless skin has 1.4 million views. Multiple studies by sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Czech Academy of Sciences, of both TikTok and Instagram over the last few years, show such content around spirituality to be female-dominated. Influencers ask viewers to comment “claim” or interact three times to secure a desired outcome. Creators will suggest that doing so will bring a job offer or an ex back. Conveniently, it also helps the creator’s content spread.
My intention isn’t to mock women for believing in these things. But I don’t believe that this is all harmless, either. Women are being increasingly told they can control everything via manifestation or, at the other end of the spectrum, that we control nothing because of cosmic forces.
In the case of the former, a sense of self-blame can result when things don’t work out, as Narineh Hartoonian, a clinical psychologist, points out: “When visualisation alone doesn’t lead to results, people blame themselves… This kind of magical thinking reinforces helplessness. It teaches people that outcomes depend on invisible forces rather than intentional action.” Or as psychotherapist and author Whitney Goodman worries: “When we force ourselves to only look at the positive, we deny the reality of human suffering and suppress emotions that are vital for our survival and growth.”
In the case of believing in fate, it can lead to powerlessness – why work on yourself when you’re really just at the mercy of whether Mercury is in retrograde? And on this note, I think the real reason for women’s New Age beliefs points to something bigger.
The difficulty of being a young person today is well-known. To give one example: last year, the median home in England cost 7.6 times the median annual salary, more than double what it did 20 years ago. But young women seem to pay a particular penalty. The gender pay gap is still 7 per cent and polling a few months ago by Merlin Strategy for the New Statesman showed young British women to be more pessimistic than men about their economic prospects and the opposite sex, heralded as the “Angry Young Women” phenomenon. Could it be that this is what drives young women into the spiritual realm – the desire to control or blame fate for their situations?
I can understand how it happens. It offers community: women’s circles, wellness retreats, and reassurance – that a force somewhere is looking out for you, that the unpredictability, cruelty and randomness of life serve a greater cosmic purpose, or that you can control your fate. But a community can offer comfort without telling you that you attracted your misfortunes.
Women need to find ways of finding comfort in uncertainty that don’t teach us to accept less. Because while the promise of limitless power that spiritualism promises sounds great, it eventually becomes a lesson in submission. Telling women to ask the Universe for more stops them from asking anyone else. A better salary, a fairer share of care, a home they can afford: these become things to manifest, rather than demands to make. In the case of fatalism, the powerlessness is self-perpetuating: the less you believe you can change, the less you try.
Of course, women who are told they can change the world with their thoughts will only blame themselves when the world refuses to change. Ultimately, spirituality’s version of female empowerment makes women responsible for everything – and holds everyone else accountable for nothing.
Hence then, the article about the real reason high flying women are obsessed with manifesting was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The real reason high flying women are obsessed with manifesting )
Also on site :
- From Van Halen to Whoopi Goldberg to Dennis Rodman, ‘Milk Mustache’ Spills the Secrets Behind the Iconic Ad Campaign 31 Years After It Started
- This Classic Ryan Murphy Series Is the No. 1 Best Show to Watch on Hulu Right Now According to Rotten Tomatoes
- Una pareja estadounidense quiere dejar de vivir al día, pero tiene una deuda de casi US$ 40.000 en tarjetas de crédito