Manifestation: Spirituality or Science?

Honestly, I think it’s a bit of both.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

“Shameful.”

That is what someone commented earlier this week because I had put my article, ‘The 7 Best Colours For Manifestation’ behind a paywall on Medium.

Their reasoning was that “spirituality should be free.”

Now. My annoyance at this comment is threefold.

Firstly, there is a very clear statement at the beginning of the post that non-members of the platform can read the article for free on this very blog.

Secondly, are we to expect writers, artists and other creators to work for free based on their subject matter? I bet they’re not saying that to Gabby Bernstein, Roxie Nafousi and Rhonda Byrne.

These manifestation teachers have made a substantial living writing about the subject.

I, on the other hand have earned a grand total of 16 cents on Medium (at the time of writing).

Thirdly, putting this person’s obvious pollyanna view of the world aside, the thing that irked me the most was the implication that manifesting is a spiritual practice.

It’s not something you ‘believe’ in, like unicorns or Father Christmas. You don’t have to be spiritual make manifesting work for you.

Because it’s neuroscience.

Mostly.

Science…

Last Friday, during coffee with a friend I mentioned that I have trouble concentrating on one task at a time (probably undiagnosed ADD, but I refuse to be labelled), and joked that I needed more yellow in my environment.

At that very moment a yellow car drove by.

Suddenly I was seeing yellow cars everywhere I went.

Had the Universe magicked a plethora of yellow cars out of thin air?

No. I was noticing them because in that moment my brain had deemed yellow important. This is neuroscience in action.

The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network of neurons located in the brainstem, one function of which is to act as a filter. It helps us to disregard irrelevant stimuli and focus only on what our subconscious deems important.

Without it, our system would be overloaded and we’d probably malfunction, and then our heads would explode like the fembots in the Austin Powers movie.

…Or spirituality?

However…

There are times when you join the dots looking back where you think, how TF did that even happen?

You know, those times when things just work out. The right person appears at the right time to help you out, the right house presents itself just when you’ve stopped looking, or money mysteriously appears in your account.

I’ve had several of those kinda incidents that make me believe there’s some benevolent, invisible force at play and I’m sure you have too.

So I have one foot in each camp. There’s definitely an overlap. You can do all the things you’re supposed to do but at some point you just have to trust and give it over to the Universe.

Manifestation is all about meeting the magik halfway.

Whose side are you on?