James Doty (Yellow Kite (UK); Avery (US))
Sabina Brennan (Orion Spring (ebook and audio))
Earlier this year, my daughter moved into college for her first year of university. Amid the boxes lining the hallways, I noticed a bulletin board covered in photos of scrub-clad physicians and inspirational quotes. When I stopped to take a closer look, the mother of the student it belonged to came out to say hello.
Advertisement
“I told my daughter to put her vision board where she can see it every time she sits down to study,” she told me. “She has a long road ahead of her if she wants to be a paediatrician. She needs to start manifesting now if she’s going to make it happen.”
Ever since Rhonda Byrne’s bestselling self-help book The Secret came out nearly 20 years ago, manifestation, or the idea that you can transform desire into reality by thought alone, has gone mainstream. While many have deemed it nothing more than new-age nonsense, two brain experts – James Doty, a neurosurgeon and founder of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, California, and Sabina Brennan, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland – have written books exploring how to use the brain’s own design to help guide your thoughts and perceptions to better achieve your goals.
In Mind Magic: The neuroscience of manifestation and how it changes everything, Doty kicks off with what he calls the “real” secret: “The universe does not give a fuck about you.” This sets the tone for the book, letting readers know that the following chapters won’t offer any advice on how to make the universe bend to our will. Instead, Doty offers a unique primer – and a six-week plan – to help us learn how to adjust our thoughts to better activate parts of the brain to cultivate “a fierce belief in possibility”. In doing so, he argues, we can become more resilient, open and intentional.
Doty offers a step-by-step approach to demonstrate that manifesting isn’t magic, per se, but a way of clarifying what you truly want, embedding your intention in your subconscious and then releasing your expectations to allow that intention to take root. Along the way, he explains why introducing positive, goal-directed thoughts can help rewire important brain networks to help us pay better attention to the opportunities that will help us realise our potential.
Doty demonstrates that manifesting isn't magic per se, but a way of clarifying what you truly want
While a good bit of Doty’s six-week plan reads like a meditation guide, complete with instructions to scan your body and let go of unnecessary attachments, he takes the time to explain why manifesting is really about focus. By directing your attention (as well as your time) to what you want, you can get into the right mindset to achieve the things you want most in life.
While Brennan doesn’t offer exercises to become a better manifester, she covers much of the same territory as Doty in The Neuroscience of Manifesting: The magical science of getting the life you want. Author of two other practical neuroscience books, she has said in interviews that she is inspired to use neuroscience to help people better understand themselves and what they are capable of – and she takes a similar approach in this tome.
Many of us have that one friend who credits manifestation for their success in finding the right job, partner or situation. And Brennan thoughtfully separates the “woo” from the work, providing readers with evidence-based knowledge about how changing your thoughts can alter your behaviour.
She reminds us that our brains are primed to notice the negative by default. After all, by paying greater attention to bad things, our brains can help us avoid danger. But a switch to more positive, intentional thoughts can alter how we perceive the world, as well as filter out the extra noise that so often gets in the way of us achieving our ambitions.
Brennan carefully unpacks the seven Cs of manifesting – curiosity, compassion, connection, change, clarity, coherence and creation. As she does so, she weaves together research on sensory perception, cognitive behavioural therapy, flow states, working memory, visualisation and performance, optimistic dispositions and more to reveal why actively setting an intention can be more than just wishful thinking.
Take the paediatrician vision board my daughter’s neighbour created. Brennan devotes a small section of her book to explaining why popular manifestation tools like this can be useful – including the neuroscientific support for them. While this student’s collage may not be telling the universe she is MD material, it is reminding her of her goal every time she looks at it. That stimulates the reticular activation system, a brain network involved in focus and attention, to help her identify new opportunities that may help her. It can also encourage activities, like studying or reaching out to the organic chemistry professor, that will help her move step by step towards a white coat.
Both Doty and Brennan’s books do a good job of looking behind the curtain when it comes to manifestation, especially in terms of debunking how it is often marketed to the general public. Most importantly, though, they both take the time to remind readers that the real magic of achieving our goals lies within. Our brains can do quite audacious things when we cultivate the right intention and then follow through with changes to our thought patterns and behaviours.
Kayt Sukel is a science journalist based in Texas
New Scientist book club
Love reading? Come and join our friendly group of fellow book lovers. Every six weeks, we delve into an exciting new title, with members given free access to extracts from our books, articles from our authors and video interviews.
