Season 3, which ran over the summer of 2023, was dedicated to Manifestation. I had already touched on it in the Q&A episode of S1, and it was such a hit topic even my aunt was texting me things about Lucky Girl Syndrome on TikTok and stuff.
I have a lot of hot takes about Manifestation, especially the way it’s often talked about. There’s a lot of random merging of different traditions without much acknowledgment of what they are and the context in which the beliefs originated.
There even are some rather unsavoury connotations in the way we talk about it. But it’s like throwing the baby with the bathwater to focus on the language we use to talk about things, when it’s the language that people understand most broadly.
Is Manifesting Real?
Manifestation came to the mainstream long before TikTok and its Lucky Girl Syndrome, when The Secret came out in 2006. First as a film and then as a book. The book has sold 30 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 50 languages. Oprah swears by it, and so do a lot of other people. I have never read the book, but I watched the film, and forgive me for the series title being so clickbaity but I thought it’s warranted.
In Episode 2, I opened with a quote from Alesteir Crowley’s Treatise on Astrology that says, in the trademark wit of the time: “It is an obvious canon of all sound philosophy, that unless we know exactly how things happen, we must deny that they happen, or, if ever philosophy cannot so far close eyes on actuality, we must ascribe them to chance.”
That’s more or less the attitude of a lot of people towards Manifestation that informed the way I approached the topic, as well as why I did to begin with.
Witchcraft, Manifestation and Empowered Living with Kelly Dawn
Intuitive Business Coach and spiritual mentor for witches and visionary entrepreneurs Kelly Dawn shared her wisdom for how to show up fully expressed, and manifest a life and business we’re wildly obsessed with. I got a major ass-kicking in the process, too. It may not surprise you how much, 1.5y later, I’m talking about confidence!
The History of Manifestation
You may not know this, but I have a Master’s degree in Early Modern History. That’s part of why I tend to discuss 1400-1800s Occultism rather than the most popular post 1850 kind. I don’t mean because I’m not qualified to talk about it, I have presented a conference on Liberal history down to the Thatcher years. I mean nobody goes to get 2 degrees in a historical period they aren’t passionate about, so you get me sharing about my ADHD hyperfocus most of the time. However, in this episode I cover all the way down to the New Thought movement and its lovechild The Secret.
I believe it’s important to analyse concepts in the context where they first appear, as the very human biases we carry get mixed up into what is often presented as divine revelation. And a lot of New Thought and Neville Goddard’s work repackage Christianity.
The Science of Manifestation
Manifestation in its dictionary definition is “an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something abstract or theoretical.” In spirituality, it refers to our ability to have such an event, action, or object that shows or embodies what was once our vision. It’s a lot less esoteric than we make it sound, and this episode explores the neuroscience that’s emerging to explain what was once a mystery.
Star Magic: Summer Meteors
Episode 4 took a break from the topic of Manifestation, unless you work with stars for it, to look at the meteor showers of the period where the series was running in the Northern Hemisphere. I don’t have listeners in the Southern Hemisphere so I never did the series with their meteors. Looking at these events provides some practical aspects to the often maligned Lion’s Gate Portal, too.
The Law of Assumption and Trust in the Universe
In this solo episode, I look at how we can make trauma-informed Manifestation. It’s a topic I’m still talking about, because it seems people are still not taking into account religious trauma and what the idea of a benign Universe that has our back and we should surrender to actually demands of spiritual people.
At this point in time, but I doubt it’ll change, I’m of the opinion there’s no divine as we usually conceive of it, and that we don’t need one to be there for the Hermetic Laws of the universe to be true and therefore Manifestation real. In this episode, I shared some preliminary thoughts on the topic from a Sceptical Agnostic Secular Science-Seeking Witchcraft perspective.
The Lion’s Gate Portal
The Lion’s Gate Portal is basically Witchy Christmas. From the 26th of July to the 12th of August, a cosmic alignment with the Sun in Leo (constellation of the Fixed Star Regulus) and the Fixed Star Sirius is seen as a major energetic portal for manifestation, peaking on 8/8 which in numerology is a highly auspicious number. The detractors point to how the date is arbitrary and only applies to the Gregorian Calendar, as well as the dubious claims to ancient origin. This episode looks at the lore from all sides and, spoiler alert, I’m a fan. There’s nothing as powerful to me as the concentration of collective intention, whether the day is powerful itself or not.
Empowering Transformation and Healing with Lou Henwood (aka The Singing Zookeeper)
This was such a favourite conversation that I brought it back in S5. Lou is a Mindfulness therapist and coach, NLP Master practitioner, Higher coding practitioner, QHHT, Dreamporting Master and Healer based in Cornwall, UK. However, her journey took her from our dreary rainy shores to the Philippines, where she learnt how to let go of control and helped to bring to life the Motag Living Museum. It’s an incredible journey both outer and inner.
Self-concept, Language, and the Energetics of Manifestation
In this 2-part solo episode, I dive deep into how our mind works when it comes to conceptualising who we are. I also look at some popular ideas from Neville Goddard, pre-Christian Hermeticism, and the power of words in shaping our mind concepts which then impacts our energetics and what we manifest.
Healing the Witch Wound with Christian Jones
In the season finale, I have the beautiful rockstar Intuitive Quantum healer Christian Jones to talk candidly about the Witch Wound, how it stops Healers and Soulpreneurs from stepping into their full power and follow their calling, and what we can do to heal the female lineage from it.
