That doctrine was echoed in the mid-20th-century teachings of Norman Vincent Peale, an American clergyman widely known as “God’s salesman,” whose 1952 best seller, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” urged followers: “expect great things and great things will come.”
Among Peale’s cheery bromides, reportedly embraced by Donald Trump’s father, Fred, and later by Mr. Trump himself, is the oft-quoted challenge “Shoot for the moon, and, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
That idea today has high-profile champions. They include Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and, most visibly, of late, Marianne Williamson, an early Democratic presidential candidate last year. At the primary debate in Detroit last summer, she urged viewers, in an effusion of mystic-speak, “Say ‘yes’ to what we know can be true.’” Another adherent is Lizzo, who insisted in Marie Claire last summer, “Everything in my life has been a manifestation. Like you really have to speak it.”
She is joined by a rising chorus of internet evangelists offering guidance and healing via Zoom and other virtual platforms. Business has picked up, said Courtney Love Gavin, 34, a life coach in Los Angeles. “I look at this time as being the Super Bowl for the coaching industry,” she said.
Ms. Gavin said that she teaches manifesting but prefers the term “coaching,” because, as she said, “You don’t want to lose people. You want to speak to them in their language.”
Roxie Nafousi, 30, who practices as an emotional health adviser in London, does not apologize for a lack of formal training. “You don’t have to have qualifications to be a manifesting expert,” she said, adding brightly, “Like singers who were born to sing, I was born to help people.”
