Is Manifesting Complete Bullish*t? - Bonus Episode - Swey to Success Conference
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What are my thoughts on manifesting? I recently was a speaker at a group summit "Swey to Success" on using spirituality to grow success. I personally don't consider myself especially spiritual although I study and explore topics like an afterlife and remote viewing. If they all prove to be true, I see it more as science than spirituality. Manifesting is a popular topic now and I have lots of thoughts on that...
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Transcript
Liz Entin @ WTF Just Happened?!
People often ask me, what do I think about manifesting? Since I've been studying all this spirituality stuff that some might call.. Woo? Do I think it's real? Is there something to it.
So that's what I'm going to talk about today. But I want to back up a little, and say, how did I even get into all of this? I never even would have considered anything like spirituality before. I just thought it was complete wishful thinking and nonsense. And sadly, in 2015, my dad passed away. And I decided to investigate if there was any evidence of an afterlife, spirituality, some form of survival of consciousness. And something that didn't require belief. Was there data? Was there any reason to believe this, and oh my god, there was so much!
Now that is a whole other story. And if I was to go into that, we would spend about five hours talking about afterlife evidence. But interestingly, while studying all this, I learned a lot about consciousness. How does it affect our world? How does it affect matter? How does it impact what we want, which is when we use the word manifesting.
So, you know, I wish I could just have a simple answer that you sat in your room for a month, imagined a billion dollars every day, and walked out, and you are a billionaire. So it doesn't work like that. But there really is something to it. And I would have completely dismissed that until I started researching this.
So what do I think backs up that there is something to manifesting? Well, first of all, I'll start with a study and research called the Global Consciousness Project. Now, I want to say maybe it was about 20 years ago, someone, a researcher decided to set up random number generators. Now, those are machines, and they randomly produce almost like a flipping a coin. They randomly give numbers, ones or number zeros. And logically, there's a 50/50% chance that they'll get a one or a zero.
Now, first of all, they had people, I believe they selected meditators, but people who would supposedly have more ability to focus than just the average person. And they asked them to focus on trying to get these random jump, random number generators to produce significantly more ones over zeros or zeros over once, and there was an effect. And the numbers start to behave non randomly, which everyone is just like, fuck, like, how is this working?
And so what they then did with the global consciousness project, is that they placed them around the world. And they noticed when there was a world event that many people were focused on, this was done a while ago. So it was Princess Diana's passing and 9/11. Around those times, the numbers started to behave non-randomly. And the data coming in was non-random, which I wish I could explain how exactly that works. But it showed when there's an intense focus of multiple people, it directly is affecting matter in some way.
What's even crazier, and this is a whole other topic because it gets into time and but the numbers started to behave non randomly, a little before the events. So I, I can't explain that. I really wish I could.
Now, another discussion that was had, because people often think, well, you know, it makes no sense…I mean, if everyone could just sit and think of something and have it, we'd all have it. So, this was addressed by Dr. Dean Radin. He is also an afterlife researcher and researches Parapsychology and study of non-local consciousness. Non-local consciousness I should explain for all of you, means that our consciousness is not created by our brain, but it's downloaded by our brain. There’s a bunch of science that seems to back that up but again, another topic.
So I heard him speak once and someone asked him, ‘Well, what if I wanted to step outside and find a diamond sitting on the street that's worth $100 million? And why can't I just sit and manifest that? Will thinking about it and meditating on it? What if I even got a few people to sit and meditated on it with me? Will I find it? And if manifesting works, why wouldn't it?’ So.. Yeah, that's the good question. If this works, why wouldn't you find it?
So what he said was that the odds of finding $100 million diamonds sitting on your street is so minuscule that let's say this does work. And it increases the odds. So it increases the odds from point .0000001% to .001% Remove a few of the zeros and increase it a little bit. It's still almost impossible.
So how do you actually then incorporate manifesting into your life? Because, you know, people want to find the love of their life, people want to find success in their career. And I think there's a big misconception how manifesting works. People think just manifesting is a bunch of nonsense, if you know, and they imagine people sitting in their rooms and just meditating and saying this over and over again, and journaling on it. And other people who don't think it's nonsense might do that, but not see results. Well, I don't think it's this magical solution. If we all could do it that way, we would and everyone would have everything we wanted. It’d be a lot simpler.
So again, part of it is the odds of what you want. But you know, part of it is, it's just a portion, you still need to engage yourself in the world. So let's say you want to find the love of your life. And it's really great, sit at home, write out everything you want. Say, I'm going to find this.. one exercise even is, you know, to say “I am.” That's just one of the exercises. I don't know if that works more than journaling or more than vision boards. But, you know, who knows how or which works? It's kind of what works for you, what makes you feel right.
So now does that work, you know, along the lines of the global consciousness project, where everything changes and atoms and molecules? Maybe? I don't know but that is really interesting. How does it work? What is the mechanism behind it? I don't know.
But people read micro expressions, that's really understood science. So let's say instead of sitting at home, you know, being like, ‘I’m single, I hate it. I have no love in my life. I'm miserable.’ Like you're swiping on the apps, you're going on dates, and you're like, there's nobody. And instead, you've spent an hour a day or five minutes a day, saying ‘I am in love. This is my the love of my life. This is who I'm going to meet.’ What type of micro-expressions do you think you have? What type of people do you think you're attracting? That's how I feel confident saying it works.
And now let's take that to a wealth, abundance, financial abundance. You're sitting at home, you know, and you're like, ‘Oh, I'm poor, I'll never have what I want.’ And you go to a job interview, or you go speak with an investor, again, micro expressions, and the little choices you make in your life, you know, if you were to take manifesting to an extreme, and you said, ‘Oh, well, I'm writing out every day, I'll have $100 million in three years. So I'm going to rack up all this debt on my credit card and not worry about it.’ That’s… \that doesn't work. And neither, as I said, before, does just sitting around, saying, ‘Well, you know, I'm poor. I hate everything.’ I mean, that just doesn't bring good vibes into the world. You don't attract people who would help you up level. Who would support you. You attract other negative people. And we can say that's the law of attraction, which again, people will say, maybe it's woo or maybe it's the answer to everything. I mean, you get kind of both extremes are things like the law of attraction.
But in reality, think about it. You're feeling good about yourself. You're a successful person, and you meet a person who's just like, ‘Oh, I hate everything.’ And they just, you feel that and people do not want to spend time with them. So those are the ways I feel most confident in how this could work and how I tried to bring it into my life.
Those I would say, are the facts of how it works, the micro-expressions, the energy, the self motivation to - you literally change your brain neurons when you're thinking these positive things, which I actually want to give a disclaimer, I am not a fan of toxic positivity. People have brought that to me over the death of my dad saying ‘be grateful that…’ but ‘No, fuck you. I'm really in grief.’
It doesn't mean don't honor your feelings. It doesn't mean gaslight yourself, that things are good when they're not. But it means, I guess to me, have a hope and work towards that hope. And you have different energy, you have the energy to go to the gym, you have the energy to eat well.
And another disclaimer, there is serious depression at times, and this isn't going to do that. I mean, take care of yourself, go to a psychiatrist, if that's the situation. But again, that takes hope that you can feel better, but know positive thoughts aren't going to cure depression. And no, when I was in grief, I don't think I should have woken up every morning and been like, I'm grateful. I got under the covers, lay in bed and didn’t get out for like months after losing my dad. And that can be a healthy response too. That's honoring what you really feel. So again, the aspect I bring to it is hope. That's when I started researching evidence of an afterlife, and I had a hope there was something and that's what got me to feel joy and engage in life.
Now, another part that might tie into manifesting, and again, these are fascinating hypotheses. I don't want to say this as a fact. I just think it's really interesting. And I don't want to talk about manifesting without bringing this up. It is quantum entanglement and the split particle experiment. Now please google this because there are people who will speak about it much better than I will. But so this was done by Einstein and traditional physicists that no one, not even the most skeptical person could deny are serious physicists. And it's just so mind-blowing, I still kind of can't even believe it when I talk about it. So they take molecules, atoms, small subatomic particles, and scientists wondered, did they behave as particles or waves, they weren't sure.
Now, to set that up, they put this like board and they cut two slits at it. Again, Google and listen to an actual scientist explaining it because you're getting a sort of, you know, non-scientist, but fascinated by science, explanation. So they had the board with two slits in it. And they put a board behind it. And they sent these light particles through the slits. Now the thought was that if they behaved like waves, there would be interference patterns. When it went through the slits, as if you know picture ripples in a pond - those are waves you see when you throw a stone in and you get what they call interference patterns. That's how these particles would behave. Or these subatomic things, they weren't sure if it's a particle or wave. So now, if it was a particle, it should choose which of the slits it went through. And we just have two straight lines against the board.
So what they discovered is that when no one was observing, and they got the results are no technology was observing as the particle went through the slits. They behaved like a wave, which is fairly, I guess, indecisive, unformed. When someone was observing. They behaved like a particle. Literally, our observation changed how these particles behaved on a subatomic level. And you tie that in with the global consciousness project. I mean, this is why I called my brand WTF just happened?! Like this is just absolutely inexplicable.
So, I'm gonna go to the second part of this which is called quantum entanglement. And so, one of the known laws of the universe is nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in our universe. And what scientists discovered is sometimes these quantum particles entangle with each other. So that means, let's say, one is spinning clockwise and the other spinning counterclockwise. That's just a description. I'm not necessarily saying that's literally how it works. But as you change the spin of one, it changes the spin of the other. Now, that would make sense, if they were ten feet away -to an extent they're giving each other information. But what they began to notice was particles that were miles… light years away from each other, still entangled. And you change the spin of one, and it affected the spin of the other. So that meant they were giving each other information faster than the speed of light. And that means that somehow matter entangles with each other. And these type of matters somehow entangled with consciousness.
So there is some way our thoughts and to use an overused word, but I do use it, energy, sorry. I do overuse that word, or all of us do in this world. But our consciousness somehow seems to entangle. And that's where I do think manifesting works in a way we don't understand. We just don't. And, I mean, if I could explain it to you, I'd be sitting here with my Nobel Prize and a billion dollars, which, you know, maybe that's what I should manifest now. But we, so there's something about just accepting, I don't understand this, and it can't hurt to try.
And then there's the part that I think we do understand, which is micro-expressions, feeling good around people. There have even been studies where someone who's feeling really negative or someone who's feeling really positive, and they've measured brainwaves and it's called mirror neurons. Your brain starts to mirror the other person. So again, you're sitting there with an investor, and you're feeling really like a successful person, their brain neurons start to mirror yours. Or you're on a date, and you're feeling attractive, and like you're gonna find the love of your life, their brain neurons mirror yours. If you're feeling like unattractive, and single, and that no one's gonna like you, what happens to their brain neurons?
So that's where I think there's direct, concrete evidence where you can explain it. And, you know, it can't hurt to try but the problems come in when you abuse it. And people think, you know, sit in your room and spend three hours journaling about the love of your life. And now you're gonna find it and you don't need to go on dates, and you don't need to go on apps, or you're gonna, as I said, before,100 million dollars in three years, because you're meditating on it, and you get your little meditation circle to meditate with you. And you don't actually check the data of your startup. And how do you raise, maybe $500,000, before you go to the 100-million, and you don't take the realistic steps.
So that is really why I believe in a form of manifesting and why I use it. And I've noticed really positive results with my major career change of going from working in fashion, to writing about something that's just, oh my god, it's so weird. And when I first wrote about it, I was so embarrassed. I was like, trying to do it under a pen name and hide. And, you know, I've just had really good results. So manifesting has made a difference in my life. I can't explain, you can't fully understand exactly how it works, but it really can't hurt to try.
Swey: Elizabeth, can I just say you're so relatable with your entire speech was just so, so relatable. And I think my community, the audience here really, really resonated with everything you said, especially your ending, which is, why not just give it a try. There is literally no harm. And on that note, we have some hot questions from the audience that is specifically related to the speech. The first question that the community wants to know is, why don't manifestations usually work. What happens when they don't work? Why doesn't that happen?
Liz: Because it's not a guarantee, as it said, if everybody did it, and it was just a package, perfect formula, no one would work. We would just sit and manifest and everyone would have everything they want. It seems to statistically improve the possibility of getting what you want. That and creating a more positive set of mirror neurons. And it, you'd probably want to look at the statistical probability of what you are already, what you're trying to manifest.
I mean, it's the same as saying I want to be a CEO. So I'm going to send a resume into a big corporation and say, I want to be a CEO. Like, that's not going to do it. Yeah. It's just one step that seems to increase the odds of you getting what you want.
Swey: Okay. Is it easy to manifest one thing more than another thing? Is there any specificity like that?
Liz In terms of doing the actual work of manifesting, I don't think it's easier to try to manifest one thing over the other. I think, again, getting into the statistical odds, you're gonna have a lot more luck manifesting something that is more probable to happen than something that isn't, you know, I mean, am I gonna manifest making a million dollars in the next year? That's a pretty realistic goal. Am I gonna manifest making $2 billion? And becoming like, a president? That's probably not gonna happen.
Swey: Okay, so how long does it usually take? Is there a timeframe to manifesting something?
Liz: I don't think so. No, I, as far as I know, there isn't. It depends on a little bit what the timeframe of the thing would take anyway. But I haven't heard of any timeframe, I think it can speed up some things and get the ball rolling a little faster. But, you know, and how much does time play in? Are you 16 and starting to manifest the position you want to have at 35? Are you 30, and wanting to manifest a promotion that's going to be up in the next month? So it ties into the reality a bit of what you want. And other than that - I don't know. I actually think that'd be a fascinating study to test. To what extent time is affected by manifesting.
Swey: And this is a very interesting question. Did your grief propel your manifestations in anyway? As in is it always a positive based? Is it always a positive based aspect that brings manifestations to life. Can..can something that is not as positive really fuel our manifestations?
Liz: I think something that isn't positive can, because there's a growth from trauma and.. or there can be. I don't want to say there is, and I'm not saying it's worth it, but there can be a growth and it can help you. At least for me, it helped me understand a lot more about who I was. So I think I have more focus on what I want. And I would guess that would increase my ability to manifest what I want. Plus, I mean, I wouldn't have even considered anything like manifesting before losing my dad and studying this. I just thought it was bullshit.
Swey: Why do you think most people don't talk about the science that really exists behind manifesting?
Liz: That is such a good question, why people don't talk about any of this science -manifesting… afterlife? It's a complicated question. And one we all talk about a lot. It seems to be there is just a lack of knowledge. People like the little fun, sound-bitey, more “woo-woo” science” which doesn't have hard data and is more fun and exciting. And people would prefer it was true. I wish some of this like more pseudo-science was all true. I mean, it's just not as exciting. It's hard numbers, data, and it doesn't promise as simple of a guarantee. But people are talking about quantum entanglement and the split particle. But people also talk about it. It's kind of over-talked about often in a way that means that without a doubt, you think something and you've got it. So it's a little abused, but the other science such as The Global Consciousness Project, it's just, there isn't enough knowledge where enough people are talking about it. And no one, I don't really know why, I can't understand why this isn't the biggest thing that the whole world stopped everything to talk about forever. So that's a good question. I wish I had a really solid answer for you.
Swey: I think, I think it just leaves so much room for all of us to be curious, and to explore and to you know, really get educated in this as much as we can and expand our knowledge capacities. And on that note, given as you have done so much research on this, Elizabeth and you've spent a good amount of time just flowing in this direction, what is currently happening in your life, how can people can back with you if they want to know more about this, or what is something that you're offering at the moment that, you know the community can actually jump into and explore this space with you.
Liz: I am currently selling my book “What the Fuck Just Happened?!: A sciency-skeptic explores grief healing and evidence of an afterlife,” that tells my whole story of losing my dad. The very preliminary, stepping my toe into this research. So I bring this research in a very simple way because I'm sharing as I'm learning it. And I also share about meeting a lot of the people that helped teach me… meeting psychic mediums, meeting researchers, and it's actually, despite the fact it's about grief, it's kind of funny, just because I'm so awkward when I meet all these people. I also have a podcast where I interview a lot of the researchers. That's also “What the Fuck Just Happened?!: All about the afterlife. No Woo.” You can connect with me on Instagram. You can go to my website and email me. I love hearing from people. I will reply, my apologies, sometimes I'm a little delayed just because of work. I also am writing “What the Fuck Just Happened?!” part two, which picks up with where I left off in part one, as I'm learning so much more. And an offer I'd love to give. So I am going to be doing some zoom sessions, and we can talk about this and have a discussion and people can ask me questions, and we'll have a group on this. And I'd love to offer a free one for all of you.
Swey: It's amazing. Thank you so so so so much, Elizabeth. This has been a wonderful, wonderful experience. Do you have any left? Do you have a last piece of advice that you want to give to the community? Before we wrap up?
Liz: I just think be curious about all of this. It's so fascinating. Don't draw final conclusions, like do manifesting as an experiment. See if it works, see if it works one way over the other. You know, I mean, these aren’t hard, cold facts, like one plus one equals two. This is research that seems to work and it's just interesting. So rather than expecting that there's going to be an outcome, treat it like an experiment.
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