Do we manifest through God or the brain?

In the first chapter of Dr Yuval Noah Harris’ critically acclaimed book, Sapiens, he describes the main separation between man and animal as ‘our ability to not only imagine but to do so collectively.’ Collective imagination is our divine power, with most things of tangible and intangible existence being manifested projections. In light of this, one might argue that God is a collective imagination by man — regardless of whether ‘He’ is or isn’t, I’d like to explore the angle of what it is about religion that deeply supports manifestations in our lives.

First, there is thought

“Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts” — Soren Kiekergaard

The importance of thought selection is highlighted beautifully by James Allen in his book ‘As a man thinketh’ published in 1903. The book was adapted from the verse Proverbs 23:7 — “As a man thinketh, so is he.” Over the course of a mere 35 pages, Allen explores the power of thought as it pertains to character, circumstance, health, achievement and ideals. He writes “A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so, indirectly, yet surely shape his circumstances.” (Allen, 1903). Spiritual leaders concur, take for example Robin Sharma — globally renowned life coach in his book ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ he states ‘…your quality of life will be determined by the quality of your thoughts.’ These quotes are otherwise known as ‘The Law of Attraction’ — in fine, what you think about you bring about.

However, what all these works of art may or may not intentionally lack is an explanation around the scientific functionality of manifestation. From a novel perspective we can see the association between thought and life experience, but how does this factually work?

Enter the brain

Allow me to offer up a brief science lesson on the part of your brain responsible for manifestation — The Reticular Activating System or RAS. A big name for a piece of the brain that extends upwards around two inches and has a diameter slightly larger than a pencil (Linde, 2015). Despite its miniature status, this little organ lives up to its sizeable name by playing the processing function between what we see, hear and eventually choose to register.

Image locating the RAS (Mark Alexander, 2015)

Say for example I’m a budding entrepreneur with an idea to produce and sell sun-caps to the middle-aged population — guess what I’ll begin to notice more of when you’re out in public? Middle-aged people wearing caps. This is our RAS at play. We determine importance by what it is that we focus on most in our lives, which our RAS will be set to find data for. The RAS accepts or denies what you absorb into your subconscious mind, which is a sponge constantly filtering and receiving information. Our conscious minds consume 40 bits of data per second, whereas our subconscious mind consume 40 million bits — your subconscious mind has one million times more processing power than the conscious mind and we require a gatekeeper to support processing this (Walton, 2015). A decent analogy of the RAS would be the roles between a Director and their Private Secretary, where the Private Secretary is the RAS and if it determines your submission to be relevant you may go through to see said Director.

It’s worth noting that your RAS is part of your primitive brain which correlates with self-image. Whatever your beliefs, your RAS will also seek out information to support this. Therefore, your positive thinking must sit with true self-belief otherwise your mantras won’t connect with your RAS and won’t support your desired manifestations.

Faith as a chauffeur

To a certain extent vision boards and religious practices act as manifestation tools for what may be differing motives. Remember earlier on the example of the entrepreneur with the sun-caps idea? The RAS will create no distinction between a person manifesting through prayer as it will to a person building a business because both circumstances are built on one important factor which ties all of this together — belief.

If we refer to the 10 commandments in the Old Testament, man was instructed to live in a particular fashion to ultimately garner God’s favour — whereas the new testament offers further teachings and may be more applicable to your perspective which would again grant you a life in God’s favour. If we look at God’s favour as a reasonably frictionless life due to our RAS being focused on positive things (God’s grace) then we could begin to contextualise this concept. Furthermore, religious practices are traditions which help centre people, this is best exhibited by the numerous methods of religious prayer that exist globally; Muslims fast during Ramadan whereas Buddhists meditate daily to name just two. So in reality it is the underlying essence of your belief in your faith that results in manifestation, the practice which governs it simply acts an entry into a spiritual state.

Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head

So, what is it that precludes people from identifying faith as a manifestation tool? To me, it seems that considering ‘God’ as a concept can be a difficult and maybe even a sacrilegious thing for most to do, mainly because of the deeply personal relationship a faith or spiritual journey requires — making it very real and tangible. However, the very nature of God is what makes the idea of manifesting through ‘Him’ so effective as you are ultimately granting the opportunity to believe in self and others. As we studied before, the stronger the belief and more concentrated the focus, the higher the likelihood of results.

In the true essence of Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose from the dead he appeared to his Apostles imparted the wisdom that God lives within and he would be with them always in spirit. Taking this coaching along in order to fulfil your potential self, you may want to ask yourself the question of how well you are you manifesting in life? Looking through the discussed categories of your beliefs, thoughts and practices which would ideally combine into a life of manifestation.

Reference list

1. Allen, J., 2013. As A Man Thinketh. Rise of Douai Publishing, p.17.
2. Harari, Y., Purcell, J. and Watzman, H., 2011. Sapiens. London: Vintage books.
3. Linde, S., 2015. [online] Study.com. Available at: <https://study.com/academy/lesson/reticular-activating-system-definition-function.html> [Accessed 12 April 2020].
4. Sharma, R., 1997. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. 29th ed. London: Thorsons, p.85.
5. Walton, C., 2015. What You Need To Know About How Your Mind Works. [online] Gamma Mindset. Available at: <https://www.gammamindset.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-how-your-mind-works/> [Accessed 12 April 2020].