Making real people pay money to banish their poverty or grow their wealth through manifestation can be dangerous and ignorant to realities that we sometimes cannot control.

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Updated 12/16/16: I do urge readers to check out the comments below, as they flush out the many perspectives (which I think is important to consider before paying for Prout's — or anyone's — sort of products). I've had quite a few email demands for me to take this piece down. I've been threatened legally as well, which I think is against all good, as my personal goal is to spare people further pain or financial hardship. I believe it's important to consider the ramifications of products peddled by self-help and manifestation blogs. While I am positive most of these blogs and their owners have good intentions, their products demand a discussion around ethics. That is why this piece is still live.

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About a month ago, I was up late, steeped in cell-phone-light insomnia. I was on the brink of big life changes – a new job, a new apartment, and I was traveling in between jobs. In my head, it was all finances, my future, my relationship – swirling around, flotsam and jetsam, detached. I was falling down the rabbit hole that is late-night reading, thinking about myself and my meaning, or what all of it meant.

I felt this need to manifest, to create change. Part of me has always felt it took so much more than manifestation energy to transcend rent and phone bills, medical bills and long commutes, poverty and racism, oppression and judgement.

That night I stumbled upon "metaphysician and entrepreneur" Sarah Prout’s website. On it, she says, "I believe that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience and that our day-to-day lives and the fabric of our reality is constructed by our thoughts, feelings and vibration. Our innate super-powers are sparked by the things we love and our connection to the Divine within.”

Now, her blog is all about manifesting money and prosperity and goodness; one look at her Facebook threads and you’ll see people saying things like, “I manifested 1000 dollars in a month” or “I wished for 5000 dollars and didn’t get it yet, but I did save money at the grocery store.” One feels a bit like they’re peeping in on someone at their most desperate.

So, Sarah Prout offered a guide called “Ancient Manifesting Ritual.” Just look at this sales page. It’s the textbook definition of salesy.

Out of some weird (maybe vulnerable, maybe journalistic?) curiosity, of course, I paid a couple of dollars for the guide. When I downloaded it, it was pretty — pink and swirly and Urban Outfitter-styled New Age-y. Using the guide, one is supposed to, "Discover the Ancient Manifesting Ritual that will boost your manifesting super-powers....Over 10,000+ of my students have manifested ABUNDANCE, love, health and even babies with this incredible process.”

Where did this process come from, I wondered? "The Ancient Ritual you’re about to discover is a massive part of the creation process. It’s a ritual that has been used for thousands of years, from the ancient Egyptians to the teachers of the New Thought Movement in the 1800s.”

She learned it, as she says, from her late teacher Sri Bhai Sahib. I wonder if he knew she'd be selling his knowledge?

The guide tells me to write down my desire 55 times for 5 nights.

Logic tells me that if I spend enough time writing down my goals then they’ll likely be on my mind.

Having goals on your mind never hurt anyone, right? This makes sense. But what if, instead of writing our goals down 55 times for 5 nights – based on some co-opted and appropriated “Egyptian ritual," that is – we actively worked toward our goals? What if we didn’t pay lunch money to write our goals down in a diary? What if it wasn’t about repetitively writing something down and more about her guiding us to unblock the parts of ourselves that puts up barriers? What if it was about brainstorming real actions we could do in our lives? And, on top of that, to find autonomy in a world that creates barriers. What if it was more interactive, more thoughtful?

There’s journaling (which is great) and then there was this. It seemed a tenuous, questionable link to Egyptian magic. The whole thing — from the sales copy to the packaging — felt like it lacked heart, like earning people’s money was the goal.

My hand was certainly hurting after day one (yes, I tried the ritual). But more importantly, what if creating real change wasn't an option? What if the system was rigged against you based on socioeconomic, cultural or identity factors?

Many new-age manifestation blogs offer ethically irresponsible products which sully name of metaphysics. (TWEET THIS!)

Prout is really good at building a brand and using the internet to make real money. She wrote a whole book on it, for Wiley, in fact. Her Instagram account is full of slogans like “Trust yourself” and “I am ready to manifest.”

I also know she does live chats on Facebook and talks a lot about manifesting energy. Her words are simple, clear and effective, but they do not appear to be poignant; they seem designed to pander to her audience: if you think hard enough, you will make more money.

In the other night's live chat, I asked her a question about how she reconciles cultural and social issues when manifesting. No answer, but of course there were hundreds watching her. Still, it makes me feel sad for her customers. I want to tell them Prout is not the answer, but it's hard when I don't know the solution. It all seems well-intentioned, supportive, harmless. Except that it manifestation is tricky, and is a topic that needs to be tended to with care, sensitivity, and intersectionality (I talk more about that here).

I’m devoted to ritual for various personal reasons, but I'm also interested in active change, and in recognizing privilege, and in understanding how many barriers are put up against people — especially women, the poor, and people of color.

I write books that do talk about manifestation, but never as a way to solve social ills, and never as a get-rich-quick scheme. I think manifestation is affected both by our minds and in our circumstances.

I believe in using our energy to create real, sustainable change and to help ourselves and other people grow. I think there's maybe more to thinking your way through poorness and debt. I may meditate and focus on sustenance and prosperity and protection from negative energy, but the real struggle is on the street. I can’t manifest total social change, and I can’t manifest the end of systemic poverty and oppression. I may write something 55 times for 5 days, but the truth is — I just wanted more from Prout. More understanding. More acknowledgement of the deeper issues. More self-awareness.

A lot of gurus who sell these get-rich schemes say that their own poverty and struggle inspired them, yet this doesn’t feel very responsible of empathic. I think it’s all a sort of modern, new-age snake oil peddling.

Of course we have the ability to vibrate beauty into the world, but we have to do so in a realistic and compassionate manner; selling manifestation guide downloads (which people pay good money for) without talking about the real issues just is not probably the way. But as I said above, I don’t know the answer or if there is one answer.

Today, when I opened up my email from Prout, I saw, “7 Reasons Your Intentions Aren’t Manifesting Yet.” This worries me, but I understand the nature of clickbait. Sure.

The reasons are all over the place, with a few that straight up place blame on the reader, like, “You’re way too much in your head about this stuff” when “this stuff” probably means serious, life-affecting financial issues or trauma that needs to be seen and heard and dealt with, not ignored away because if we don’t think too much about it, it’ll all be fine. What? That’s called privilege.

I recognize some people adore her (there’s a market for everything!), but Prout’s approach is wrong for me. Like some other manifestation/self-help resources and gurus, Prout offers an ethically irresponsible product that does a disservice to its customer and sullies the name of metaphysics, magic, and personal development. It’s shiny and pretty and avoids reality. It’s like a Victorian widow paying money to see an “ectoplasm” made from stockings. It preys on desperation and pain. It may be that Prout's method does encourage healing and growth, but I can’t help but feel it’s still exploitative and doesn’t solve the root issue. Do not let your heart be exploited.

That's just how she runs her business, and she seems fine with it.

I think of the woman who had to drop out of college to take care of her dying father, the guy who deals with racism every day, the woman who was born into poverty and can’t escape its grip, the mother of two who is up to her feet in loan debt and who works 60-hour weeks, and the uneducated man who pays for her medical bills without much left to spare. What does Prout really say to them? Does she just sell them pretty lines and rituals?

Look, magic offers us a sense of autonomy and insight. It is life-changing and powerful. When practiced — it’s a craft — it makes way for profound shifts in spirit and self. But this doesn’t feel like that.

In short, it takes a lot more than good vibrations to heal the system. If Prout acknowledged this, if her brand sounded or felt human, or if she offered real, strategic career or money-making advice that was augmented by magic (and if many of her shorter e-books were free), I think her brand would be more ethical, more responsible, and more aware.

One can change their attitude. One can change their drive. One can become resilient. But one doesn’t need to pay Sarah Prout to do so.

Update: Sarah Prout responded with this blog post.

I find it very interesting that she'd claim her hardship as a justification for the exploitation of others.

Rising from pain is commendable and I applaud her as a woman and as a person; charging people for a false sense of power is not.

It's also worth noting that she tries to sell you something at the end of the post. Hilarious.

Lisa Marie Basile is a NYC-based poet, editor, and writer. She’s the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine, and her work has appeared in The Establishment, Bust, Bustle, Hello Giggles, The Gloss, xoJane, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is the author of Apocryphal(Noctuary Press, Uni of Buffalo) and a few chapbooks. Her work as a poet and editor have been featured in Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, The New York Daily News, Best American Poetry, and The Rumpus, and PANK, among others. You can find all of her poetry here.