“All right, babes. Are you ready to tap?” Natalia Benson asks. The millennial women’s empowerment mentor and astrologer—“all things mysticism, motivation & money,” according to her Instagram bio—is beaming into my bedroom via a prerecorded video, encouraging me to embrace my inner wisdom.
Tapping, Benson says from within the glow of a ring light, means drumming my fingertips across different parts of my body to “smooth out” speed bumps in my nervous system and ultimately help me find a “new wavelength” with how I regard myself. While I am very pro astrology and the ~celestial arts~, I do have to pause for an, Ummm, okay. But I’m here for work and willing to go all the way to investigate the hugely popular New-Age-y idea that positive vibes can bring money into your life. And also, I would love to manifest a down payment for a house.
Onscreen, Benson is now reciting a series of self-help mantras, which she repeats in a soothing, yoga-teacher-esque voice, and I repeat in a less soothing, less yoga-teacher-esque voice: “Even though I worry sometimes that I’ll never have enough, that I won’t be able to pay my rent or my mortgage, and it causes me so much anxiety…even though this feels like a big hurdle for me that causes me so much pain, I still deeply love, accept, and forgive myself.” Ten minutes later, my first session with her Magical Women & Money course, which can be purchased for $249, is over. I have 17 parts to go.
It's being called a “she-cession” (*eye roll*), and its impact has been profound: In COVID-19-devastated 2020, about 2 million American women were pushed out of the workforce due to layoffs, childcare issues, having to support a sick family member, or honestly, just insert any of the many other coronavirus-caused reasons here. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report shows the economy lost 140,000 net jobs in December—all of them held by women. ALL of them. Let that sink in.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this financial disaster, without precedent or imminent conclusion, has left many women desperate for a lifeline. And unorthodox times are pushing some to unorthodox solutions. Which is perhaps why business is thriving for young female money mentors offering to help those less fortunate manifest themselves out of debt and into a bigger bank account—relying not on savings or stock tips but the idea that positive thinking can put you on a path to riches.
Google searches for “manifesting” started climbing last spring and skyrocketed over the summer, right before millions of Americans’ unemployment benefits were set to expire. Since then, the topic of money manifestation has gone full supernova, expanding into dozens of podcasts, hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos, tens of millions of TikTok views, and countless sites and Instagram accounts run by women like Benson (@Natalia_Benson, 47K followers), Kathrin Zenkina (@ManifestationBabe, 210K followers), and “Money Queen” Amanda Frances (@XOAmandaFrances, 435K followers). Many coaches’ pages are packed with the familiar parlance of modern “fem-powerment” (“your success is inevitable”; “you fucking got this”) and lines you might otherwise hear in a spirituality-meets-boss-babe fitness class (be prepared to find your “deeper purpose” and also get “aligned as fuck”). Grids are rich in the imagery of abundance—envy-inducing interiors, fancy self-care products, a woman bathing in a tub full of cash. And everywhere, affirmations, lots of affirmations, like “everything coming your way is exactly what the universe trusts you with.”
Coaches—many of whom have no traditional financial advisement background or certifications—describe money manifestation, at its core, as a process, a practice, that’s built on using good vibes to attract good things. It’s about using your intentions to influence your reality, thereby conjuring your rich(er) dreams into existence. Or something like that. “Manifestation doesn’t mean that you have a desire and it plops into your lap,” Benson says. “There is still work involved.” That work often takes the form of meditating and visualizing. And, of course, multipart seminars that just so happen to cost money. Because, the thinking goes, sometimes you have to spend—sometimes a lot—in order to manifest financial security.
On the low end, there are books, like Zenkina’s Unleash Your Inner Money Babe, currently $24.99 on Amazon. Then there are a range of courses like Benson’s for a couple hundred bucks each. For the spendier among us, there are offerings like Frances’s Money Mentality Makeover, which comes with classes, a workbook, and access to a private Facebook community for $2,022. (According to its website, Amanda Frances Inc. generates an average of $450,000 per month. If that sounds like something you’d want to attract, you could always take her next-level course on how to become a coach yourself for $2,200.)
In Normal Times, maybe it’d be NBD to drop a few (or even quite a few) bucks on a seminar to put yourself in a more finance-focused mindset. But with so many women scrambling for financial relief, charging for journal prompts and daily reminders that the laws of attraction are real could come off seeming a little exclusionary or elitist or even…opportunistic. (Frances told Cosmo that she’s been offering pandemic-time discounts on her services; she and others pointed out that they’ve been in the business since long before COVID-19 struck.)
There is also, of course, no definitive proof that money manifestation even works. “If you’re just sending energy out, you’re not taking action to earn returns, to get your debt paid down, or to get your expenses under control,” says Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and cofounder of Ellevest, a digital finance platform for women. “You could also write out a plan for paying off your credit cards that would make you feel good,” she suggests. Or do something like renegotiate your cell phone bill, which costs nothing.
The other problem with squaring all of those coaching costs, explains Misty Lynch, a certified financial planner at investment firm Beck Bode LLC and life coach, is that “unlike with financial advisers, there are no standards or laws around who can call themselves a coach. There’s no guarantee they’re working in your best interest.”
Some women don’t mind, because they swear that money manifestation paid off for them. Kehla Guimond, who dropped roughly $2,500 on classes (partially paid for through a payment plan), is now happier and making more money. She learned how to vision-board and set intentional goals, which eventually helped her quit her job and start her own company as a spiritual mindset coach. Her savings account, she says, has grown by thousands of dollars.
“It started with just believing that if I took action, opportunities would come up,” says Guimond. As she sees it, things like tapping and all the other accoutrements of manifesting allowed her to free her mind and trust in what was possible. And that feeling of empowerment put her on a path to freedom from the anxiety around money that was holding her back. (On top of promising tangible help, money manifestation messaging can feel like a relief for women who, as Krawcheck notes, have been condescended to or shamed about their financial health for decades. You’ll never find “You’re broke because you buy too many PSLs!” scolds here; psychic healing around money issues is a big part of the allure.)
I eventually finish my course, and if we’re going by my bank statement, I’m no closer to a down payment on a house than I was before. Benson’s series did, however, inspire me to start a financial tracker spreadsheet—my version of a vision board. Was it because my “frequency” shifted, as she promised? It’s hard to know. But while the laws of financial attraction are still (hopefully) at work for me, my journey has definitely already manifested money for her. And what goes around comes around…right?
Amelia Harnish is a freelance writer who covers health and culture. Her spare time is spent tending to her many houseplants and running in Queens and Brooklyn.
