Season 2, Episode 3
#Good Vibes Only
New Thought and the Law of Attraction
May 21st, 2024
From #manifesting, to #lawofattraction, to #luckygirlsyndrome – these hashtags are all over social media platforms. But what do they mean and where do they come from? The idea that our thoughts can change our wealth, bodies, and fortunes is so pervasive, that we don’t realize how old – and distinctly American – these ideas are. In this episode, we’ll travel backward in time from TikTok to the dawn of Christian Science and unpack the origins of manifesting our desires with our minds – and see how these very popular beliefs pit science against mysticism.
Featuring Susannah Crockford, Sean McCloud, and University of North Carolina at Charlotte students Andrew, Amani, Chris, Eva, Journei, Sam, and Taylor.
FEATURING
Anthropology Lecturer, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology, University of Exeter, UK
Susannah Crockford's research interests incorporate environmental and medical anthropology and the anthropology of religion. Her first book, Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, was published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. It was a Finalist for the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Analytic-Descriptive Studies in 2022. She is currently working on a second book, a multi-sited ethnography of how religion structures climate change discourse, provisionally titled A Perturbed System: Ethnographic Fragments from the End of a World.
Professor of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Prof. Sean McCloud teaches, researches, and writes about American religions and religion and culture. He is the author of Making the American Religious Fringe: Exotics, Subversives, and Journalists, 1955- 93 (2004), Divine Hierarchies: Class in American Religion and Religious Studies (2007), American Possessions: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States (2015), and co-editor of Religion and Class in America: Culture, History, and Politics (2009) He is primarily interested in examining how religion in different contexts creates, maintains, or tears down boundaries and identities; how religion both enables and constrains our conceptions of the world; and how religion itself is defined—by academics, journalists, and practitioners—and how such definitions work in social and cultural arenas to “mark” the status of different individuals and groups.
CREDITS
Host: Heather Freeman; Producer: Amber Walker; Editor: Lucy Perkins; Associate Producer: Noor Gill; Sound Design: Jennie Cataldo; Fact Checker: Dania Suleman; Executive Producer for PRX Productions: Jocelyn Gonzales; Music: APM Music and Epidemic Sound; Project Managers: Edwin Ochoa and Morgan Church; Advisors: Yvonne Chireau, Chaz Clifton, Sean McLeod, and Thorn Mooney; Guests: Susannah Crockford, Sean McCloud, and University of North Carolina at Charlotte students Andrew, Amani, Chris, Eva, Journei, Sam and Taylor; Funding and Support: The National Endowment for the Humanities and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Additional audio clips from:
YouTube: @LOASecret [Excerpt from Larry King, “Oprah Winfrey Used The Law of Attraction for Success” dated Oct. 12, 2018.]
TikTok: @hothighpriestess, @brecka.clip, @becomingwithlex, @stimulatemotivation, @mindvalley, @vibrateandcreate, @mindsetvibrations.
TRANSCRIPT
LEARN MORE
Crockford, S. (2021). Ripples of the Universe Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona. Chicago University Press.