Something strange keeps happening to me. I’ll be at a party chatting to a successful woman – say, a doctor or businesswoman – and upon mentioning that I’m single, she suggests I should draw up a list of qualities I’m looking for in my ideal man, in order to “manifest” him into my life by the power of thought. I feel taken aback and unsure how to respond. Sure, the advice is well-intentioned. But it’s strange hearing people who have built careers on following the evidence suggest such an irrational idea: that my thoughts can summon another human being.

Maybe this won’t surprise you – much has been said about my generation’s propensity towards spirituality. Just last week, The Times had a piece about under-35s talking to the dead via spiritualist churches, and the Wall Street Journal published “Gen Z, social media is a gateway to spiritual life”. Last month, the Evangelical Alliance, which brings together thousands of UK churches, launched a guide for its churches to take advantage of the popularity of “New Age spirituality”, covering “tarot, manifesting and crystals”. But amid the hype, we seem to tiptoe around a rather more awkward point: it’s disproportionately women who are embracing it.

At the last count, YouGov found that nearly half of British women described themselves as superstitious, versus less than a quarter of men. Superstition and manifestation fit under the umbrella of spirituality, insofar as they can involve a belief that unseen forces connect our thoughts or actions to events in the world. YouGov polling published in July 2025 found that 31 per cent of British women thought astrology was definitely or probably real, compared with 14 per cent of men. Nearly a quarter of women thought there could be truth in crystal........

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