“How many of you can raise your hands if you feel that you are deserving of what you want?” asked Phillips at the event. An overwhelming majority of hands shot up, and Phillips motioned as if she was counting them. “That’s a really beautiful number,” she cooed.

Following a lecture on establishing confidence to fish for rewards from the great beyond, Phillips proceeded with a Q&A. Participants stood up and stated their astrology sign before explaining their career dilemmas: Can my energy fuel my start-up’s success? How do I attract the right kind of clients? Is a disrespectful work colleague a test from the universe? Is my soul “settling” if I go on a reality TV show? Phillips wasn’t surprised by the intensity of their frustrations, noting they were experiencing Mercury retrograde. “You guys should have some shit going down right now,” she laughed.

Charismatic, attractive, and personable, Phillips comes across like a cool, more successful older sister. She is one of many female manifestation coaches reinventing the law of attraction—the belief that you attract what you focus on—for a new generation. Phillips spreads the philosophy that self-worth is the law of attraction and that we can manifest anything that’s in alignment with “our current state of subconscious worthiness.” Basically, you need to reprogram your subconscious—rewiring childhood trauma, fixing damaging perceptions, and the like—to break the mould of limiting beliefs.

$2,000 workshops and ‘co-creating’ with the universe: inside the murky world of manifestation coaches