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Heather, you bring up a two provocative questions. First you questioned the extent to which our thoughts can influence our external world. Non-denominational modern spiritual leaders, such as Dwayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra, have outlined methods by which we can understand how our thoughts can influence our external world. In The Secrets of the Power of Intention: Learning to Co-create the Your World Your Own Way, Dyer demonstrates several ways in which our thoughts contribute to the “realities” or “truths” in the real world. He argues that there is a source energy from which life is created. Essentially, what you focus your attention on taps into the source energy; you will manifest or bring into actuality. Similarly fears and thoughts of scarcity can be created if they are focused on.

Dyer states: “Our individual thoughts create a prototype in the universal mind of intention. You and the power of intention are never separate. So when you form a thought within you that is in harmony with spirit or commensurate with spirit you form a spiritual prototype that connects you with intention and this sets into motion the manifestation of all your desires.” (The Secrets of the Power of Intention)

While Dyer’s philosophy has some of the characteristics of magic which you mentioned and may be harder to credit, there are more clearly cut physically measurable to observe this connection. Dr. Chopra mentions a study in The New Physics of Healing. (Unfortunately, I am recalling this from memory and cannot provide more specifics at this time.) Two groups of approximately seventy elderly people were isolated over the course of a week. One group was told to pretend it was 1950. They were given 1950s style clothing, records, and newspapers. For them it was 1950. Another group was told to reminisce about the past and think back to former years. At the end of the week the first group who actively lived in the 1950s showed diminished signs of stress, lower cholesterol levels, and generally in better shape than when they entered the study to outsiders unfamiliar with the study this group looked younger than the second group. Although the second group which merely reminisced about the past demonstrated some improvement, they were not as extensive as the other groups. Once both groups were removed from outside influences dictating that their age was associated with decreasing mental and physical acuity, they became better. Without commercials telling them to expect urinary incontinence, brittle bones and dementia they both looked and felt better.

Regarding your second question about the nature of science, we all recognize (or should) that science will change even its current most fundamental truths may not stand the test of time. This is also why it is critically important for scientists to know history and to be familiar with the history of science. By history, I do not mean the superficial treatment of history which only emphasizes the discovery of developments currently favored—a crime which is often committed. History of both ‘failures’, false leads, temporarily accepted and rejected ideas, must all be considered. An appreciation for the different aspects of civilization must also be appreciated. In this respect the former 1979 television show Connections with James Burke, helped people to think more creative and less linearly about the development of science and technology. Though in and of itself a more simplistic presentation of the scientific, it nevertheless demonstrated how economic, artistic, personal, governmental interested merge together both in the development of new technologies and the in the development of scientific constructs.

We can understand that truths accepted now will soon be rejected. What widely held beliefs will we reject in 30 years? 50 years? The history of science reveals periodic paradigm shifts. In our attempts to ‘unravel our world’s secrets’ we plop down the jig saw puzzle pieces. With each new piece of information we think the puzzle will be fall into place, but some pieces don’t quite fit into place. Soon we realize that the puzzle which we thought was two dimensional is in fact three dimensional—like a rubics cube merged with a Sudoku pattern.

A perhaps more important question to ask: can we only accept truths which we can handle? Are truths already accessible, only revealing themselves when a group is ready to accept them. Or do truths matter? "Untruths" —beliefs judged to be false—are just as influential and powerful if not more so.