Warning: 
This is a loooong (scientific) post. Grab a cup of coffee first. 
Wow Carly, that was a fantastic response to Walt.
Science? I have no faith in "science". I have faith in Faith.
It's like comparing Darwin to Adam and Eve.
Robinrs, there are people who question the science of it all, they have a right to. I, too don't go blindly on Faith. I needed to see observable evidence that these principles really work. Walt has non-current data that forms his current beliefs. The problem comes if a person's beliefs do not allow them to do any research, get accurate data to test the principles. They also have to examine their assumptions of what known science really is, what the boundaries of scientific testing are, and how current is their scientific information.
If people here are open to finding out if "The Secret" and the other principles work, people need to do their OWN proper research and gather their own personal empirical data. Walt's post is a WONDERFUL teaching tool for understanding belief patterns and where the lack of research can fuel one's beliefs and creates their reality. Perhaps his post can help others examine their own beliefs and whether they service them. Remember: our beliefs form our reality. As Carly said, "Everyone's right. No one is wrong. You get what you think about." And that is different for everybody.
Walt addressed the science of it, and there are others reading who may think this thread has become too "spiritual" with talks of God,
so I'll stay with the scientific aspects. Science IS about measurable, observable results.
An idea is a collection of neural connections. It is not energy.
Walt, like many have a limited definition of what "energy" is, how it works, how far reaching it may be and how to measure it. Current science theorizes that time, space and matter are all one and the same thing = ENERGY. Energy doesn't just appear in one form. Energy has the capability to
transform.
Let's look at what kind of energy and which expanded definition of "energy" we are talking about.
If you've ever seen a dead body, you know living things have energy. One form of energy that living things (people in particular) have is thoughts & ideas. The most extreme example of how negatively powerful a thought/idea is: One only has to say the "N" word to a black person to know ideas do have energy & transmit energy between people. Positive thoughts, too, can be just as powerful, but are often dismissed (especially by the nay-sayers) as wishy-washy, just feels good to the person feeling it, with no actual benefit or power beyond. The key is: Ideas with INTENTION behind them have a charge & illicit a response, both from other people and/or the universe. The more powerful the intention, the more powerful the energy created & transmitted. (Let's not derail this discussion to talk about the "N" word or the (in)appropriate usage as an example.) (More about Newton's
scientific laws of motion in another post.)
Another example, have you ever walked into a room of two people who are silent and not moving, yet you are suddenly jolted back, or get a tingling sensation, and you suddenly know you have walked into a heated argument?
You know they were thinking daggers at each other.
You can actually feel the emotional charge in the room. You can cut the energy with a knife. You even want to walk back out of the room to escape the energy there.
Was it all only in your mind & body? Or could there actually have been something discernible happening?
Have you ever been sitting in a room full of people, totally neutral, and for no reason, suddenly feel a chill go down your spine, and you turn to look
behind you and see some creep staring at you.
Or for men: You turned & saw some guy sizing you up? How did you know? Did you suddenly grow eyes in the back of your head? Or, perhaps, did you feel their
energy directed at you?
Coincidence?
Have you ever called someone on the phone & have them say, "OMG, I was
just thinking about you!
Coincidence? (I'll come back to Coincidence in a little bit. I'll stick to science for now.)
Your brain does use energy in the form of electricity to think, but the level is so low that any effects would be primarily magnetic and probably not detectable outside your body by even the most sensitive instruments.
This is inaccurate, uninformed data in this area that is over 20 years old, as some of these instruments I'm going to name have been around for that long. This example can be used to for the opposite. First of all, being
magnetic is EXACTLY what we want our brains to be, in terms of the Laws of
Attraction. Coincidence? There are scientific instruments available sensitive enough that do detect electro -
magnetic energy waves emanating from the body up to 20-30 feet. There are even cameras that can take a picture of this energy. Non-living objects do not emit this energy and the camera does not show anything in those pictures. Extra of the same cameras taking a picture at the same time will have the same images, so it's not just random patterns projected & printed on the pictures. (I forget the scientific/technical name of the specific camera.) There are also biofeedback machines that can electrically monitor energy going through the body & being sent out. Also, there is machinery that can detect when an arm, leg is amputated, or even part of a leaf from a plant is cut off, the body and plant still emanates energy into that cut off area in the exact shape, as though that part is still there and take a picture of that. It looks like an x-ray.
Who decided the energy is too low level to really do anything, the lack of proper
machinery to detect it? The key point Walt did make is that the
current level of machinery is not sensitive or capable enough to measure thoughts doing any more. That doesn't mean thoughts don't do anything. OR, that they can't be measured. Anyone who relies only on the limitations of current technology as the end all answer is limiting him/herself.
The orbits of the planets are just as likely to influence something happening on earth as the energy in your thoughts is to affect someone sitting right next to you.
Refer back to my example above about turning around & finding someone staring at you. Also, police make note of full moons, as they have stacks of police reports to prove there are more incidences that happen during full moons.
There are plenty of independent scientific research facilities doing blind case studies,
consistently documenting evidence that someone can sit across a stranger, get images of the picture cards he is looking at, know personal details like past pets - down to the color & breed of the pet, teachers' names, details a stranger just couldn't guess so accurately. You only have to sit and be IN one of these group studies to see what's possible. Coincidence? With multiple people at the same time? I was in four large group studies in NY, CT & MA. Different groups, similar results. Coincidence? Two decades ago, I met psychic & author Laura Day, who was being paid to be flown all around the world, various times a year, for several years, to try to prove to BY scientists, with batteries of scientific & psychological testing at these facilities, that she is NOT a psychic. The scientists were h*ll bent on proving she is not one. Yet, all the scientific results came out that they could NOT prove that she isn't one.
Sadly, there is no scientific basis for "The Secret," horoscopes, remote prayer, transcendental meditation, etc.
Do some actual research. There IS
scientific basis & data collected. It falls under Quantum Physics. Physics: a branch of science. Quantum Physics: Time, space and matter are all one and the same thing = ENERGY. One of the mega-scientific, brilliant minds of all time, Stephen Hawking, estimated to have a genius level above Einstein, is at the forefront of Quantum Physics, lest anyone conjecture this is a non-science.
Interesting
coincidence: Einstein had dyslexia, It caused him to see things in a different way than other people, and to see things not as they appear. He came up with the Theory of
Relativity. Einstein also wrote down the famous equation E=mc2. It says that
mass is a very concentrated form of
energy. Brains are 8 lbs of
mass. we only use about 10% of our brain. (Well, some people use less.
) What's the other 7 lbs. of mass/matter for? With evolution, the unused parts of our brain should have shrunken already, but it has not. Perhaps there is another reason & use for it? That some are using those other parts at undetectable levels? That if people were taught how to use their brains more efficiently and effectively, brains would emit an energy powerful enough that even our limited technology can finally detect? Just because people don't use their brains in a certain way, doesn't mean they aren't capable. They just haven't been taught to utilize that matter/energy properly.
Stephen Hawking is paralysed, can't even speak without a synthesized voice machine & keyboard. Here is a man who does use his brain efficiently, trapped inside the
inner space and dimension of his own body and if it weren't for technology, couldn't even communicate with the outer world. Yet, he has come up with more dynamic theories of inner and
outer space, black holes, and the space between molecules, and not surprisingly, other dimensions.
Interesting coincidence that these two most brilliant men of modern science had physical ailments that shaped their experiences in life & perhaps went into helping them create their unique perspectives & theories on time, space & matter that "normal" men hadn't come up with? Perhaps they've experienced things differently than other scientists because they came from a different perspective & circumstances to begin with that formed their "realities" and helped them reinvent science in many ways in quantum levels.
For those who firmly rely on "science" as an end all authority and be all of facts, you'd better be extremely careful as science is limited. Science changes all the time as it
depends on the advancement of current technology. As advanced as current technology is, technology is limited. Even scientists concede that known science is still in a very young state. And that state changes all the time as new "facts" supersede old ones. It is arrogance and/or ignorance to firmly state that what we currently can detect with currently available technology is ALL there is.
More accurately, it can ONLY detect and prove things according to what is observable and recordable with the
current level of our understanding and available technology
today or by our current methods of collecting empirical data. Just because something can't be proven by machines
yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just can proven by available methods. It's ironic that as soon as machinery is develop to change known science
that becomes the new end all benchmark, proclaimed with authority and certainty.
Perhaps for those that need the security of known science as their ultimate source, science should add the disclaimer: "To be amended..."
Here's a few scientific "amendments":
The atom was thought to not be able to be split until 70 years ago it was split.
Then electrons & protons were thought to be the smallest particles, until scientific machinery was developed to detect that there are quarks & leptons and SPACE between.
They were always there. Measurable or not. Scientists are now wondering what is in that space? Why are protons so much bigger than electrons? Is there something smaller yet making up protons?
The creation of radio waves & microwaves weren't thought possible to transmit though the air (unseen & unfelt.) Now they can - but thought waves can't?
Is this really true, or do we just not have the machinery capable of detecting them? Why do some people think machines can do something but humans can't? Aren't radios only electrical machines? Aren't humans electrical machines, with neural connections that use electricity?
If radios & cellphones can send signals from one phone to another, why can't minds? Why can't minds transmit that energy elsewhere with the 7lbs. of leftover brain? Well, instruments currently can't record anything, so there can't be any other form of energy that comes out of thoughts or that they go anywhere?
About 13 years ago, in Geneva, Switzerland, the
European Organization for Nuclear Research known as
CERN actually created the first known particles of
antimatter. ANTI-ENERGY was created that couldn't be created in our universe. It is not supposed to exist in our universe. But it's here, now. Until this, it was only theory & science fiction that antimatter and an alternate universe exist. We have truly stepped into the era of Star Trek, it's no longer fiction.
(As you can tell from my signature, we're in my genre & specialty here!
)
Lastly, I like a quote by Phoebe, from the TV show
Friends, "How do we know that gravity is really pulling us down? What if it's really
pushing us down?"
I'm being facetious here, but how much can we accurately depend on known science, really?
(You may take a bathroom break here to pee out the coffee. 
)
But. . . some of you DO want some scientific data to go with these principles. So how does one scientifically test these principles to find if they are true for you? The old fashion scientific way that still works, before machines did the testing, by testing them yourself. By being willing to do some experimenting with the principles, observing what results you get and gathering empirical data of your own with a new set of
personal experiences to back them.
I think most of us who have posted on this already, have said we have very real, personal
evidence that it works for us. Notice our posts do not contradict each other, in fact we build on what each other has said, in talking about the various principles.
Diva of Dragons already mentioned there is an organization called the
Science of Mind. This organization is all over & holds Sunday morning services and classes for people who would like to have an alternative place to go to than "regular" churches. It is definitely scientifically based.
The Secret and
The Laws of Attraction probably have exercises to use and test some of the principles. You need to notice and mark down the results as with any scientific experiment. The first couple of results may be coincidences. Only after a while, there are too many coincidences, to be a "coincidence." You talk to others who follow the principles, and they, too, site many examples of "coincidences" that happen to them to be coincidence. Or they tell you how to tweak your experiment, suddenly you are getting similar results. More coincidence? How many coincidences does it take to be more than a coincidence? How many coincidences does it take to be scientific fact? You'll know for yourself instead of relying on others for that answer. You'll be different. Your experience of life will be different. In some ways, you can generate your own coincidences. But then, they can't be coincidences if you can generate them.
For those who aren't open to testing and believing, there will never be enough data or coincidences. They won't even notice the coincidences or they will all be explained & rationalized away. Or they won't even have tried any experiments and with any accuracy of proper procedures. That will be their reality. Again, as Carly said, "Everyone's right. No one is wrong. You get what you think about."
The psychologist, Carl Jung, wrote a treatise on the phenomenon of Coincidence, or Synchronicity, called aptly
On Synchronicity. (It's a very dry paper. ) I highly recommend reading instead,
The Celestine Prophecy. It's also a basic principle of
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's really interesting when you do your own study on the amount of "coincidences" that happen for people who
decide to be open to just trying the various principles, like little Natalie Woods in
Miracle on 34th Street, "I believe, I believe. It's silly, but I believe."
The Celestine Prophecy is written in novel form, rather than like a textbook. The whole book is based as "Coincidence" as the starting point for the adventure that happens in the novel. It's a very
interesting beach read 
- and "coincidental" that this thread comes up at this time for me to recommend it. I actually wouldn't have thought of it.
We need to name & claim this period in our lives. This period was not acknowledged before as it wasn't there before. We can finally create the kind of life and in more powerful ways that we couldn't when we were in our own way. 
states.
I put in Louise's tapes Receiving Prosperity, (that I just found out is a free download in the above post,) or The Totality of Prosperity every morning. 
, but I was waking up in a better mood. About a couple months later, I was catching myself saying some positive affirmations & wondering, "Where did that come from?"
Listening every morning had been making a new groove in my brain. 
Marianne would sit at the edge of the stage at the end of her 2 hour lecture, and pray individually with people who came up & asked for her prayers & guidance. 
