I believe in magic. I believe in miracles.

I also love science, reason and the art of critical thinking.

So I find myself conflicted these days as I hear some of my friends proclaiming the scientific veracity of some pretty far-out beliefs. In fact the “Law of Attraction” dogma is getting to be so established that it starts to feel like organized religion to me. (If it really is a LAW, does that mean people are fined or jailed when the law is broken?)

I was at a dinner party recently and heard the conversation turn to the movie “The Secret.” Everyone was cooing about the wisdom and brilliance of the film. I couldn’t help myself. I had to say something.

“You know,” I said, “some of us are not all that wild about ‘The Secret.’”

There were gasps of horror. The music on the stereo stopped playing. I felt like Hillary Clinton crashing a Concerned Women of America fundraiser. People wanted to know what was wrong with me. They wanted to find out what my problem was and fix it.

Personally, I don’t think I have a problem. I think I have a responsibility to make a contribution. And my most valuable contribution will probably not come in the form of enthusiastic head-bobbing.

I work with a number of professionals in fields of science, technology and medicine. Many of these folks are longing for the benefits of personal growth and even spiritual practice. But they have no patience or respect for the way that science has been twisted and re-packaged by certain New Age gurus.

Scientists, who could be among our greatest allies in elevating human consciousness, are quickly becoming alienated by the way we talk about their work. For example, I recently heard a workshop leader say, “Your thoughts create reality and quantum physics proves it.”

This kind of statement falls somewhere along the continuum of naïve and irresponsible. In any case it isn’t true. The behavior of subatomic particles in laboratory experiments does not tell us anything about the relationship of thoughts to prosperity. As any physicist might tell you, you can focus as many positive or negative thoughts as you want at an electron in an experiment, and the behavior of the electron won’t change one way or the other. There is no scientific evidence that thoughts can directly affect outcomes. There are no waveforms directly emanating from my skull and tinkering with the world around me. (Or, if there are, no instruments exist to measure them.) I can have a lot of angry thoughts on the freeway and none of them will cause drivers two miles ahead of me to crash into each other.

You may be surprised to learn that I DO believe in the power of intention. I believe our thoughts have great influence on our destiny. They cause us to act—consciously and unconsciously—in alignment with our view of ourselves and the world. And they focus our perception of reality to make us more available to the outcomes we believe in. When people have breakthroughs with their intentions coming true, it looks miraculous, because the work of the subconscious is carried out through mechanisms like non-verbal communication and pheromones, which operate below the level of our awareness.

All of the magic and mystery of intention can be explained through disciplines like neuroscience, psychology, sociology and anthropology.

We don’t need to piss off the physicists.