Boots,

My father (and many of the people I know) were deeply entrenched in the positive affirmation movement and as a child I was deeply uncomfortable with the quasi-mystical way they portrayed the mind-over-matter principle. Over time I came to my own understanding about it; the mind has power over the body and over our experience, but that power is lawful and bounded.

That doesn't make it any less bizarre, though. One of my colleagues pointed out to me that the placebo effect is one of the wildest facts in science. Doctors frame it as if it is a source of error that needs to be overcome in their quest to produce helpful medicine, which is true--but viewed from a slightly different angle, you can also view it as your brain producing an effective medicine from nothing else than your own mindset. It's not a cure-all, but the fact that your brain does it at all is damn near miraculous. And that miracle extends beyond the medical realm into the realm of behavior and good fortune as well.

Best,

J