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1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 76 (from laksa174)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa076.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics","crawl_time":1773273703,"first_indexed_time":0,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,substack!forresthanson,\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics s443","src_root_hash":"14862242593741677076","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Why do people think their thoughts affect reality?","meta_descriptions":["From Real Science to Magical Thinking"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"I recently posted a new\nYouTube video\nbased on the article I shared last month,\nWhy Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics?\nIt’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out.\nWhen working on that video, something kept bugging me.\nThe Secret,\nThe Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the\nLaw of Attraction\n:\nUnder laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you.\nIt follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS!\nThese claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is\nno empirical evidence\nthat supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a\npseudoscience\n. It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism?\nThe simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.”\nSchrödinger’s Cat\nis a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist\nErwin Schrödinger\nand\nAlbert Einstein\n. To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50\/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t,\nBoots\nsurvives another day.\nNow here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive\nor\ndead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.”\nWait, what?\nIn ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things:\nSomething hasn’t yet been decided.\nSomething has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is.\nIt’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a\nwave equation\nthat determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called\nquantum superposition:\na mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be).\nBut why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually\ninterfere\nwith each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the\ndouble-slit\nexperiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love\nthis clip\n.\nLeave a comment\nSo what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction?\nRemember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the\nmeasurement problem\n:\nsuperpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive\nand\ndead, when does it transform into being\njust\nalive\nor\ndead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doing\nexactly?\nThe\nobserver effect\nis the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening.\nEveryday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails.\nThis is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the\nperson doing the observing\nis affecting things. That idea was\nreally\nappealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true.\nAs near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking.\nYou see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality).\nThanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it.\nShare\nI hope you enjoyed the post, and check out\nthe related video\n. And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments.","attrs_markdown":"[![Being Well with Forrest Hanson](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!xUBP!,w_40,h_40,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd2a82fe7-c9a1-4df4-816d-fd45f69f3308_2573x2573.jpeg)](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/)\n\n# [![Being Well with Forrest Hanson](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!3Lnb!,e_trim:10:white\/e_trim:10:transparent\/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b66fd7f-5038-45a6-86df-a1adc0404841_2688x512.png)](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/)\nSubscribe\n\nSign in\n\n# Why do people think their thoughts affect reality?\n### From Real Science to Magical Thinking\n[![Forrest Hanson's avatar](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!RMD0!,w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F226b0d81-afaf-4615-9821-75118a023798_3806x3806.jpeg)](https:\/\/substack.com\/@forresthanson)\n\n[Forrest Hanson](https:\/\/substack.com\/@forresthanson)\n\nMar 04, 2026\n\n33\n\n8\n\n3\n\nShare\n\nI recently posted a new [YouTube video](https:\/\/youtu.be\/ISA7nifVRHw) based on the article I shared last month, *[Why Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics?](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/why-are-self-help-gurus-so-interested)* It’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out.\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!M2Gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!M2Gq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)\n\nWhen working on that video, something kept bugging me. *The Secret,* The Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the [Law of Attraction](https:\/\/www.thesecret.tv\/law-of-attraction\/):\n\n> Under laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you.\n> \n> It follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS\\!\n\nThese claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is [no empirical evidence](https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/the-other-secret\/) that supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a [pseudoscience](https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/5303-pseudoscience-secret.html). It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism?\n\nThe simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.”\n\nBeing Well with Forrest Hanson is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.\n\n### Yes, Quantum Stuff is Weird\n[Schrödinger’s Cat](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw) is a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist [Erwin Schrödinger](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) and [Albert Einstein](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Albert_Einstein). To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50\/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t, [Boots](https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/8\/8a\/Puss_in_Boots_from_Shrek.png) survives another day.\n\nNow here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive **or** dead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.”\n\nWait, what?\n\nIn ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things:\n\n1. Something hasn’t yet been decided.\n2. Something has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is.\n\nIt’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a *[wave equation](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation)* that determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called *quantum superposition:* a mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be).\n\nBut why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually *[interfere](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wave_interference)* with each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the [double-slit](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Double-slit_experiment) experiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love [this clip](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/X4pehLRhFhI).\n\n[Leave a comment](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comments)\n\n### From Quantum Mechanics to Magical Thinking\nSo what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction?\n\nRemember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the *[measurement problem](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Measurement_problem):* superpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive **and** dead, when does it transform into being **just** alive **or** dead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doingexactly?\n\nThe *[observer effect](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Observer_effect_\$physics\$)* is the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening.\n\nEveryday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails.\n\nThis is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the **person doing the observing**is affecting things. That idea was *really* appealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true.\n\nAs near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking.\n\nYou see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality).\n\nThanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it.\n\n[Share](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n\nI hope you enjoyed the post, and check out [the related video](https:\/\/youtu.be\/ISA7nifVRHw). And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments.\n\n33\n\n8\n\n3\n\nShare\n\nPrevious\n\n#### Discussion about this post\nComments\n\nRestacks\n\n[![Shannon Bindler's avatar](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!n7eu!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F712e888e-8386-4422-b13b-02fda478b7af_1746x1746.jpeg)](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/201169102-shannon-bindler?utm_source=comment)\n\n[Shannon Bindler](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/201169102-shannon-bindler?utm_source=substack-feed-item)\n\n[7d](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comment\/223189200 \"Mar 5, 2026, 1:14 AM\")\n\nI’ve always had issues with the \"The Secret\"-type thinking. What kind of bad thoughts would cause a child to be born into poverty or war? What about severe illness in babies? It just never made sense.\n\nThis earth plane is random and weird things happen, I'm all for positive thinking but its dangerous to blame bad things on bad thoughts.\n\n[Reply]()\n\n[Share]()\n\n[![Caroline Contillo's avatar](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!qxRn!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdadc1832-4483-4b89-bd67-7d03220def42_1544x1158.jpeg)](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/1725052-caroline-contillo?utm_source=comment)\n\n[Caroline Contillo](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/1725052-caroline-contillo?utm_source=substack-feed-item)\n\n[7d](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comment\/223182059 \"Mar 5, 2026, 12:54 AM\")\n\nHow do you square this with the foundational Buddhist teaching that mental patterns literally structure the world of experience?\n\n[Reply]()\n\n[Share]()\n\n[3 replies](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comment\/223182059)\n\n[6 more comments...](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comments)\n\nTop\n\nLatest\n\nDiscussions\n\nNo posts\n### Ready for more?\n\n© 2026 Forrest Hanson · [Privacy](https:\/\/substack.com\/privacy) ∙ [Terms](https:\/\/substack.com\/tos) ∙ [Collection notice](https:\/\/substack.com\/ccpa#personal-data-collected)\n\n[Start your Substack](https:\/\/substack.com\/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer)\n\n[Get the app](https:\/\/substack.com\/app\/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button)\n\n[Substack](https:\/\/substack.com\/) is the home for great culture\n\nThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [turn on JavaScript](https:\/\/enable-javascript.com\/) or unblock scripts","attrs_readable_markdown":"I recently posted a new [YouTube video](https:\/\/youtu.be\/ISA7nifVRHw) based on the article I shared last month, *[Why Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics?](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/why-are-self-help-gurus-so-interested)* It’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out.\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!M2Gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!M2Gq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)\n\nWhen working on that video, something kept bugging me. *The Secret,* The Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the [Law of Attraction](https:\/\/www.thesecret.tv\/law-of-attraction\/):\n\n> Under laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you.\n> \n> It follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS\\!\n\nThese claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is [no empirical evidence](https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/the-other-secret\/) that supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a [pseudoscience](https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/5303-pseudoscience-secret.html). It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism?\n\nThe simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.”\n\n[Schrödinger’s Cat](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw) is a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist [Erwin Schrödinger](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) and [Albert Einstein](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Albert_Einstein). To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50\/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t, [Boots](https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/8\/8a\/Puss_in_Boots_from_Shrek.png) survives another day.\n\nNow here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive **or** dead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.”\n\nWait, what?\n\nIn ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things:\n\n1. Something hasn’t yet been decided.\n2. Something has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is.\n\nIt’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a *[wave equation](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation)* that determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called *quantum superposition:* a mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be).\n\nBut why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually *[interfere](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wave_interference)* with each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the [double-slit](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Double-slit_experiment) experiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love [this clip](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/X4pehLRhFhI).\n\n[Leave a comment](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics\/comments)\n\nSo what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction?\n\nRemember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the *[measurement problem](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Measurement_problem):* superpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive **and** dead, when does it transform into being **just** alive **or** dead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doingexactly?\n\nThe *[observer effect](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Observer_effect_\$physics\$)* is the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening.\n\nEveryday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails.\n\nThis is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the **person doing the observing**is affecting things. That idea was *really* appealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true.\n\nAs near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking.\n\nYou see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality).\n\nThanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it.\n\n[Share](https:\/\/forresthanson.substack.com\/p\/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n\nI hope you enjoyed the post, and check out [the related video](https:\/\/youtu.be\/ISA7nifVRHw). And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments.","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	I recently posted a new YouTube video based on the article I shared last month, Why Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics? It’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out. When working on that video, something kept bugging me. The Secret, The Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the Law of Attraction : Under laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you. It follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS! These claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is no empirical evidence that supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a pseudoscience . It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism? The simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.” Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein . To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t, Boots survives another day. Now here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive or dead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.” Wait, what? In ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things: Something hasn’t yet been decided. Something has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is. It’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a wave equation that determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called quantum superposition: a mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be). But why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually interfere with each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the double-slit experiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love this clip . Leave a comment So what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction? Remember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the measurement problem : superpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive and dead, when does it transform into being just alive or dead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doing exactly? The observer effect is the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening. Everyday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails. This is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the person doing the observing is affecting things. That idea was really appealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true. As near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking. You see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality). Thanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it. Share I hope you enjoyed the post, and check out the related video . And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments.
Markdown	[![Being Well with Forrest Hanson](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xUBP!,w_40,h_40,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd2a82fe7-c9a1-4df4-816d-fd45f69f3308_2573x2573.jpeg)](https://forresthanson.substack.com/) # [![Being Well with Forrest Hanson](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3Lnb!,e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b66fd7f-5038-45a6-86df-a1adc0404841_2688x512.png)](https://forresthanson.substack.com/) Subscribe Sign in # Why do people think their thoughts affect reality? ### From Real Science to Magical Thinking [![Forrest Hanson's avatar](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RMD0!,w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F226b0d81-afaf-4615-9821-75118a023798_3806x3806.jpeg)](https://substack.com/@forresthanson) [Forrest Hanson](https://substack.com/@forresthanson) Mar 04, 2026 33 8 3 Share I recently posted a new [YouTube video](https://youtu.be/ISA7nifVRHw) based on the article I shared last month, [Why Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics?](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/why-are-self-help-gurus-so-interested) It’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out. [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!M2Gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!M2Gq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png) When working on that video, something kept bugging me. The Secret, The Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the [Law of Attraction](https://www.thesecret.tv/law-of-attraction/): > Under laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you. > > It follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS\! These claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is [no empirical evidence](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-secret/) that supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a [pseudoscience](https://www.livescience.com/5303-pseudoscience-secret.html). It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism? The simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.” Being Well with Forrest Hanson is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. ### Yes, Quantum Stuff is Weird [Schrödinger’s Cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw) is a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist [Erwin Schrödinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) and [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein). To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t, [Boots](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/Puss_in_Boots_from_Shrek.png) survives another day. Now here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive or dead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.” Wait, what? In ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things: 1. Something hasn’t yet been decided. 2. Something has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is. It’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a [wave equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation) that determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called quantum superposition: a mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be). But why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually [interfere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference) with each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the [double-slit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) experiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X4pehLRhFhI). [Leave a comment](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comments) ### From Quantum Mechanics to Magical Thinking So what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction? Remember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the [measurement problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem): superpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive and dead, when does it transform into being just alive or dead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doingexactly? The [observer effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_$physics$) is the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening. Everyday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails. This is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the person doing the observingis affecting things. That idea was really appealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true. As near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking. You see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality). Thanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it. [Share](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) I hope you enjoyed the post, and check out [the related video](https://youtu.be/ISA7nifVRHw). And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments. 33 8 3 Share Previous #### Discussion about this post Comments Restacks [![Shannon Bindler's avatar](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!n7eu!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F712e888e-8386-4422-b13b-02fda478b7af_1746x1746.jpeg)](https://substack.com/profile/201169102-shannon-bindler?utm_source=comment) [Shannon Bindler](https://substack.com/profile/201169102-shannon-bindler?utm_source=substack-feed-item) [7d](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comment/223189200 "Mar 5, 2026, 1:14 AM") I’ve always had issues with the "The Secret"-type thinking. What kind of bad thoughts would cause a child to be born into poverty or war? What about severe illness in babies? It just never made sense. This earth plane is random and weird things happen, I'm all for positive thinking but its dangerous to blame bad things on bad thoughts. [Reply]() [Share]() [![Caroline Contillo's avatar](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qxRn!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdadc1832-4483-4b89-bd67-7d03220def42_1544x1158.jpeg)](https://substack.com/profile/1725052-caroline-contillo?utm_source=comment) [Caroline Contillo](https://substack.com/profile/1725052-caroline-contillo?utm_source=substack-feed-item) [7d](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comment/223182059 "Mar 5, 2026, 12:54 AM") How do you square this with the foundational Buddhist teaching that mental patterns literally structure the world of experience? [Reply]() [Share]() [3 replies](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comment/223182059) [6 more comments...](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comments) Top Latest Discussions No posts ### Ready for more? © 2026 Forrest Hanson · [Privacy](https://substack.com/privacy) ∙ [Terms](https://substack.com/tos) ∙ [Collection notice](https://substack.com/ccpa#personal-data-collected) [Start your Substack](https://substack.com/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer) [Get the app](https://substack.com/app/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button) [Substack](https://substack.com/) is the home for great culture This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [turn on JavaScript](https://enable-javascript.com/) or unblock scripts
Readable Markdown	I recently posted a new [YouTube video](https://youtu.be/ISA7nifVRHw) based on the article I shared last month, [Why Are Self-Help Gurus So Interested in Quantum Physics?](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/why-are-self-help-gurus-so-interested) It’s my favorite video we’ve made, and I hope you’ll check it out. [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!M2Gq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!M2Gq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12d9349e-d66f-4778-b432-113fa6220c54_1280x720.png) When working on that video, something kept bugging me. The Secret, The Law of Attraction, and people like Deepak Chopra and Joe Dispenza regularly refer to quantum physics as the justification for their various wacky beliefs. For example, here’s the [Law of Attraction](https://www.thesecret.tv/law-of-attraction/): > Under laboratory conditions, cutting edge science has confirmed that every thought is made up of energy and has its own unique frequency. And when this energy and frequency of a single thought radiates out into the Universe, it naturally interacts with the material world. Of course, it has long been known that matter, or physical objects, are also just packets of energy at the sub-microscopic, quantum level. And so, as your thought radiates out, it attracts the energy and frequencies of like thoughts, like objects, and even like people, and draws those things back to you. > > It follows then that your THOUGHTS… BECOME… THINGS\! These claims are a complete misunderstanding (or a deliberate misrepresentation) of physics, there is [no empirical evidence](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-secret/) that supports the Law of Attraction, and it’s widely considered a [pseudoscience](https://www.livescience.com/5303-pseudoscience-secret.html). It’s easy to just brush things off from there, but if you’re inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt there’s still a lingering question: where did these ideas come from? Did they just make this stuff up, or were there real concepts present in quantum mechanics that led to quantum mysticism? The simple answer is kinda. These people scaled up their misunderstanding of what are called ‘quantum observer effects’ into a whole ideology. Following this line of thinking led me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting, but which also pushed the limits of my understanding. I’m sure I’ll get some of the details wrong here, but I’ll do my best to explain how we got from Schrödinger’s cat to “my thoughts create reality.” [Schrödinger’s Cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw) is a thought experiment that comes from a 1935 conversation between physicist [Erwin Schrödinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) and [Albert Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein). To be clear, this was not a real experiment - it was just a thought experiment that illustrated how weird quantum stuff looks when you scale it up to the size of an everyday object. In the thought experiment, a cat is put into a sealed box with a tiny radioactive source, a Geiger counter (that’s a device that can detect radioactive decay) and a vial of poison linked to a hammer. The odds of decay - which releases radioactivity - are 50/50, and if the Geiger counter detects any radioactivity, it triggers the hammer, which smashes the vial and kills the cat. If it doesn’t, [Boots](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/Puss_in_Boots_from_Shrek.png) survives another day. Now here’s where things get weird. In Schrödinger’s experiment there’s a 50% chance the cat is alive and a 50% chance the cat is dead. So you, a normal human, are probably thinking something like, “Great, the cat is either alive or dead, who cares?” And I say “I care, Boots matters to me.” But then a quantum physicist comes in and says, “Actually, the cat is both alive and dead.” Wait, what? In ordinary life, when we’re uncertain about something it usually means one of two things: 1. Something hasn’t yet been decided. 2. Something has been decided, but we don’t know what the answer is. It’s either one or the other. Think of flipping a coin and then hiding it in your hand. We don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, but one of those things is true. The outcome has already been decided, not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is, and opening my hand to see what’s going on doesn’t affect the coin enough to change it. But in the theory of quantum mechanics, there’s a [wave equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation) that determines the state of a quantum system. When we don’t know the exact state of a system - because we haven’t measured it yet - there are many different possible states that system could be in. This is called quantum superposition: a mathematical combination of different possibilities that describes the system. Up until the moment you measure it, mathematically, the system is thought of as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a huge difference between our direct observation of the world (i.e., not knowing what the coin is doesn’t change what the coin is) and quantum mechanics (i.e., not knowing where the particle is means we have to treat it like it’s everywhere it plausibly could be). But why do they do it that way? Why not just say “we don’t know?” Because in these microscopic quantum situations, superpositions actually [interfere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference) with each other in a way “it’s either this or that” doesn’t explain - it really seems like the particle is in all those places at the same time. The most famous example of this is the [double-slit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) experiment, and yes, this is also very brain melting for people who actually study this stuff. I absolutely love [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X4pehLRhFhI). [Leave a comment](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics/comments) So what does all of this have to do with the Law of Attraction? Remember that final claim: “thoughts can become things.” One of the big problems in quantum physics is called the [measurement problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem): superpositions exist in theory, but measurements only have a single, definitive result. So if the cat is both alive and dead, when does it transform into being just alive or dead? A common shorthand answer is “when it’s observed.” Which takes us to another big question: what’s the observer doingexactly? The [observer effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_$physics$) is the idea that we can’t measure something without physically interacting with it. The word “observer” is a bit confusing, it’s really more the “measurer,” in part because it doesn’t need to be a living observer - in Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter is observing the system by measuring whether decay is happening. Everyday examples are helpful to understand how observing a system messes with it (for example, checking the pressure of a tire can let a little air out), but this is taken to the max in quantum systems. Quantum measurement is incredibly specific and extreme: we’re talking about tiny, tiny scales, and at these scales the interaction required to get information can fundamentally change what state the system is in. Going all the way back to the flip a coin example, it would be like if the coin were volatile enough that opening our hand changed whether it was heads or tails. This is where we get all the way back to the law of attraction. The Law of Attraction takes a real idea from quantum mechanics - that measurement affects systems - and starts playing very fast and loose with it. If our “observation” is a part of the process, then it might suggest to someone that the mind, or the consciousness, of the person doing the observingis affecting things. That idea was really appealing to people who already had a metaphysical bent, so they took it and ran with it without caring much about whether or not it was demonstrably true. As near as we can tell, it just isn’t. There’s nothing special about it being a person that’s the observer; a Geiger counter doesn’t need a mind to take a measurement. It’s not thinking about the cat or praying that the cat is alive that alters the system, it’s when the person physically interacts with it. If anything, this is a useful metaphor for the value of real life, hands-in-the-dirt action over the power of positive thinking. You see this kind of bait-and-switch all over quantum self-help stuff. They start with a true statement (e.g., measurement affects a quantum system) or a useful idea (e.g., thinking you can do something makes it more likely you’ll do it) then lead you through a series of logical leaps to a superficially similar but in truth totally different idea (e.g., my thoughts create reality). Thanks for reading Being Well with Forrest Hanson! This post is public so feel free to share it. [Share](https://forresthanson.substack.com/p/quantum-mysticisms-fake-physics?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) I hope you enjoyed the post, and check out [the related video](https://youtu.be/ISA7nifVRHw). And if you happen to be a physicist, please feel free to correct anything I got wrong in the comments.
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