Rest assured, I'm not flaky and I'm not a New Age Pagan (no offense intened to and New Age Pagans reading this. You people command my utmost respect. How you can type with all that jewlery on is simply mystifying...). There's actual substance behind thinking happy thoughts, and I'll tell you why. I am a card-carrying pessimist. See? **shows you the card** So don't think this is EASY for me to do all the time.
According to the beliefs of most Wiccans, thinking about something gives it power. Thoughts contain their own energy. That's why we try to make it a point to honor the Goddess and the God on the sabbats, by thinking about them and focusing our thoughts on them, we give them more power (to help us, hopefully).
Well this, in theory, works for events too. Thought energy has a miniscule chance of modifying the outcome of something uncertain. The more you think about an outcome, the more likely that outcome is to manifest. Only by an extremely small margin, mind you, but the chance is there.
From there, it should be fairly obvious. If thinking about something increases the chances of it happening that way, thinking about a happy conclusion gives that happy conclusion more of a chance to actually come to pass. Simple right?
Welllll....kinda. In the same way happy thoughts give power to the happy conclusion, unhappy thoughts give the same amount of power to the unhappy conclusion. Which means pessimists like myself who always imagine the worst-case scenario are giving that worst-case scenario a better chance of happening. And it's very hard for someone like me to be optimistic. For one thing, I tend to feel rampant optimism is dangerous; no telling how bad you could be let down. So what's a pessimist to do if he can't think happy thoughts?
Here's my personal saying on the subject (might even show up in the Nuggets page):
"Never underestimate the power of NOT thinking."
See, it's just like your mother told you; if you can't think anything nice don't think anything at all. If you can't think happy thoughts, at the very least try NOT to think BAD thoughts. It keeps the chances of the good outcome and the bad outcome pretty much even without giving the bad outcome an upper hand.
See now? That wasn't very flakey at all!
Blessed be,
Firedrake
-July 17, 1998