Warning: lots of footnotes in this article, don’t miss them!
The simple answer to the question: “Does thinking about something bring that thing about?” is no it doesn’t. But it is not for the reason you think. It is because thinking about does not connect you to what you are thinking about.
Attention does.
They say in business: whatever you give your attention to, whatever you measure will grow.
What is attention? Where does it come from? What is the nature of attention?
Attention is one distinct aspect of a human being. It is not mind, it is not eyes, it is not intention, not visualization, not thinking about, not even thinking. The starting point of attention, emphatically located, is in the backside of the eyes, or thereabout.
Attention is much like a search light, a narrow beam search light. It has a direction, but, unlike search light, it has power. It is able to move your Self to what it directs itself to. This is my interpretation, not necessarily the Truth, but darn close to it. The Self can move with the attention into the object of the attention, like an energy.
You can’t be casual and move your attention. You can’t be thinking about stuff and move your attention at the same time. You can’t worry and move your attention to anything other than your worry. You need to be clear to move your attention.
When you actually move your attention you will notice that you put power behind it.
Multi-tasking reduces your effectiveness and intelligence because you are trying to move the narrow-beam attention from one thing to another and back, oscillating between two or three things.