Thank-you, guilotine, for posting your most interesting question.
When I took up a contemplative life I had many of these same questions:
1] If I came from the massively dysfunctional family system that I did, which abused me horribly, then i must have done some seriously evil things in my current lifetime, or a previous lifetime.
2] In the first year of my contemplative life I discovered deep meditation. I figured that if I had discovered deep meditation, then I must, by definition, be leading a righteous life, and thus I had clearly please god/brahma, and thus the lord and creator of the universe would bestow: name, fame power and wealth upon me, because the Bible told me so.
3] Since I had discovered deep meditation, then all of those "truly enlightened spiritual masters" who were all hocking their wears wherever we go, would then acknowledge my attainments, and welcome me as a brother.
4] if Buddhism genuinely had a community (sangha) of enlightened priests, then they surely would acknowledge my superior attainments (maha-phala).
5] Since I found ample superior attainments (maha-phala); then I would be able to: levitate, walk on water and do all of the other fantastic magic tricks that are associated with the saints of every religions.
What I found was:
1] Yes, I had some adolescent rebellion, but it was nothing like most of my peers, who appeared to be loved by their family; whereas, my family of origin made a career out of doing me harm until the death of my two parents, since my sisters were participants in my abuse as a child, and continued to participate in abusing me while my parents were alive, then I believe it is only reasonable to consider that they are actively doing me harm now, and until they are dead.
Along my path of deep meditation, and while attending my first 10-day meditation retreat in 1975, I recalled most of my previous lifetimes. There I found I had been a mystic in most of my previous lifetimes, and I was marginalized in most of those lifetimes. We should also not forget that most mystics were marginalized during their lifetime.
2] After discovering deep meditation, and transforming my life so that I was free of addiction and other obsessions, I was therefore leading a "righteous" lifestyle; however, no: name, fame power or wealth came my way, so I had to conclude that, while I had direct experience of the sacred during deep meditation, the experience of deep meditation, and the other superior fruit of attainment (mahaphala) were going to be the only benefits, and there would be no material benefits.
3] I found those "truly enlightened spiritual masters" who were aggressively marketing themselves as the "guru for the Aquarian age" were not interested in my attainment of the superior fruit (mahaphala).
4] I also found the priests of Buddhism were no more interested in my attainment of the superior fruit (mahaphala) than the gurus for the Aquarian age.
5] While I found ample superior attainments (maha-phala); nonetheless, I could not levitate, walk on water or do any of the other fantastic magic tricks that are associated with the saints of every religions.
Thus, I had to conclude that the attainment of the superior fruit (mahaphala) was purely subjective, and most of the central premises of the most of the religions, including the New Age movement, were deeply flawed.
So, if you are looking for evidence of fantastic magic tricks, like: levitate, walking on water and do all of the other fantastic magic tricks that are associated with the saints of every religions, then you are not going to find them here. Also since we here have found that the attainment of the superior fruit (mahaphala) requires stilling the mind, among other things, then your central question, "Do thoughts really create reality?" is not supported by our findings here.
So, we can save you a lot of trouble, and you can go elsewhere. Do let us know when you find someone who can genuinely manifest the fantastic magic tricks that are associated with the saints of every religions, or at least can "think and grow rich."
