Here is the essence of empirical thinking. Behaviorist psychology says that the mind is an exudation of the body. As fire is emanating from a match stick, to give an example, the mind is exuding from the body, so that the body is the source, the cause, and the mind is the effect. The effect cannot have so much importance as the cause. So, anything that satisfies the affirmation of the physical body, the ego included, what you call egoism, self-respect, are all names for the affirmation of the body, attracts.
Physical affirmation includes acquiring wealth and also name and fame.
All these are connected with the physical body only, and supersede any mental or intellectual activity under the wrong notion that the mind is an exudation of the body. Very learned, highly capable, scientific thinkers of the West were not foolish people, highly intellectual and sharp thinkers, but they have come to the conclusion that the mind is subsidiary to the body. This is the fundamental defect in human thinking, as such, from which I cannot say any person is exempt. The magnate has greater force than an educated person. This again is a fundamental defect in thinking, which cannot be rectified unless a divine orientation takes place, a tremendous shirshasana of consciousness.