Part III - The History of The Law of Attraction by http://www.law-of-attraction-guide.com

Florence Scovel (1871 - 1940) was one of the first metaphysics teachers of this past century. In her book “The Game of Life and How to Play It”, she states “Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game. It is a game, however, which cannot be played successfully without the knowledge of spiritual law, and the Old and the New Testaments give the rules of the game with wonderful clearness. Jesus Christ taught that it was a great game of Giving and Receiving.
Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." This means that whatever man sends out in word or deed, will return to him; what he gives, he will receive. If he gives hate, he will receive hate; if he gives love, he will receive love; if he gives criticism, he will receive criticism; if he lies he will be lied to; if he cheats he will be cheated. We are taught also, that the imaging faculty plays a leading part in the game of life……So we see, to play successfully the game of life, we must train the imaging faculty. A person with an imaging faculty trained to image only good, brings into his life "every righteous desire of his heart" - health, wealth, love, friends, perfect self-expression, his highest ideals.

Part II - History of the Law of Attraction

Of greater importance in the history of the Law of Attraction is the awakening of the awareness of ever larger groups of people in the last century or so. James Allen’s (1864-1912) best known work “As a Man Thinketh” is one of the most powerful books written on the Law of Attraction. It was written in the male genre and the prose and style of the time so it requires careful reading. The forward in the book states;…….to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that - they themselves are makers of themselves by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
Wallace D. Wattles (1860 – 1911) studied the various religious beliefs and philosophies of the world including those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Swedenborg, Emerson, and others. He translated those studies into several books including “The Science of Getting Rich” In this book he builds upon the following statement – “There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.
I can form things in my thought, and by impressing my thoughts upon formless substance, can cause the thing I think about to be created. In the past 30 years, this book has been used as the basis to teach many people about the law of attraction, and was the inspiration for the movie, The Secret.