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.