History Of The Law Of Attraction
Synopsis
The debate about Law of Attraction can be found all the way back to the 19th century and like all pseudo-spiritual and spiritual movements the debate about Law of Attraction did not come from channeled entities. Thomas Troward started the New Thought Movement in the 19th century in the United States and had a strong influence on the movement. He claimed that the thought process of a person precedes all physical form and hence the mind’s action can plant the nucleus which if it is allowed to have an undisturbed growth will eventually attract all the necessary circumstances for outward manifestation.
Like Attracts Like
Between 1900 and 1911 James Allen another English New Thought writer wrote a series of articles and books which were continued by his wife Lily Allen. In 1902 James Allen published one of his best- known articles, “As a Man Thinketh”. This formed the basis of the New Thought Movement in the early 1900's. William Walker Atkinson in 1906 started using the phrase ‘like attracts like’ in one of his famous books, Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World. These articles started the basis for the debate about Law of Attraction being revived and the revival continued when Elizabeth Towne summarized the principal of the Law of Attraction by stating that a person is what he or she thinks and not what he or she thinks is.
Wallace D. Wattles is one of the early authors of the New Thought Movement and also on the Law of Attraction when he wrote that things can be made from thinking about them. He also wrote that our thought process is actually a substance which can help in the outer manifestation of things, but to do so a person must transcend to the creative mind from the competitive mind.
This principle was supported by quantum physics when Neil Bohr discovered that energy can be in the form of a particle or a wave. Moreover, energy is completely dependent on the expectations of the observer. During this time, Napoleon Hill published two of his famous books, the Law of Success in 16 Lessons and Think and Grow Rich. These two books went on to become some of the bestselling books of all times which discussed the importance of controlling a person's thought process in order to be successful in life. Napoleon Hill suggested that the secret to achieving success is by attracting positivity and success into one's life by actually thinking about positive happenings and success.
In 1937 Israel Regardie published several books on the concept of Law of Attraction as having a biblical basis and one such book, ‘The Art of True Healing’ teaches the reader about using the technique of focused meditation to help healing of the mind at a spiritual and physical level. Regardie suggest that Law of Attraction can be used to attract good physical health and is also applicable in the pursuit of success in different aspects of life.
