The history of the Law of Attraction goes back to the start of the Universe - if indeed the Universe had a start. This in itself makes for a fascinating discussion.

Our world had its beginning, we know that. The Big Bang theory is now generally accepted. But did the Universe start, or has it always been here? If it didn't start, then it'll never end. But we're moving away from the subject.

Natural laws have always existed, so we may safely say that the Law of Attraction too has always existed. No-one knows exactly when it was first 'discovered.' Almost certainly, some ancient people knew about it. There's a consensus that it was known 7 - 8,000 years ago, which would take us back to the Stone Age.

It's interesting to speculate whether such knowledge could in some way have had a bearing on projects like the building of the pyramids, or Stonehenge and other monster works.

Just how were those enormous stones at Stonehenge moved? The mighty sarsens, each one weighing 50 tons. They had to be dragged for about 25 miles, and it's been calculated that it would take about 500 men to drag one stone, with another hundred to move the huge rollers upon which the stones were laid.

Then they had to be uprighted, and the lintel stones placed on top. Not just slung up any old how. They were keyed in with amazing precision. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that this was done by manpower alone. I know it sounds far out, but something along the lines of the Law of Attraction, some natural law, may have been known to these people and they were able to use it advantageously in their building.

We really know nothing about the early manifestations of the Law of Attraction. We do, however, have records of the opinions of people from the 19th.and 20th. centuries. H.G. Wells wrote in his book, "The Time Machine" that 'Viking people know very well that time is only a kind of space.' In another part he wrote, 'There is no difference between time and any of the 3 dimensions of space except that our consciousness moves along it.'

Many of the great thinkers of that period were firm believers in what came to be called the Law of Attraction. Interestingly, of all the major newspapers, it was the New York Times in 1879 that used the phrase first in connection with the trains of the Colorado Gold Rush.

The electrician, John Ambrose Fleming, believed in the 'energy of attraction,' and pronounced his beliefs in 1902.

The New Thought Movement of 1904 - 1907, of which Thomas Troward was a leading light, claimed that physical form arose out of thought.

William Walker Atkinson, in 1906, used the phrase in his book 'Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World.'

Another great proponent was Wallace Wattles who, in 1910, wrote his famous piece, 'The Science of Getting Rich.' I don't know how rich Mr. Wattles became from this volume, but probably the most famous of all books, certainly the one with the widest circulation, since it sold 60 million copies, was Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich,' in 1937.

The latest in this long procession of theory and opinion is 'The Secret.' According to Mr. Bob Proctor who, with Ms. Mary Morrissey, probably the two most erudite thinkers on this subject alive today, considers 'The Secret' to be nothing more than 'pop culture fluff.'

I think both the film and the book turned people on to the Law of Attraction, but both held out a promise that they were quite unable to fulfil.