It is a phenomenon of our time and perhaps millions, at this point, has created websites, written articles, books and other media around it. It has taken the Internet community by storm, especially the Internet marketing/work-at-home sector.

However, the Law of Attraction principles we find everywhere now, were inspired by two older sources, and perhaps others...

George F. Haanel's The Master Key System and Wallace D. Wattles' The Science of Getting Rich. They were released in 1912 and 1910 respectively. It is perhaps the latter that has influenced Byrne more than any other source.

This has been a "secret" only because, for the most part, these two older sources, though never totally disappearing, have dropped out of popularity. Many of the businesses that started during the depression, that are still with us today, owe their existence to these two works. After the war, they were all but forgotten, but by a very few.

Since the Dot Com Crash, after things on the Internet got going again, folks began scouring Public Domain for these older treasures. A number of them are now in print once again and it constitutes the incredibly huge body of knowledge like we've never had it before!