The Law of Attraction is everywhere in books and film. To find works of fiction about manifesting a new reality through the power of thought doesn't take much effort.

Literary Fiction and the Law of Attraction

Revisit some favorite classics such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865 by Lewis Carroll. The story is about a girl named Alice who imagined a new reality as she slipped down a rabbit hole. She repeated the words “curiouser and curiouser” as she descended. She met intriguing characters, including the White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat, March Hare, Dormouse, and Mock Turtle, among others. Alice's journey was an adventure that coupled magical thinking with wonder and marvel, bringing her a glorious fantasy experience.

Other authors have created works to show how the mind can create alternate realities, attracting fantastic characters. Consider, for example, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum in 1900. Young Dorothy was transported from Aunt Em's farm in Kansas to the Land of Oz. En route, she met the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Munchkins, the Good Witch Glenda, the Wicked Witch of the West, and, of course, the Wizard. The story has been studied by scholars as an allegory for 1890s America and the political, social, and economic themes and circumstances. However, the tale could be considered an example of how the mind, given free rein, creates imaginatively and draws to itself even more fantastical ideas through the Law of Attraction.

Yet another work of fiction is A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeleine L'Engle. The book features Meg Murry, her brother Charles, their friend Calvin O'Keefe, and three transcendental beings known as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. The book, considered science fantasy and one of the first during its time to feature a female protagonist in that type of book, seemed doomed to remain unpublished. L'Engle said she received rejections of the manuscript from twenty-six publishers. Holding on to her dream of seeing the book in print, L'Engle finally gave it to John Farrar, who agreed to publish it. The book garnered wide acclaim, received several awards, and has been continuously in print since it was first published in 1962. Such was the result of the power of L'Engle's belief in herself and in the work.

Film and the Law of Attraction

The film industry, too, has produced dozens of movies in which the protagonist uses the power of positive thinking to conceive and manifest a new reality. In fact, in film school, screenwriters learn to take characters out of their lives or their familiar world into a new world. Their journey into the new world begins when something radically changes the story direction, often brought about through the power of the character's own thought or action — the Law of Attraction at work in facilitating a character's desire for a new beginning.

Peter Pan, adapted from the 1904 play by J. M. Barrie, features Wendy Darling and her brothers John and Michael, who learn to fly to a magical place called Neverland. They are helped along in their journey by Peter Pan, who refuses to ever grow up, and his little friend Tinkerbell.

Tom Hanks's character in Big is a boy who, by making a wish before a magic wish machine, awakens the next morning in an adult body. In Thelma and Louise, the women finally find freedom on a road trip through their resolve and desire to radically change things in their lives. Shine, a movie based on a true story about Australian pianist prodigy David Helfgott, showed how indomitable the human mind can be when it has suffered tragically but determines to prevail. The protagonist, though suffering a breakdown, returned to play in concert halls again. In Under the Tuscan Sun, the protagonist, recently divorced and deeply depressed, took a trip to Tuscany. Her decision to buy a house and to have a different life set the Law of Attraction in motion to not only bring her a new life but new love and success in her writing career.

Citizen Kane, the American classic based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, tells the story of Charles Foster Kane's rise to power and his accumulation of unimaginable wealth after being sent away by his beloved mother when he was a child. The film mirrored the life of the wealthy media magnate Hearst, who had grown up believing that he could have anything. Citizen Kane showed that the Law of Attraction brings abundance when one desires it, but if one is overwhelmed by feelings of lack, regret, remorse, and spiritual bankruptcy, the law brings more of those. In the film, the multimillionaire ends up unhappy and alone, living an isolated existence in his castle surrounded by priceless possessions. These do not, however, fill the emptiness in his life that he brought on by his own domineering personality and ruthless use of power.

The romantic comedy Laws of Attraction, starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore, pitted two people at opposite poles before the Law of Attraction brought them together. Two hotshot New York divorce lawyers — who have seen the worst possible situations in which couples battle it out in divorce court — try to outfox, outthink, and outmaneuver each other. The case takes the lawyers from a courtroom to Ireland, where they attend an Irish festival, drink too much, and end up married to each other. Does their marriage end in the courtroom like so many others or will it last? The premise that one divorce lawyer could be attracted to another is the Law of Attraction at work: like attracts like and a happy ending seems assured.

Nonfiction and the Law of Attraction

In the area of nonfiction books, readers interested in the Law of Attraction are rediscovering authors who lived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and contributed knowledge and works in the New Thought Movement, especially books incorporating a success strategy that we now call the Law of Attraction. Notable among them are James Allen, William Walker Atkinson, Mildred Mann, and Napoleon Hill.

James Allen apparently found inspiration and insight in one verse and used it to title his book, As a Man Thinketh. The work was published in 1902, and in it Allen asserted that humans attract into their lives the circumstances that provide for what their souls secretly long for or fear.

Believing that Allen's premise was right, William Walker Atkinson elaborated upon it and expounded some of his own theories in a book titled Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World. The work, published in 1906, became a cornerstone of the New Thought Movement and included ideas on transmuting negative thoughts and patterns, utilizing emotional psychology, and developing immunity to harmful thought attractions.

Mildred Mann contributed to the New Thought Movement through her active participation, metaphysical teachings, and writings. Her book How to Find Your Real Self asserted that humans are not here by accident and that every life has meaning, purpose, and value. Mann believed we are the cause and effect of all that happens to us. She outlined steps for manifesting, including having desire, deciding on what you want, asking for it, believing it is yours, working for it, expressing gratitude, and being expectant that you will get it.