It is a common belief that there really isn't anything new under the sun. This might be true as far as some important things are concerned, such as your ability to influence the world around you and recognize opportunity. The power of individuals has risen though the application of science and technology along with mass communication. Some days it doesn't seem like it, but we really are living in a Golden Age, if only we could recognize it.

For instance, the secret of how to mix cement to be used underwater was lost for over 2,000 years. Indoor plumbing took a similar holiday. But like plumbing, some of the most interesting discoveries of pre-historic and ancient times were confined to the wealthy or uppermost castes. One of the biggest differences between now and then, other than the smell, is individual opportunity. While Minoan princesses had a flush toilet, nearly everyone in the developed world has very regular access to them.

Some of the power of the ancients is that which was attributed to the various pantheons of gods that many ancients used to describe their world. Such entities had super-human tastes and passions as well as the ability to transform the world around them. While you may not be able to shape shift into the form of a bird on command, you certainly can reinvent your persona to be more powerful.

From the mythology of old-world religions in the first millennium BCE we can glean perhaps a slightly more literal lesson from these tales than we might have thought possible. One of the most elaborate that exists from that time is Hinduism, where there are perhaps thousands of distinct gods, each serving a particular purpose or village, but every one an aspect of a single creative force — a single substance that all matter is made from.

When we look at the ultimate nature of matter on the tiniest sub-atomic scale, we find that all matter is made of the same things. Indeed, some theories suggest that even the quarks that make up each individual proton or electron are made of a single substance that differs only in how it vibrates. In essence, there is one creative force whether it is consciously creating for a reason or not.

This sort of world-view would seem to jibe with the conclusions of the New Thought Movement of the early 20th century as well as the millions of people who've been turned on to "The Secret" recently. The research of folks such as Wallace Wattles and Rhonda Byrne suggest there is a common thread that runs, not only though the religions, faiths and superstitions of the world but also, through the lives of the most powerful people who have made indelible marks on our collective human history.

Like the royalty of 3,000 years ago, you have near instant access to the whole of human knowledge in the form of the Internet. You likely have no reason to fear starvation and are slightly more likely than not to be able to visit a doctor when you're sick. You have spare time to fill your head with whatever knowledge suits you. Indeed, you have a great deal to be sincerely grateful for.

What if you took all those gifts, realized and ruminated on how precious and rare they are then, set about to proactively do something with them? That's what the final and key part of the "The Secret" - being able to see a good opportunity and have the gumption to leap right on it and give it your all, without fear.

Perhaps what most separates men and women from Classical gods is the ability to operate without fear. While many people refer to this as faith, what you really need to have faith in is your instincts. Cultivating that perfect courage is not ignoring things to be afraid of but instead, knowing them so fully as to not fear them at all on any level. Your ability to draw positive outcomes is greatest when you truly and honestly can see that desired future.

This sort of conjuring is only half magic though. There are scientific principles that account for the way your mind is able to actually influence the world around you as well as your ability to recognize it as such. It doesn't take much power of any sort to move the manipulate choices made on the quantum level.

So, while the Greek Gods may have been representations of beings with special knowledge, today everyone has access to that knowledge, should they choose to use it.

I just got word from my friends at Centerpointe, that founder Bob Harris, also featured in "The Secret," has put together this free online course offering.

The Masters of The Secret is a free 8 lesson online course, featuring interviews with 8 of the most prominent stars from The Secret. Each lesson expands on the Law of Attraction and the topic of how to create the life you've always wanted.

From the registration page:

Jack Canfield, Lisa Nichols, Michael Beckwith, James Ray, Hale Dwoskin, John Assaraf, and Joe Vitale will be joining me, Bill Harris, to introduce you to the transformational power of The Secret. These same people — who you've seen in the movie as well as on Oprah!, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Larry King Live, and The Montel Williams Show — will be your teachers.

Check out "The Masters of The Secret" today.

In Wallace D. Wattles' 1910 self-help classic, The Science of Getting Rich, he describes a method of psychological training that he calls Mental Science. The general idea is that your thought has power to affect the physical world around you. Change the little random events and decisions that determine your luck throughout a given day, and the mathematics involved in how things "organically" unfold in natural and social systems result in very large and significant changes.

After a lifetime of what he considered to be personal failure, Wattles felt he had finally come across the perfect way to succeed at just about everything in life, be it health, wealth or personal power. He felt compelled to write it all down, and proceeded to do so for the last several years of his life. In addition to The Science of Getting Rich, Wattles also wrote The Science of Being Well and The Science of Being Great in what his daughter described as a flurry of activity before he died.

The author writes that he noticed the trend while voraciously reading about the science, faith and thought of the world. After assimilating all these ideas, he believed he'd found a clear trend running throughout the entirety of human thought on how the world actually worked - the mystery explained. Obviously, if you'd found the answer to life, the universe and everything, you'd want to tell someone about it.

The text draws on religious and philosophical thought from all over the world, picking the juicy little bits from such disparate sources as Marconi, Emerson and Spinoza. Especially prevalent is the notion that all energy and matter are essentially the same thing, so in theory, if you could influence a single small, but unmistakably critical decision, you could influence any event, no matter how big or how improbable.

Wattles decided to outline this idea in this book (and others) as a prescription for conducting one's own thoughts in a "Certain Way," to achieve specific goals. Wattles promises the reader in the introduction, "the science herein applied is an exact science, and failure is impossible." His audience were people in the early 20th century United States, where millions of people living in the tenement sections of the large cities left school to work while still children, and worked 16 hour days to the exclusion of time for reading. He realized such a book would have to be practical and easily digestible. It also had to be very generally inoffensive.

The Science of Getting Rich is now enjoying a popular resurgence, due to the publicity given in the movie, "The Secret." When Rhonda Byrne hit her personal and emotional rock bottom, her daughter sent her a copy of the book. The ideas contained set her off on a 4-month reading jog where she made that connection herself, giving her the idea to contact other practitioner and student of Wattles' work together in "The Secret."

Wattles borrowed much from the then still young U.S. New Thought movement. He was a student of Dr. Phineas Quimby, who had laid out the principles of New Thought as they applied to the mind-body connection 40 years before. Many continued on with Dr. Quimby's work, eventually broadening the concept to apply to the nothing less than the entire Universe. Wattles was also a contemporary of such other self-help genre pioneers as Thomas Troward and Charles F. Haanel.

There was a great deal of popular thought going around in the late 19th century that was investigating the relationship of thought to the physical world. Consider, at the same time the theories of Quantum Mechanics and practical applications of electricity were cutting edge technology. Curious intellectuals actively sought information on not only science and philosophy, but also "Oriental" and ancient occultism. Ideas as thought manifestation and visualization were heavily borrowed from such practices. The influential book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World was published in 1906 by William Walker Atkinson and had proven very popular. Madame Blavatsky created her highly influential New York City Theosophical Society in 1875, blending science, faith and mental practice.

Wattles himself died in 1911, perhaps knowing what effect his work would have on future generations. Though, he certainly seemed to know how important it was to get his ideas on paper before he died. It is thought his early death at 51 may have influenced the sales of his book on wellness, though the ideas contained therein have certainly been subtly rewritten in the form of many diet books of the 1970s and 80s.

Wattles' other books include A New Christ, Health Through New Thought and Fasting, Making of the Man Who Can and Hellfire Harrison (a novel).

Because his works were published before 1923, they are today a matter of public domain, and freely available online in electronic form. As such, many organizations publish the title and give it away for free, in exchange for personal information or signing up for a newsletter or use it as part of a larger book.