I have heard it stated (from an author below) that our illusions began in our ancient history and is the source of the Adam and Eve parable.

We used to be animals living by instinct, one with the natural world around us. We lived in harmony as part of the flow of a given ecosystem. Food was provided by nature, and we lived within that cycle. Then, perhaps by seeing its reflection in a pool of water, the awareness came to an ancestor that it was a "self" and this awareness spread and began the age of "self awareness"

This age is characterized by a separation between the self and reality. This is symbolized by Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden. ( I don't know what the serpent was, and the author I am paraphrasing did not mention that particular symbolism, so speculation can run wild here, but its not important to the bigger picture, which is that true creative power is within each individual) The tree of knowledge is all the knowledge man has accumulated to manipulate the world in novel ways, such as language, abstract thinking, tools, farming, and now science. This accumulation of abstract knowledge became a prison of illusions, where now we are involved in a never ending search for more novel and technical ways to manipulate our world.

So the New Age is where we move beyond "self" awareness, and realize that we are (have always been) One with the reality we encounter; that what is in our minds manifests into reality. The source of our creative power is within our minds, not in technological solutions.

Please see www.nehrer.net , I am paraphrasing writings of his because I can't find exactly where he wrote this description of the Adam and Eve myth and the theoretical story of an ancestor becoming self aware, it may have been in one of his books and not on the website.

And the big point here is that the way forward to individual power is inward, to see our illusions clearly with in ourselves, so that the reality we create is not full of conflict. And this completely removes power from elite controllers. If there is an elite controlling our society, it is because the majority of people have manifested this situation out of their own belief in their inferiority.

The fact that such power hungry elites exist means that these elite are also living in the illusion of the need to control others, so they are as separated from reality as everyone else, just on the flip side of the coin.

And maybe the elites practice some sort of magic, but if they do, then they don't realize that this manifestation of inner to outer is not the result of occult secret practice, but is a function of the Oneness of reality that is inherent in everyone.