Wallace Delois Wattles wrote a number of books including Health Through New Thought and Fasting, The Science of Getting Rich, The Science of Being Great, The Science of Being Well, and a novel, Hellfire Harrison, but it is for his prosperity classic, The Science of Getting Rich that he is best known.
Little is known about Wattles’ life. He was born in the USA shortly after the civil war, and experienced much failure in his earlier years. Later in his life he took to studying the various religious beliefs and philosophies of the world including those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Swedenborg, Emerson, and others. It was through his tireless study and experimentation that he discovered the truth of New Thought principles and put them into practice in his own life. He began to write books outlining these principles. He practiced the technique of creative visualisation and as his daughter Florence relates, “He wrote almost constantly. It was then that he formed his mental picture. He saw himself as a successful writer, a personality of power, an advancing man, and he began to work toward the realization of this vision. He lived every page … His life was truly the powerful life.”
Elizabeth Towne, in her magazine Nautilus, published the articles of Wallace D. Wattles in almost every issue in the early 1900’s and until his untimely death in 1911. Here are excerpts from a letter written to Mrs.Towne by his daughter, Florence, shortly after his death.
She writes:
My dear Mrs. Towne,
Your letter of the 14th received . . . perhaps a little later I can write the romantic story of my Father’s life and make it really worthwhile. You knew, didn’t you, that he lost a good position in the Methodist Church because of his “heresy”?
He met George D. Herron at a convention of reformers in Chicago in 1896 and caught Herron’s social vision. I shall never forget the morning he came home. It was Christmas. Mother had put her last dollar into a cuff box and we had placed it
beneath an evergreen branch which served for our Christmas tree and which we had illuminated with tallow candles and strung with popcorn. Finally Father came. With that beautiful smile he praised the tree, said the cuff box was just what he had been wanting – and took us all in his arms to tell us of the wonderful social message of Jesus, the message which he later embodied in “A New Christ.”
From that day until his death he worked unceasingly to realize the glorious vision of human brotherhood. For years his life was cursed by poverty and the fear of poverty. He was always scheming and planning to get for his family those things which make the abundant life possible.
In the first chapter of “How to be a Genius” he says: “Man’s greatest happiness is found in the bestowal of benefits on those he loves.” The supreme faith of the man never left him; never for a moment did he lose confidence in the power of the master Intelligence to right every wrong and to give to every man and woman his or her share of the good things of life.
When we came to Elwood (Indiana) three years ago, Father began a Sunday night lectureship inn Indianapolis. This was our only source of income. Later he began to write for Nautilus and to word out his own philosophy. He wrote almost constantly. Then it was that he formed his mental picture. He saw himself as a successful writer, a personality of power, an advancing man, and he began to work toward the realization of this vision . . . . He lived every page of “How to be a Genius.” In the last three years he made lots of money, and had good health, except for his extreme frailty.
I have written this hurriedly, but I think it will give you an idea of the life struggle of a great man – his failure and success. His life was truly THE POWERFUL LIFE, and surely we can say, at least in Elwood, “The name of him who loved his fellow men led all the rest.”
With all good wishes, I am,
Very sincerely,
FLORENCE A. WATTLES
Wattles’ best known book, The Science of Getting Rich is a down-to-earth, clear-cut and practical guide. A mental and spiritual approach on how to become rich. No bones about it, when you follow the thoughts presented in this book, you too will become rich, without the feelings of guilt. As a matter of fact, the author writes that the poverty-stricken (and even the middle class) should be the ones to feel guilty by not living up to their true potential as Thinking Beings.
Wattles says his book is “Intended for the men and women whose most pressing need is for money; who wish to get rich first, and philosophise afterward. It is pragmatical, not philosophical; a practical manual, not a lot of theory. It is for those who have, so far, found neither the time, the means, nor the opportunity to go deeply into the study of metaphysics, but who want prosperous results and who are willing to take the conclusions of science as a basis for action.
“Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich. You cannot rise to your greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless you have plenty of money. For to unfold your soul and to develop talent you must have many things to use, and you cannot have these things unless you have money with which to buy them.”
Wattles died not long after the 1910 publication of The Science of Getting Rich, but his books, along with those of another well-known prosperity writer of that time, Orison Swett Marden, have had a remarkable effect on people, and much of the success and self-development literature of the past 100 years by the likes of Napolean Hill, Robert Schuller, Anthony Robbins, etc., owes a great debt to these two writers.
Dr. Judith Powell, a recognized Wallace Wattles expert, has updated Wattles’ works including: The Science Of Becoming Excellent and The Science Of Well Being. Together with The Science of Getting Rich, this trilogy covers health, wealth and happiness.