Wallace D Wattles

In 1910 Wallace Delois Wattles (1860-1911) wrote a little book that would change the world forever. A book that would spurn an entire genre of self help writers and self help companies. Even today this little book is credited as being the inspiring force of people like Bob Proctor, Science of Getting Rich network, Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and many many other groups that have used the message to inspire others as well as build an empire for themselves.

Wallace Wattles was the first to recognise that a formula for success existed and that you could learn this formula to become successful.

Bob Proctor freely admits that in 1969 when he read this book it inspired him to start on a path to build a world class corporation based on the message contained in that little book. To build a company to help others and for him achieve great success.

Who was Wallace D Wattles

He was born in the USA in 1860 shortly before the civil war. He experienced many failures in his earlier years. Later in life he took to studying the various religious beliefs and philosophies of the world including those of Descartes, Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Swedenborg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others. It was through his tireless study and experimentation that he claimed to have 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 realisation of this vision. He lived every page ... His life was truly the powerful life."

His Book

The Science of Getting Rich was published 1910. Wattles' work is considered a philosophy of Mental Science or Mind Science which may have preceded the New Thought movement. Wattles published the work during a time of famous self-help founders such as Thomas Troward and Charles F. Haanel.

He was one of the pioneers of creating wealth through using scientific principals. Principals that when applied would work every time to create wealth. His book preceded Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. In fact he may be consider one of the first to think this way.
 
The language of the book, is at times a little hard to follow and needs a 21st century interpreation. Wattles’s book was the culmination of the study of such people as Decartes and Spinoza the circular nature of their work is readily apparent in his writings.

However the book has a powerful message and is worth reading simply for this alone.

The Message in his book

Wallace D Wattles directs the reader of his book to follow to the letter his instruction on how to be wealthy. While many will argue with that, his does state emphatically that there is an unending supply of money and every person has a right to live a life of abundance. That we are not meant to live in poverty. That “no person can rise to his greatest possible height in talent and soul development unless he has plenty of money”. “People develop in mind, soul and body by making use of things, and society is so organized” that you must have money to do that.

He then provides a formula for making lots of money, in order to achieve those aims. Using such tools as the power of attraction, visualization and other techniques to bring success to you. Formula’s that many self help writers would build on or follow for the next 100 years. A formula that would prove alluring for every person seeking to advance themselves.

Reproduced (as edited) from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.