Wallace Wattles - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Wallace Delois Wattles (1860–1911) was an American author. A New Thought

New Thought

New Thought promotes the ideas that "Infinite Intelligence" or "God" is ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect.Although New Thought is neither...

writer, he remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and remains in print in the New Thought and self-help

Self-help

Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...

movements.

Wattles' best known work is a 1910 book called The Science of Getting Rich
The Science of Getting Rich
The Science of Getting Rich is a book written by the New Thought Movement writer Wallace D. Wattles; it was published in 1910 by the Elizabeth Towne Company. The book is still in print after 100 years. It was a major inspiration for Rhonda Byrne's bestselling book and film The Secret...

in which he explained how to become wealthy.

Life and career

Wattles' daughter, Florence A. Wattles, described her father's life in a "Letter" that was published shortly after his death in the New Thought magazine Nautilus

The Nautilus (Magazine)

The Nautilus was a magazine of the New Thought Movement, founded in 1898 by Elizabeth Towne. In May 1900, Towne moved the magazine to Holyoke, Massachusetts, which became its permanent home until its discontinuation in August 1953, when Towne retired from publishing at the age of 88...

, edited by Elizabeth Towne

Elizabeth Towne

Elizabeth Towne was an influential writer, editor, and publisher in the New Thought and self-help movements.-Career:Both Elizabeth Towne and her second husband William E. Towne were for many years associated with the International New Thought Alliance , and served on its board in various capacities...

. The Nautilus had previously carried articles by Wattles in almost every issue, and Towne was also Wattles's book publisher. Florence Wattles wrote that her father was born in the United States in 1860, received little formal education, and found himself excluded from the world of commerce and wealth.

According to the 1880 US Federal Census Wallace was living with his parents on a farm in Nunda Township of McHenry County, Illinois and working as a farm laborer. His father is listed as a gardener with his mother 'keeping house'. Wallace is listed as being born in Illinois while his parents are listed as born in New York. No other siblings are recorded as living with the family. According to the 1910 census Wattles had changed the spelling of his last name from Walters to Wattles, He was married to Abbie Walters 47 at the time, they had 3 children Florence Walters; 22, Russell H Walters; 27, and Agnes Walters; 16. It also shows that at the time Wallace's mother was living with the family Mary A Walters at the age of 79.

Florence wrote that "he made lots of money, and had good health, except for his extreme frailty" in the last three years before his death, Wattles died on February 7, 1911 in Ruskin, Tennessee and his body was transported home for burial to Elwood, Indiana

Elwood, Indiana

- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 9,737 people, 3,845 households, and 2,660 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,743.1 people per square mile . There were 4,179 housing units at an average density of 1,177.3 per square mile...

. As a sign of respect businesses closed throughout the town for two hours on the afternoon of his funeral.

His death at age 51 was regarded as "untimely" by his daughter, as during the previous year he had not only published two books (The Science of Being Well and The Science of Getting Rich), but he had also run for public office.

Christian Socialism

In 1896 in Chicago, Illinois, Wattles attended "a convention of reformers" and met George Davis Herron

George D. Herron

George D. Herron was an American clergyman, lecturer, writer, and Christian socialist activist. Herron is best remembered as a leading exponent of the so-called "Social Gospel" movement and for his highly publicized divorce and remarriage to the daughter of a wealthy benefactor which scandalized...

, a Congregational Church

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

minister and professor of Applied Christianity at Grinnell College

Grinnell College

Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, U.S. known for its strong tradition of social activism. It was founded in 1846, when a group of pioneer New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College....

who was then attracting nationwide attention by preaching a form of Christian Socialism

Christian socialism

Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...

.

After meeting Herron, Wattles became a social visionary and began to expound upon what Florence called "the wonderful, social message of Jesus." According to Florence, he at one time had held a position in the Methodist Church, but was ejected for his "heresy". Two of his books (A New Christ and
Jesus: The Man and His Work) dealt with Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

from a Socialist perspective.

In the 1908 election, he ran as a Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...

candidate in the Eighth Congressional District,; in 1910 he again ran as a Socialist candidate, for the office of Prosecuting Attorney for the Madison County, Indiana

Madison County, Indiana

As of the census of 2000, there were 133,358 people, 53,052 households, and 36,234 families residing in the county. The population density was 295 people per square mile . There were 56,939 housing units at an average density of 126 per square mile...

50th court district. He did not win either election. Florence Wattles remained a Socialist after his death, and was a delegate to the Socialist Party National Committee in 1912 and 1915.

New Thought

As a Midwesterner

Midwestern United States

The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

, Wattles travelled to Chicago, where several leading New Thought

New Thought

leaders were located, among them Emma Curtis Hopkins

Emma Curtis Hopkins

Emma Curtis Hopkins organized New Thought and was a primary theologian, teacher, writer, feminist, mystic and prophet who ordained women at what she named the Christian Science Theological Seminary of Chicago...

and William Walker Atkinson

William Walker Atkinson

William Walker Atkinson was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q...

, and he gave "Sunday night lectures" in Indiana; however, his primary publisher was Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

-based Elizabeth Towne

Elizabeth Towne

.

He studied the writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...

and Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

. and recommended the study of their books to his readers who wished to understand what he characterized as "the monistic

Monism

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...

theory of the cosmos

Cosmos

In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...

."
Through his personal study and experimentation Wattles claimed to have discovered the truth of New Thought

New Thought

principles and put them into practice in his own life. He also advocated the then-popular health theories of "The Great Masticator" Horace Fletcher

Horace Fletcher

Horace Fletcher was an American health-food faddist of the Victorian era who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator," by arguing that food should be chewed thirty two times – or, about 100 times per minute – before being swallowed: "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." He invented...

as well as the "No-Breakfast Plan" of Edward Hooker Dewey, which he claimed to have applied to his own life. He wrote books outlining these principles and practices, giving them titles that described their content, such as Health Through New Thought and Fasting and The Science of Being Great. His daughter Florence recalled that "he lived every page" of his books.

A practical author, Wattles encouraged his readers to test his theories on themselves rather than take his word as an authority, and he claimed to have tested his methods on himself and others before publishing them.

Wattles practiced the technique of creative visualization

Creative Visualization

Creative visualization refers to the practice of seeking to affect the outer world via changing one's thoughts. Creative Visualization is the basic technique underlying positive thinking and is frequently used by athletes to enhance their performance. The concept originally arose in the US with...

. In his daughter Florence's words, he "formed a mental picture" or visual image, and then "worked toward the realization of this vision":

Influence

Rhonda Byrne

Rhonda Byrne is an Australian television writer and producer, best known for her New Thought works, The Secret—a book and a film by the same name. By the Spring of 2007 the book had sold almost 4 million copies, and the DVD had sold more than 2 million copies omt. She has also been a producer...

told a Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

interviewer that her inspiration for creating the 2006 hit film The Secret and the subsequent book by the same name, was her exposure to Wattles's The Science of Getting Rich. Byrne's daughter, Hayley, had given her mother a copy of the Wattles book to help her recover from her breakdown. The film itself also references, by re-popularizing the term The Law of Attraction, a 1908 book by another New Thought author, William Walker Atkinson

William Walker Atkinson

, titled Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World.

External links

http://wattles.dapatlah.com/getrich.pdf

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