“The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a certain way.  Those who do things in this certain way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich.  Those who do not do things in this certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor.”  -  Wallace D. Wattles, "The Science of Getting Rich"

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Success and Prosperity Master: Wallace D. Wattles, Law of Attraction Teacher and Sage

Finally, after what has seemed an eternity and a relentless deluge of challenges and obstacles, we are putting the finishing touches and running the final tests on The Success Manual Prosperity Library web site, featuring The Wattles Prosperity Bible, The Law of Attraction Prosperity Bible and The Wattles Quotable Bible.

If I was not a Student of Success - as was the case in my prior life - I would have called this venture "a nightmare."  In fact, most people who are personally aware of the trials that we have gone through to make this become a reality see it as that - "what a nightmare!"  I don't.  This challenge was an enormous test of the very principles and teachings to which I subscribe.

If I gave up, quite, walked away - now, that would be failure.  Not temporary defeat, but failure, and I would have nobody to blame but myself.

Law of Attraction Master, Wallace D. Wattles, author of such classic Success Manuals as "The Science of Getting Rich," "The Science of Being Great," "The Science of Being Well, "How to Get What You Want," and "How to Promote Yourself." Click on the Image to access The Success Manual Prosperity Library, featuring the Five-Volume set, "The Wattles Prosperity Bible" - The Complete Works of Wallace D. Wattles. On Sale Monday, November 22, 2010.

And so, Monday, November 22, 2010, The Success Manual Prosperity Library will be open for business.  Yes, the site is up and running right now and I would love to pass you the URL, but we are doing our final tests.

In light of this Success, today's post consists of the Foreword to The Wattles Prosperity Bible and is a tribute to the man who inspirired the project, Wallace D. Wattles, Master of the Law of Attraction, and author of many powerful and popular Success Manuals, some of which we feature for free at this site in The Success Manual Free Download Library.

Thank you everyone for your support and for visiting our site.  Be sure to come back Monday, November 22, 2010 for the official launch post on The Success Manual Prosperity Library!

To your Health, Wealth, Prosperity and Success,

Richard

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 The Success Manual Prosperity Library, featuring the Five-Volume "The Wattles Prosperity Bible," the Five-Volume "The Law of Attraction Prosperity Bible," and "The Wattles Quotable Bible" ON SALE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010.

•  41 EBooks of Timeless Spiritual Knowledge.

• 5,400 Pages of Secret Wisdom to Living the Life You Desire and Deserve.

• REVEALED: Lost KEYS to Health, Wealth, Prosperity and Success.

• Profound Insight into Universal Truths of YOUR "SELF."

• The ORIGINAL TEACHINGS on The Law of Attraction.

• Investment: $47.00

• Value: PRICELESS

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Foreword

The Wattles Prosperity Bible

 A Five Volume Compilation of the Works of Wallace D. Wattles

Richard A. Catalina, Jr., Esq.

When Wallace Delois Wattles was growing up in the post-Civil War America, the country was undergoing major changes in the political, economic and social arenas.

While the South was rebuilding its battered infrastructure, the North, where Wattles lived, was prospering, both industrially and agriculturally.  This period, known as the Second Industrial Revolution, began in the mid-19^th century, with the growth and expansion of steel, petroleum, as well as chemical and electrical sectors; railways and steam ship industry also thrived in the still- young nation.

In fact, by the time the 19^th century came to a close and the new one dawned, corporate giants such as U.S. Steel and General Electric spawned the legendary tycoons by the names of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew P. Mellon, and J.P. Morgan, among other renowned and often notorious wheelers and dealers of that era.

The extravagant lifestyles of these super-rich industrialists and financiers – which prompted Mark Twain to coin the phrase “Gilded Age” to describe the excesses of the wealthy people in the second half of the 1800s – did not, however, reflect the grim living conditions of the working class.   Historical records show that in 1890, when Wattles was 30, 11 million of America’s 12 million families earned less than $1,200 a year, with the average annual income of $380, well below the poverty line. 

Wallace Delois Wattles: Law of Attraction Sage, Author and Teacher and Master of Success and Prosperity. Mr. Wattles' teachings were a driving force behind Rhonda Byrne's book, "The Secret." How much so? The first time she read "The Science of Getting Rich," she cried!

Not much is known today about Wattles’ life and family, but from the information that is available to us we can surmise that he was born into that modest – not to say poverty-stricken – milieu like the vast majority of his countrymen. 

We cannot say with any certainty that he was inspired by the well-heeled tycoons of the era, but we do know that he turned the art of getting rich into a science.

His philosophy about wealth is succinctly summed up in this quote: “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.”

*******

Putting together Wattles’ biography is a challenging task because very little is known about him.   Whether this dearth was a matter of modesty and humility or merely poor record-keeping we cannot guess, but anyone attempting to research Wattles’ life will hit a brick wall riddled with many gaps and holes.  For instance, his schooling remains a mystery, as does his family.  We know that he had a daughter, Florence, but have no information about his wife.  We also know that early on he worked on a farm and later as a lecturer in Indiana, as well as in some capacity at a Methodist Church, but have no clue about any other jobs he might have held.  We know he died young – at 51 – of “frail” health, but possess no details of what illness he suffered from.  He was a prolific writer, publishing scores of articles, essays and books.  Many of the articles and essays were published as compilations; others as single articles. However, specific details as to many of his published works are few.

What little we do know about his childhood and later life can be gleaned from the letters Florence wrote to Wattles’ publisher, Elizabeth Towne.   From those letters we can construct a sketchy portrait of a compassionate and caring man of profound convictions, and a prolific writer who believed his ideas would transform people’s lives.

Although Wattles remains – given the scarcity of information about him – somewhat of an enigma, he wrote some of the most powerful self-help books ever published.  As a matter of fact, the young farm boy grew up to be a trailblazer in the area of wealth-building, personal empowerment and success, a field that, while in its infancy during Wattles’ lifetime, blossomed as the “New Thought” era, and which today is a billion-dollar industry.  Indeed, the “self improvement” market in the U.S. alone is estimated as worth more than $13.9 billion in 2010.[1]

******

In a way, Wallace Delois Wattles’ life is a quintessential rags-to-riches story. 

He was born in 1860 in Illinois, and later lived in Indiana.  According to the 1880 US Federal Census, young Wallace was probably the only child of a gardener and a housewife.  He lived with his parents on a farm in Nunda Township, McHenry County, Illinois.  With little formal education, he spent his early years toiling as a farm laborer.  In those days, life on a farm was dismal, requiring long hours of backbreaking labor.  Even though new farm equipment was invented and introduced during that period, horses, oxen and people still provided the power that fueled the machines. 

Eking out a living from a farm, which relied heavily on weather-dependant crops, was a challenge then, as it is, though maybe to a lesser degree, now.   We do not know for sure whether this was the only work Wattles did in his youth, but his life at the time is reported to have been one of poverty, hardship, and failure.  We will never know for certain, but perhaps this strife had sparked Wattles’ desire to become successful and rich and to understand proper and healthy living. 

One of Florence’s messages to Mrs. Towne provides some insight into what drove her father to overcome his humble beginnings and ultimately led him to pen a series of highly successful self-help books:   “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 1896, the 36-year-old Midwesterner attended a “convention of reformers” in Chicago, where he met George Davis Herron.   Two years Wattles’ junior, Herron was a controversial Congregational Church minister and professor of Applied Christianity at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, where he attracted attention for his radical religious views, namely a new philosophy called Christian Socialism.  A movement that originated in the mid-19th-century Europe, it combined the fundamentals of Socialism with the principles of Christianity as a means of helping the poor.

Florence wrote to Mrs. Towne that her father caught Herron’s social vision.  “I shall never forget the morning he came home,” she related.  “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.”

According to Florence, at one time her father had held a position in the Methodist Church, but was fired because of his “heresy,” possibly the Christian Socialism views, which were not quite compatible with the mainstream Christianity.  Two of his books, “A New Christ” and “Jesus: The Man and His Work” focused on Christianity from a Socialist perspective.  As a matter of fact, Wattles was so involved in the movement, that he twice ran as a Socialist candidate for two public offices:  in the Eighth Congressional District in 1908, and two years later, for the office of Prosecuting Attorney for Indiana’s Madison County’s 50th court district.  He lost both elections, but Florence became a delegate to the Socialist Party National Committee in 1912 and 1915.

******* 

Another new spiritual movement that Wattles embraced with zeal and conviction, and which had, in large measure, influenced his thinking and writing, was called New Thought.  This movement started to emerge in the second half of the 19^th century, at about the same time as Christian Socialism.

This was a turning point for Wattles, the moment that likely re-defined and re-directed his life to some degree. 

The movement, which remains active to this day, promotes the idea that all of life’s circumstances and events, whether positive or negative, be they physical or mental in nature, originate in the mind as a consequence of our thinking and beliefs, and, therefore, “right thinking” can change our lives positively. 

Like many thinkers and philosophers from a variety of churches and religious denominations, and even some secular groups and individuals as well, Wattles became a proponent of these metaphysical tenets relating to the power of positive thinking, the law of attraction, creative visualization, and other essential life forces that formed the basis of his beliefs and writings.  Today the self-improvement and personal growth industry is a thriving, multi-billion-dollar sector, but in Wattles’ time it was still in its nascent stages.   The New Thought movement, however, marked an important milestone in the development of the self-help phenomenon.

Because of the unbridled optimism, positive energy, and personal empowerment inherent to the New Thought principles, Wattles, along with his contemporaries like Napoleon Hill, Frank Channing Haddock, Thomas Troward, William Walker Atkinson, and, a bit later, Dale Carnegie, had become one of the earliest self-help pioneers – people who believed in improving themselves and all the aspects of their lives by harvesting their spiritual and inner strengths.  Essentially, the mind can achieve whatever it can conceive.

Wattles’ brand of motivational self-improvement philosophy is best expressed in this quote of his: “The scientific use of thought consists in forming a clear and distinct mental image of what you want; in holding fast to the purpose to get what you want; and in realizing with grateful faith that you do get what you want.”

Wattles discovered an outlet for his ideas in Nautilus, a magazine for New Thought writers founded in 1898 by Elizabeth Towne.  In it, Wattles found a fitting forum to advance his ideas and foster his writing skills.  As Florence explained: “When we came to Elwood (Indiana) three years ago, Father began a Sunday night lectureship in 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.”

Wattles applied the New Thought principles to his own life through personal experimentation.  For example, he tested some of the health and food fads fashionable at that time, such as the “No Breakfast Plan,” before encouraging his readers to try out his theories on themselves. 

How a poor man with little education was able to form such a far-reaching vision and bring it to fruition with numerous books remains a mystery.  What is certain is that his works, at least by some assessments, are among the most powerful personal improvement books ever written.   

While Wattles authored numerous works, his best-known are likely the trilogy of “The Science of Being Rich” (1910), “The Science of Being Well” (1910) and “The Science of Being Great” (1911).  All three are fitting examples of self-improvement and personal success theories he had become known for, as demonstrated in Florence’s letter to Mrs.  Towne: “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.”

*******

“The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a certain way.  Those who do things in this certain way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich.  Those who do not do things in this certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor.”

The above quote is a paragraph from Chapter 2 of Wattles’ “The Science of Getting Rich,” a forerunner of every personal finance and self-help book ever written.  His statement that this pragmatic text is “intended for the men and women whose most pressing need is for money; who wish to get rich first, and philosophize afterward,” rings as true in the second decade of the 21^st century as it did when it was first published 100 years ago.  

Incredibly, there exists today million dollar self-help businesses founded solely on “The Science of Getting Rich.”

While many people believe that amassing wealth is a matter of hard work, luck, or a combination of both, Wattles promoted a more scientific approach.  “There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic,” he famously noted.  “There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.”

“The Science of Getting Rich,” still widely read and highly acclaimed today, laid ground for “The Science of Being Great,” in which Wattles stated that “Greatness is equally inherent in all, and may be manifested by all.  Every person may become great.”

The inspirational and motivational message is also clear in “The Science of Being Well,” where Wattles writes that the work is directed at “those who want health, and who want a practical guide and handbook, not a philosophical treatise.  It is an instructor in the use of the universal Principle of Life, and my effort has been to explain the way in so plain and simple a fashion that the reader, though he may have given no previous study to New Thought or metaphysics, may readily follow it to perfect health.  While retaining all essentials, I have carefully eliminated all non-essentials; I have used no technical, abstruse, or difficult language, and have kept the one point in view at all times.”   

The question that arises is whether Wattles successfully applied his New Thought beliefs and theories on how an average person can become rich, happy and healthy regardless of his or her circumstances to his own life.  From Florence’s correspondence to Mrs. Towne it would appear that he did.  Before his death in 1911 at 51, Florence reported that “he made lots of money, and had good health, except for his extreme frailty.”

There is no information on how many “regular” people who read Wattles’ works in the past century had been influenced by his message.  We do know, however, that the Australian New Thought writer Rhonda Byrne said her inspiration for the hit 2006 movie, “The Secret,” as well as the same-titled book, came from Wattles’ “The Science of Getting Rich.”  When she first opened the book in 2004, Byrne relates on her website, “Something inside of me had me turn the pages one by one, and I can still remember my tears hitting the pages as I was reading it.  It gave me a glimpse of The Secret and it was like a flame inside of my heart.” 

So in the end, the little-known life of Wallace Delois Wattles was, in many ways, a quintessentially American story of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, succeeding against all odds, and influencing the lives of others.  In the words of his daughter Florence, “His life was truly the powerful life.”

[1] The U.S. Market for Self-Improvement Products and Services, (Study from 1996 through 2010), Marketdata Enterprises, Inc. at marketenterprises.com.

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