Wallace D. Wattles
(1860–1911)
About New Thought Author Wallace D. Wattles
Wallace Delois Wattles was an American author. A New Thought writer, he remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and still remains in print in the New Thought and self-help movements. Wallace was born in Illinois and lived with his parents on a farm in Nunda Township in McHenry Country, Ilinois and worked as a farm laborer. He had no siblings. According to a US Federal Census, Wattles had changed the spelling of his last name from Walters to Wattles. He married Abbie Walters and they had 3 children.
Wallace D. Wattles grew up in poverty and experienced repeated failutres early in his life, until, in his latter years--after tireless study and experimentation--he forumalted and put into practice the principles laid out in The Science of Getting Rich and eventually achieved financial success.
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 of what he wrote in his books.
As practical author, Wallace 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' best known work is a 1910 book called The Science of Getting Rich in which he explained how to become wealthy.
Wattles practiced the technique of creative visualization. In his daughter Florence's words, he "formed a mental picture" or visual image, and then "worked toward the realization of this vision".
In 1896, Wattles attended a convenstion of reformers ad met George Davis Herron, a Congregational Church minister and professor of Applied Christianity at Grinnel College who was then attracting national attention by preaching a form of Christian Socialism. After meeting Herron, Wattles would become a social visionary and and began spreading the the wonderful and social message of Jesus and wrote two books that dealt with Christianity from a social perspective. At one time, Wallace had held a position in the Methodist church, but was later ejected for his "heresy".
In the 1908 election, Wallace ran as a Socialist Party of America candidate in the Eighth Congressional District, and again in 1910 as a Socialist candidate for the office of Prosecuting Attorney for the Madison Country, Indiana. He did not win either election. Wallace Wattle's 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, stating that her father received little formal education in his life, and found himself exluded from the world of commerce and wealth early on in his life. As Wattle's career in New Thought progressed, he manifested wealth using his own teachings, and had been in good health except for his extreme frailty. Wallace Wattles had published two of his most well known books, The Science of Being Well, and The Science of Getting Rich, just one year before his untimely death at the age of 51.
Resources:
Quotes by Wallace D. Wattles
<< Previous Page
Next Page>>
