The Science of Getting Rich is one of the more interesting books in the genre of creating wealth. Most of the books in this class are usually semi autobiographical and are mostly filled with anecdotal, and sometimes completely b.s. coated stories that the author uses to get his message across. Also, most of these books are written in abstract, with the authors not exactly living what they preach, but instead making their fortune from telling others to live what they are selling. Wallace Wattles isn’t quite the same thing from what I’ve read about the man.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information available on the internet about the man himself. Basically he was born right before the civil war and for the most part, pretty much lived in poverty himself for most of his life. He then met George D. Herron who had quite the impact on his life. He returned to his family basically with a new religion of sorts, and decided to write books to spread his word. The Science of Getting Rich is one of those books.

This is a very exestensial view of attaining wealth. More precisely, this book (in a round about way) is about the power of the mind and positive thought. The premise of The Science of Getting Rich revolves around 3 rules. They are:

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

Again, this is pretty much the power of the mind at work. I for one do believe what Mr. Wattles is saying and most people who have studied or experienced success in any form will most likely agree with the above statements. No matter what your wish, whether it be great wealth, a house, fitness, whatever all starts with a goal. A goal forms the basis for a ‘map’ of sorts, to get you to where you want to be. You cant get to your destination if you don’t have a map. This is pretty much what Wattles is trying to convey in his book. If you boil down the message he is trying to get out, its that your mind is your greatest tool in attaining what you want in life, basically because (and here’s where he sort of goes off the beaten path with these kind of books) God really wants you to be rich. He wants you to be rich so that you can leave a full and productive life. Now how are you going to argue with God?

If you create a clear, precise and detailed image of what you wish to attain, you will act in ‘A Certain Way’ (this is a phrase used over and over in the book), and he is correct. The ‘Certain Way’ is the outcome of you keeping your goal clear in your mind and because you have that clear detailed image, your thinking and your actions make you do things that lead up to your goal. The more detailed the image and the tighter you hold it, the faster that goal is accomplished.
Mr Wattle’s vision on this, is a little out of left field. He explains the reason for the goal being attained in this manner isnt really because of your actions per se, but because you have planted your idea in ‘The Thinking Stuff’ that permeates that universe, and that stuff is moving the things required for you to complete your goal or attain your vision to you.

Delivery aside, the message is still a solid one.

I like this book for a couple reasons. For one, W. Wattles was a man who spent his life in poverty, only gaining any kind of success later in life, after he had started to spread his message, using the very same approach he was trying to sell to everyone else. By his own daughter’s word, he became a well known and successful writer because he set that as his goal, and in his mind, he was that successful writer..it just took a little while for everyone else to realize it. He walked it like he talked it. I also like this book because its not your standard regurgitated garbage that you see in most of the personal finance sections of the bookstore. Also, interestingly enough, if you notice, most of the books in the bookstores today on this very subject, pull most of their inspiration if not direct text from authors around the turn of the 20th century, like Wattles.

The books is a good read, and very interesting point of view. Just remember that he is speaking metaphorically throughout a lot of the book and he’s not really as crazy as he may seem.

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