The Canon / Pillars / New Thought
Pillars · 1910
The Science of Getting Rich
New Thought MovementThe Science of Getting Rich is a concise, deliberately unmystical manual that distils New Thought into a step-by-step technique for producing wealth. Its central claim is that prosperity follows reproducible mental and practical conditions rather than luck or competitive advantage.
The method instructs the reader to hold a clear mental image, to act in a "Certain Way" with faith and gratitude, and to impress one's purpose upon a universal Formless Substance. Two ideas anchor it: the distinction between creative and competitive wealth, which reframes prosperity as non-zero-sum, drawn from the inexhaustible source rather than seized from others; and the insistence that thought directs creative energy while physical action is required to receive the result. Gratitude is elevated to an operative mechanism keeping the operator in harmony with the source.
Its significance is its conversion of metaphysics into a concrete procedure. Long after the author's death the slim volume was rediscovered and, through The Secret, became a primary source of the modern Law of Attraction industry.
In its words
There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made... a thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.
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.
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.
By thought, the thing you want is brought to you; by action you receive it.
The ideas it carries
Practices it teaches
Wattles' Hold the Vision — fixed PURPOSE and unwavering FAITH
Having formed the clear picture, Wattles says it will not hold itself — it must be backed.
Wattles' Acting in the Certain Way — efficient action, each act a success in itself
Wattles is unusual among manifestation teachers for insisting that thought alone is not enough — the picture must be received through action.
Wattles' Certain Way — image, gratitude, faith, and purposeful action
Wallace Wattles' The Science of Getting Rich claims there is a "Certain Way" of thinking and acting that produces wealth as reliably as a science.
Wattles' Clear Mental Image — the definite picture of the thing desired
The first and most specific demand of Wallace Wattles' Science of Getting Rich is definiteness of image. Before faith, before gratitude, before action, you must build one clear, detailed, definite mental picture of…
Wattles' Impressing the Formless Substance — conveying the image to original thinking stuff
This is Wattles' metaphysical engine, isolated as a practice: the deliberate act of conveying your clear image to the "Original Substance." Wattles' first principle is that "there is a thinking stuff from which all…
Gratitude Practice — Journaling Thanks (and 'Gratitude as Already-Received')
Gratitude practice is the deliberate cultivation of thankfulness — most commonly by journaling what you're grateful for.
Wattles' Law of Gratitude — continuous thankful connection to the source
For Wattles, gratitude is not a nice add-on — it is the central mental act. "The whole process of mental adjustment and atonement can be summed up in one word, gratitude." This node is his distinct doctrine of…
Lineage
The author
Wallace WattlesCreative (not competitive) wealth
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