Scripting · “You Assign the Meaning”
Wattles' Law of Gratitude
Practise continuous, deep gratitude as Wattles’ single most important mental adjustment — a ‘law’ that keeps the mind ‘constantly fixed upon the best,’ close to the source, and in faith rather than fear.
Make gratitude your master move. Give thanks deeply and continually — toward the source, for the good already coming — keeping the mind “fixed upon the best.” This is how Wattles grows faith: “faith is born of gratitude.” Steady thankfulness, not occasional listing.
What it is
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 entry is his distinct doctrine of gratitude as a continuous law, kept separate from the general (Emmons-style journaling) and from the more generic LoA “grateful-in-advance” framing.
Wattles’ version is specifically a standing relational posture toward the Formless source: deep, continual thankfulness that (he claims) keeps you “in close harmony with creative thought,” fixes the mind “upon the best,” and is the soil in which faith itself grows.
The Method
- Make gratitude the master adjustment. Treat thankfulness as the one move that sums up the whole inner work: “mental adjustment… summed up in one word, gratitude.”
- Give thanks continually toward the source. Not occasional but ongoing: “The more gratefully we fix our minds on the Supreme when good things come to us, the more good things we will receive.” Wattles frames this as obeying “a Law of Gratitude.”
- Let gratitude fix the mind on the best. “The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best; therefore it tends to become the best.” Use thankfulness to keep attention on what is good and coming.
- Use gratitude to generate faith. “Faith is born of gratitude… expectation becomes faith.” And the warning: “He who has no feeling of gratitude cannot long retain a living faith.” Gratitude is the engine of the faith the other practices need.
- Stay close to the source through thanks. “The nearer we live to the source of wealth, the more wealth we shall receive”; gratitude “will keep you in close harmony with creative thought” and out of competitive, fearful thinking. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are verbatim from The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 7, “Gratitude”; the structure is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Wallace Delois Wattles (1860–1911), American New Thought writer. The “Gratitude” chapter (Ch. 7) of The Science of Getting Rich (1910) is one of the most influential single chapters in prosperity literature, feeding directly into Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret. Wattles makes gratitude a law, not a mood.
Common refinements
Occasional, not continual. Wattles wants gratitude as a standing posture, not a once-a-week list.
- Listing without feeling. The benefit tracks felt thankfulness; mechanical inventories dull.
- Skipping it as “soft.” Wattles is emphatic this is the load-bearing practice — drop it and faith decays into anxiety.
- Forcing it in fresh pain. In acute grief or depression, demanded gratitude can feel invalidating; go gentle and honest.