You want to get rich?

Abstract from The Science of Getting Rich

Author: Wallace D. Wattles

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. No one can rise to his greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless he has plenty of money, for to unfold the soul and to develop talent he must have many things to use, and he cannot have these things unless he has money to buy them with.

A person develops in mind, soul, and body by making use of things, and society is so organized that we must have money in order to become the possessors of things. Therefore, the basis of all advancement must be the science of getting rich.

A person’s right to life means his right to have the free and unrestricted use of all the things which may be necessary to his fullest mental, spiritual, and physical unfoldment; or, in other words, his right to be rich.

The person who owns all he wants for the living of all the life he is capable of living is rich, and no person who has not plenty of money can have all he wants. Life has advanced so far and become so complex that even the most ordinary man or woman requires a great amount of wealth in order to live in a manner that even approaches completeness. Every person naturally wants to become all that they are capable of becoming. This desire to realize innate possibilities is inherent in human nature; we cannot help wanting to be all that we can be.

Success in life is becoming what you want to be. You can become what you want to be only by making use of things, and you can have the free use of things only as you become rich enough to buy them. To understand the science of getting rich is therefore the most essential of all knowledge.

There is nothing wrong in wanting to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abundant life . and that desire is praiseworthy. The person who does not desire to live more abundantly is abnormal, and so the person who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal.

There are three motives for which we live: We live for the body, we live for the mind, and we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three, body, mind, or soul can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression. It is not right or noble to live only for the soul and deny mind or body, and it is wrong to live for the intellect and deny body or soul.

Whatever he can say, no one can be really happy or satisfied unless his body is living fully in its every function, and unless the same is true of his mind and his soul. A person cannot live fully in body without good food, comfortable clothing, and warm shelter, and without freedom from excessive toil. Rest and recreation are also necessary to his physical life. One cannot live fully in mind without books and time to study them, without opportunity for travel and observation, or without intellectual companionship.

To live fully in mind a person must have intellectual recreations, and must surround himself with all the objects of art and beauty he is capable of using and appreciating. To live fully in soul, a person must have love, and love is denied fullest expression by poverty.

A person’s highest happiness is found in the bestowal of benefits on those he loves; love finds it’s most natural and spontaneous expression in giving. The individual who has nothing to give cannot fill his place as a spouse or parent, as a citizen, or as a human being. It is in the use of material things that a person finds full life for his body, develops his mind, and unfolds his soul. It is therefore of supreme importance to each individual to be rich.

It is perfectly right that you should desire to be rich. If you are a normal man or woman you cannot help doing so. It is perfectly right that you should give your best attention to the science of getting rich, for it is the noblest and most necessary of all studies.

If you neglect this study, you are derelict in your duty to yourself, to God and humanity, for you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself.

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

It is natural laws that like causes always produce like effects, and, therefore, any man or woman who learns to do things in this certain way will infallibly gets rich.

Getting rich is not the result of saving, or thrift. Many very penurious people are poor, while free spenders often get rich.

The answer to prayer is not according to your faith while you are talking, but according to your faith while you are working.

You must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea that there is a Deity whose will it is that you should be poor or whose purposes may be served by keeping you in poverty. The intelligent substance is a consciously living substance. Being a consciously living substance, it must have the nature and inherent desire of every living intelligence for increase of life. Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life.

In order to know more, do more, and be more we must have more. We must have things to use, for we learn, and do, and become only by using things. We must get rich so that we can live more.

The desire for riches is simply the capacity for larger life seeking fulfillment. Every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest which causes desire. That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.

It is the desire of God that you should get rich. He wants you to get rich because he can express himself better through you if you have plenty of things to use in giving him expression. He can live more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life.

The universe desires you to have everything you want to have. Nature is friendly to your plans. Everything is naturally for you. Make up your mind that this is true.

You want to get rich in order that you may eat, drink, and be merry when it is time to do these things; in order that you may surround yourself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed your mind, and develop your intellect; in order that you may love others and do kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping the world to find truth.

But remember that extreme altruism is no better and no nobler than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes. Get rid of the idea that God wants you to sacrifice yourself for others and that you can secure his favor by doing so. God requires nothing of the kind.

What God wants is that you should make the most of yourself, for yourself, and for others. And you can help others more by making the most of yourself than in any other way.

God, the one substance, is trying to live and do and enjoy things through humanity. This is a difficult point with most people. They retain something of the old idea that poverty and self-sacrifice are pleasing to God. They look upon poverty as a part of the plan, a necessity of nature. They have the idea that God has finished his work, and made all that he can make, and that the majority of people must stay poor because there is not enough to go around. They hold to so much of this erroneous thought that they feel ashamed to ask for wealth. They try not to want more than a very modest competence, just enough to make them fairly comfortable.

You must have it before you can give it, and many people fail to impress thinking substance because they have themselves only a vague and misty concept of the things they want to do, to have, or to become.

If you want to become rich, you must not make a study of poverty. No one ever got rich by studying poverty and thinking about poverty. You cannot help the poor in the least by knowing about these things, and the widespread knowledge of them does not tend at all to do away with poverty. Get rich. That is the best way you can help the poor.

Medicine as a science of disease has increased disease; religion as a science of sin has promoted sin, and economics as a study of poverty will fill the world with wretchedness and want. What concerns you is the cure.

Poverty can be done away with, not by increasing the number of well-to-do people who think about poverty, but by increasing the number of poor people who purpose with faith to get rich. The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration. Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for an hour or two. But inspiration can cause them to rise out of their misery. If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can become rich. Prove it by getting rich yourself. People must be taught to become rich by creation, not by competition. I do not say that you should be hard-hearted or unkind and refuse to hear the cry of need, but you must not try to eradicate poverty in any of the conventional ways.

Others still are poor because, while they have some notion of science, they have become so swamped and lost in the maze of theories that they do not know which road to take. They try a mixture of many systems and fail in all. For these, again, the very best thing to do is to show the right way in your own person and practice. An ounce of doing is worth a pound of theorizing. The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself. You can serve God and humanity in no more effective way than by getting rich; that is, if you get rich by the creative method and not by the competitive one.

You will get rich most easily in terms of effort, if you do that for which you are best fitted, but you will get rich most satisfactorily if you do that which you want to do.

Doing what you want to do is life, and there is no real satisfaction in living if we are compelled to be forever doing something which we do not like to do and can never do what we want to do. And it is certain that you can do what you want to do. The desire to do it is proof that you have within you the power which can do it. Desire is a manifestation of power.

If there are past mistakes whose consequences have placed you in an undesirable business or environment, you may be obliged for some time to do what you do not like to do, but you can make the doing of it pleasant by knowing that it is making it possible for you to come to the doing of what you want to do.

If you feel that you are not in the right vocation, do not act too hastily in trying to get into another one. The best way, generally, to change business or environment is by growth.

Do not be afraid to make a sudden and radical change if the opportunity is presented and you feel after careful consideration that it is the right opportunity, but never take sudden or radical action when you are in doubt as to the wisdom of doing so.

There is never any hurry on the creative plane, and there is no lack of opportunity.

The normal desire for increased wealth is not an evil or a reprehensible thing. It is simply the desire for more abundant life. It is aspiration. And because it is the deepest instinct of their natures, all men and women are attracted to those who can give them more of the means of life.

Nothing is so pleasant to the unformed or partially developed mind as the exercise of power or dominion over others. The desire to rule for selfish gratification has been the curse of the world.

For countless ages kings and lords have drenched the earth with blood in their battles to extend their dominions not to seek more life for all, but to get more power for themselves.

Today, the main motive in the business and industrial world is the same: Men marshal their armies of dollars and lay waste the lives and hearts of millions in the same mad scramble for power over others. Commercial kings, like political kings, are inspired by the lust for power.

Look out for the temptation to seek for authority, to become a master, to be considered as one who is above the common herd, to impress others by lavish display, and so on.

The mind that seeks for mastery over others is the competitive mind, and the competitive mind is not the creative one. In order to master your environment and your destiny, it is not at all necessary that you should rule over your fellow men, and, indeed, when you fall into the world’s struggle for the high places, you begin to be conquered by fate and environment and your getting rich becomes a matter of chance and speculation.

Beware of the competitive mind! No better statement of the principle of creative action can be formulated than the favorite declaration of the late Golden Rule Jones of Toledo: What I want for myself, I want for everybody.

In the field of religion, the world cries out for the clergyman who can teach his hearers the true science of abundant life. He who masters the details of the science of getting rich, together with the allied sciences of being well, of being great, and of winning love, and who teaches these details from the pulpit, will never lack for a congregation. This is a gospel that the world needs; it will give increase of life, and people will hear it gladly and give liberal support to the person who brings it to them.

Do all the work you can do, every day, and do each piece of work in a perfectly successful manner. Put the power of success and the purpose to get rich into everything that you do.

But do not do this merely with the idea of currying favor with your employer, in the hope that he, or those above you, will see your good work and advance you. It is not likely that they will do so. The person who is merely a good worker, filling his place to the very best of his ability and satisfied with that is valuable to his employer, and it is not to the employer’s interest to promote him. He is worth more where he is.

To secure advancement, something more is necessary than to be too large for your place. The person who is certain to advance is the one who is too big for his place, who has a clear concept of what he wants to be, who knows that he can become what he wants to be, and who is determined to be what he wants to be.

There is a power which never fails to present opportunity to the advancing personality who is moving in obedience to law.

God cannot help helping you if you act in a certain way. He must do so in order to help himself.

There is nothing in your circumstances or in the industrial situation that can keep you down. If you cannot get rich working for the steel trust, you can get rich on a ten-acre farm. And if you begin to move in the certain way, you will certainly escape from the .clutches of the steel trust and get on to the farm or wherever else you wish to be.

It is true that existing governments keep the masses in poverty, but this is because the masses do not think and act in the certain way.

Do not spend any time in planning as to how you will meet possible emergencies in the future, except as the necessary policies may affect your actions today. You are concerned with doing today’s work in a perfectly successful manner and not with emergencies which may arise tomorrow. You can attend to them as they come.

Do not concern yourself with questions as to how you shall surmount obstacles which may loom upon your business horizon unless you can see plainly that your course must be altered today in order to avoid them. No matter how tremendous an obstruction may appear at a distance, you will find that if you go on in the certain way it will disappear as you approach it, or that a way over, under, through, or around it will appear.

No possible combination of circumstances can defeat a man or woman who is proceeding to get rich along strictly scientific lines. No man or woman who obeys the law can fail to get rich, any more than one can multiply two by two and fail to get four.

Give no anxious thought to possible disasters, obstacles, panics, or unfavorable combinations of circumstances. There is time enough to meet such things when they present themselves before you in the immediate present, and you will find that every difficulty carries with it the wherewithal for its overcoming.

You do not need to pray repeatedly for things you want. It is not necessary to tell God about it every day. Your part is to intelligently formulate your desire for the things which make for a larger life and to get these desire arranged into a coherent whole, and then to impress this whole desire upon the formless substance, which has the power and the will to bring you what you want. You do not make this impression by repeating strings of words; you make it by holding the vision with unshakable PURPOSE to attain it and with steadfast FAITH that you do attain it.

The answer to prayer is not according to your faith while you are talking, but according to your faith while you are working.

You cannot impress the mind of God by having a special Sabbath day set apart to tell him what you want, and then forgetting him during the rest of the week. You cannot impress him by having special hours to go into your closet and pray, if you then dismiss the matter from your mind until the hour of prayer comes again.

Oral prayer is well enough, and has its effect, especially upon yourself, in clarifying your vision and strengthening your faith, but it is not your oral petitions which get you what you want. In order to get rich you do not need a sweet hour of prayer.

You need to pray without ceasing. And by prayer I mean holding steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its creation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so. .Believe that ye receive them.

Once you have clearly formed your vision, the whole matter turns on receiving. When you have formed it, it is well to make an oral statement, addressing the supreme in gratitude. Then, from that moment on you must, in mind, receive what you ask for.