Charles F. Haanel

It was Napoleon Hill, author of "Think and Grow Rich", who thanked Charles Haanel in a personal letter for publishing the Master Key System, as Hill deemed it invaluable in achieving his own personal success. That alone speaks volumes. These days pretty much everybody in personal and mind development know Hill, but still very few know Haanel.

Charles Francis Haanel was a noted American author and businessman who belonged to the American Scientific League, The Author‘s League of America, The American Society of Psychical Research, the St. Louis Humane Society and the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

Born to parents of German origin in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 22 May, 1866, Charles F. Haanel began his business career in St. Louis. There he started his own company and eventually founded one of the largest conglomerates of his time, only to write several books which were published in St. Louis by Psychology Publishing and by his Master Key Institute in New York.

Charles Haanel put into books the ideas and methods he used to gain his success. Besides »The Master Key System,« which he wrote in 1912 (publically available since 1916, with a 2nd edition in 1919, and a 1941 release in the UK), he also wrote »Mental Chemistry«, »The New Psychology«, »A Book about You« and, in collaboration with Victor S Perera, »The Amazing Secrets of the Yogi«.

By 1933 The Master Key System had apparently sold over 200,000 copies (there’s no proof backing up this number) and then seemingly disappeared. The broad public only got light of the MKS through the success of Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret“, to which a great amount of gratitude is owed.

The Master Key System is one of the finest studies in self-improvement, self-realization, self-actualization and higher consciousness ever written. Covering everything from how to get wealthy to how to get healthy, Charles Haanel leaves no stone unturned. With utter precision, he elucidates on each topic with logic and rigor that not only leaves you thinking truthfully, but as a consequence feeling good, and ready to jump into action – into your new life of health, wealth and happiness!

The Master Key System is a system that teaches the ultimate principles, causes and effects, as well as the spiritual laws that underlie all attainment and success. When you want to attain something, The Master Key System will show you how to get it. The results you will attain from using this system are so startling as to appear incredible. For this reason, more and more people are becoming students of The Master Key System than ever before, even almost a hundred years after it was first published.

In 24 parts, The Master Key sets out the fundamental principles of life and conscious, rightful living. Basic to his teaching is the correct development and use of mental power — the key to truly creative power and action, harmony and health, love and happiness, and abundant possibilities.

Each part is meant to be studied like a correspondence course lesson, but this is also a book that can be opened at random for whatever gem of advice your eyes happen to fall upon.

This age-old wisdom was written by someone who had a thorough understanding of — for instance — the Hermetic Principles as laid by Thoth, the Atlantean, and who could perceive and tap into Universal Mind like very few, but who seems to have no particular allegiance to any specific system of knowledge. Charles Haanel‘s numbered common-sense messages still have a freshness almost one hundred years after they were first assembled.

Mr. Haanel has entered the Eternal Lodge on 27 November, 1949 and is laid to rest at Bellafontaine Cemetery, St. Louis. Walter B. Stevens described Mr. Haanel as »a man of mature judgement, capable of taking a calm survey of life and correctly valuing its opportunities, its possibilities, its demands and obligations.«