Charles Francis Haanel

Charles Francis Haanel was a noted American New Thought author and businessman. He is best known for his contributions to the New Thought Movement through his book The Master Key System. Hannel's book, The Master Key System, was published in 1912 when he was 46 years old. It is written in the form of a course on New Thought, mental development, financial success, and personal health. 

The book was heavily promoted in the pages of Elizabeth Towne's New Thought magazine, The Nautilus. By 1933 it had sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. Haanel practiced the financial principles he preached and was a self-made success who owned several major companies. According to Stevens, writing in 1909, "He was president of the Continental Commercial Company, president of the Sacramento Valley Improvement Company, and president of the Mexico Gold & Silver Mining Company."

The original Master Key System contained 24 parts or modules of study. The allegedly "lost" chapters of the Master Key System, chapters 25-28, which are found in some editions, are not original but have been copied from chapters 11-14 of A book about You. Among the key points of Haanel's system are what he refers to as the laws of concentration, attraction, and harmonious thinking and action. Unique to the Master Key System is a set of exercises that accompany each chapter, which is systematically building upon each other — they make the Master Key System a system.

In addition to the Master Key System, Haanel wrote several other books, including Mental Chemistry, published in 1922; the New Psychology, published in 1924, A Book about You, published in 1927; and The Amazing Secrets of the Yogi, co-authored with Victor Simon Perera and published in 1937.

In 1919, Napoleon Hill wrote Haanel a letter thanking him for The Master Key System. In the letter, Hill stated, "My present success and the success which has followed my work as President of the Napoleon Hill Institute is due largely to the principles laid down in The Master-Key System." Haanel was quoted in the best-selling self-help book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, published in 2007.