Master Key System Chapter 1 Summary
The Master Key System Chapter 1 sets up the foundation of what is to be learned in the book.
It explains the philosophy of Charles F. Haanel, which he used to create extraordinary success.
The teachings stem from many New Thought ideas and can seem difficult to comprehend to new readers.
In this post, I will summarize The Master Key System Chapter 1, so you can begin implementing this important knowledge.
The Matthew Effect
The opening lines of lesson one go like this:
“That much gathers more is true on every plane of existence and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.”
Here Haanel is referencing an ancient biblical concept known as the ‘Matthew Effect’.
(Matthew 25:29): “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
This means success begets success.
Those who have will gain more.
Those who don’t will lose everything.
But what separates those who have and those who don’t?
It’s their ability to think.
The quality of your thinking is what creates your outer world ‘conditions, environment, and all experiences’.
Thinking is the first principle
Line 4 explains how thinking is the first principle of creation.
“…we must ‘be’ before we can ‘do’, and we can ‘do’ only to the extent which we ‘are’, and what we ‘are’ depends upon what we ‘think’.”
The options available to you are limited by who you believe you are.
If you see yourself as a beggar, you will continue begging for spare change.
If you see yourself as a disruptive entrepreneur, you will do the actions consistent with that self-image.
As Maxwell Maltz explained in Psycho-Cybernetics, our subconscious mind will make us do the actions consistent with our self-image.
But what creates this self-image?
Your predominant thoughts are responsible for who you believe yourself to be.
The Master Key System Chapter 1 Big Idea: The Mirror Principle
Haanel goes on to describe the dual world everybody experiences.
The world within and the world without.
The world within is the world of thoughts, emotions and intangibles.
The world without is the world of form, physical objects, events and your current circumstances.
Haanel proposes that your experience of the world without is based on your inner state.
This is a fact known by great philosophers of all ages.
“Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind.”
— Plato
In esoteric circles, this is called The Mirror.
“…a mirror (life) will not smile before you smile.”
— Fredrick Dodson
If you want something to manifest in the outside world, you need to already be that in the inside world.
An entrepreneur who is riddled with a poverty mindset, thinking only about paying the next bill and stuck in survival, won’t escape his circumstances until he changes his mental state.
If he relaxes and starts thinking in terms of abundance and opportunities, his subconscious mind will supply him with the solutions to his problems.
If you are overweight and see weight loss as a struggle filled with limitation, you won’t lose weight.
If you see the journey as an enjoyable experience pushing you forward to greater levels of health and vitality, the weight will fall off.
“Life is an unfoldment, not an accretion. What comes to us in the world without is what we already possess in the world within.”
The world within is primary and life is a derivative.
Life unfolds and reveals to you what your inner state resonates with.
If you want to change your future, you need to start by changing your thoughts today.
Keep in mind there will be a delayed effect, so you will not instantly see the results of your labor.
The Subconscious Mind and The Universal Mind
Haanel explains how the brain is merely an organ for the mind.
The mind resides outside our body in a field of consciousness.
The brain is connected to the body, which allows us to have our physical experience here on Earth.
The subconscious mind, which is responsible for your intuition, has its corresponding organ – the solar plexus.
This is why when you have a ‘gut feeling’ you tend to feel it in your heart/stomach region.
Haanel, like many New Thought teachers, believes the subconscious mind is connected to a higher source – the Universal Mind.
This Universal Mind is the storehouse of all information; it’s what Napoleon Hill called Infinite Intelligence.
Napoleon Hill was largely influenced by Charles Haanel, even writing him a letter of appreciation.
Alignment between minds
Your conscious mind (objective mind) is what you have conscious control over.
If I tell you to design a house, you choose the color, materials and decor.
You will be using your conscious mind for this endeavor.
This is the mind of free will.
This is the mind you must use to think constructively.
The goal is to get the conscious and subconscious minds (subjective mind) working together in the same direction.
“…with this knowledge we can bring the objective and subjective minds into conscious cooperation and thus coordinate the finite and the infinite. Our future is entirely within our own control.”
When this happens you stop self-sabotage and become receptive to genius insights.
As Above So Below
Haanel goes on to explain what some might refer to as God, this Universal Mind.
“There is but one consciousness in the universe able to think, and when it thinks its thoughts become objective things to it. As this Consciousness is omnipresent it must be present within every individual; each individual must be a manifestation of that Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Consciousness.”
When you look at nature, you see many recurring patterns (look at fractals).
You see an intelligent design beneath all things.
You can plant an orange seed in the same soil as an apple seed.
You can give it the same light and food, but it will never yield the same fruit.
This Universal Mind has its intelligence in all things.
Humans MUST have a spark of this creative ability since they were created from it.
What the creator can do at the universal scale, we are able to do at a smaller scale.
Hence the Hermetic axiom ‘As Above So Below’.
What is true at higher dimensions is also true on lower planes.
Thought to New Agers is seen as a spiritual act with the power to influence the physical, which resides on a lower plane.
Stop focusing on outer conditions
Whenever you get stuck focusing on the world without, you become like a dog chasing its own tail.
The outer world will always follow the inner world.
You might change your outer conditions temporarily (by brute force), but in time you will sabotage your own success.
“Most men try to change effects by working with effects. They fail to see that this is simply changing one form of distress for another. To remove discord, we must remove the cause, and this cause can be found only in the world within.”
This is why so many people self-sabotage.
They get their dream partner only to cheat on them and ruin their marriage.
The business starts booming and the CEO sabotages it with some scandal.
You lose all the weight with a crash diet only to put on even more during the holidays.
The world is riddled with these stories.
The common motif is a reluctance to look at the world within.
A reluctance to change one’s thoughts about a subject.
Master Key System Lesson 1 Exercise Explained
Below is the first exercise of the 24-week course.
“Select a room where you can be alone and undisturbed. Sit erect, comfortably, but do not lounge. Let your thoughts roam where they will but be perfectly still for fifteen minutes to half an hour. Continue this for three or four days or for a week until you secure full control of your physical being.”
The point of this exercise is to teach you how to sit still whilst doing your visualizations and meditations. If you are unable to sit still, you will constantly have your attention sucked back into the physical (world without).
To become a creator, you need to learn how to zone the physical out so you can focus on the inner world.
Tips for Exercise 1
If you have never meditated before, 15 minutes might be a bit of a stretch.
Start off with two minutes of sitting still and keep adding two-minute increments as you succeed.
Also, make sure you are sitting in a comfortable chair as this will make your life easier.
If you are struggling to sit still, place your attention on one body part – the feet work well for grounding.
Study that body part with all of your attention (like a scientist), and you won’t have time to fidget.
Do this and you will be one step closer to living and dying well.