Legacy

Haanel and The Secret: Influence and Revival

2026-10-10 · About 5 minutes

For most of the twentieth century, Charles Haanel was a name known mainly to readers of New Thought. That changed in 2006, when Rhonda Byrne released The Secret, first as a film and then as a book. The Secret put the law of attraction in front of millions of people, and it brought Haanel back into print in a big way. This page looks at what The Secret actually takes from Haanel, how it differs from him, and how the wider revival of The Master Key System has played out, including modern study groups.

The Secret in brief

The film The Secret premiered online on 23 March 2006, and an extended edition followed later that year. The book version, by Rhonda Byrne, was published in November 2006. Helped by an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, it became a publishing phenomenon. It has reportedly sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into about 50 languages.

Byrne has said where the project began. She told Newsweek that her inspiration was Wallace D. Wattles's The Science of Getting Rich (1910), which her daughter gave her during a hard period in her life. Commentators on the film have also pointed to other New Thought sources, including William Walker Atkinson, Prentice Mulford and Robert Collier. Haanel belongs in that group, and in his case the evidence is on the page.

What The Secret actually says about Haanel

The Secret quotes Charles Haanel by name, and it does so repeatedly. Widely shared reader lists of the book's quotations, which give page numbers from the original edition, count about a dozen passages attributed to him. That makes him one of the most quoted historical writers in the book.

We checked several of those quotations against the 1919 text of The Master Key System. They trace back to it clearly:

  • "The predominant thought or the mental attitude is the magnet, and the law is that like attracts like" comes from Part Twenty-One (XXI, 12). Reader lists place it early in The Secret, where the law of attraction is first explained.
  • A line about the combination of thought and love forming the irresistible force of the law of attraction comes from Part Twelve. Haanel's original reads: "It is the combination of Thought and Love which forms the irresistible force, called the law of attraction." (XII, 21) The version in the quote lists is slightly reworded.
  • A line saying that Universal Mind is not only intelligence but substance comes from the same Part (XII, 19), where Haanel writes that "The Universal Mind is not only Intelligence, but it is substance."

We have not verified every quotation in The Secret against a printed copy, so if you need exact wording for research, check the book itself. But the pattern is clear: The Secret uses Haanel as an authority, quotes his own words, and places him among the historical figures it presents as having understood the law of attraction.

Byrne's book does not present Haanel's system as a whole. It does not reproduce the 24 Part structure, the weekly exercises, or his theory of the solar plexus. It borrows lines, mostly about attraction, vibration and the power of the mind, and sets them alongside interviews with modern teachers.

How The Secret differs from Haanel

Reading the two side by side shows real differences in emphasis.

  • Feeling versus love. Byrne stresses that the combination of thought and feeling attracts what you want. Haanel stresses thought combined with love, and ties love to giving and service.
  • Asking versus training. The Secret teaches a simple creative process: ask, believe, receive. Haanel asks for weekly practice: the sitting exercise, inhibiting thought, relaxation, concentration and visualization. He insists that "Work is necessary, labour, hard mental labour" (VII, 4).
  • Getting versus creating. Haanel warns against trying to influence others or take from them, calling that the "law of force." The Secret focuses more on personal wishes, including money and possessions, which drew much of the criticism the book received.
  • Science language. Both borrow the vocabulary of physics. Haanel used the electrons and vibrations of the early twentieth century. The Secret leans on quantum physics. Scientists and skeptics, including writers in the Skeptical Inquirer and the New York Times, rejected The Secret's scientific claims, and the same objections apply to Haanel's.

The Master Key revival

Haanel's text was already circulating before 2006. Because it is in the public domain in the United States, publishers were free to reprint it, and free versions were online, including the 1919 edition at sacred-texts.com. But the success of The Secret sent many readers looking for its sources, and Haanel was one of the most obvious names to follow.

The result was a flood of editions: paperbacks, study editions, combined volumes with Wattles, audiobooks and free downloads. A 2007 book by Karen Kelly about the sources of The Secret also discussed Haanel. Much of the marketing around these reprints repeated old legends about the book, which we examine on our page about Master Key System myths.

Some well known people have spoken about it since. In Tim Ferriss's 2017 book Tribe of Mentors, the actor Terry Crews named it as a favorite, saying he had read hundreds of personal development books but that this was "the one that clearly showed me how to visualize." That is his personal testimony, not evidence that the system works, but it shows how the book reaches new readers.

Modern study groups

One reason The Master Key System suits group study is its original format. It was sold as a 24 week correspondence course, with one Part, a set of questions and an exercise each week. That rhythm translates easily into a weekly class or reading circle.

The best known organized program is the Master Key Experience, run by Mark and Davene Januszewski. According to its own promotional material, it began with small study groups in 2004, moved online in 2010, and has enrolled more than 4,000 people. It runs as a paid course of about six months with weekly classes and small groups led by guides. We have not independently verified those figures. The program adds its own material to Haanel's text, so it should be understood as a modern interpretation rather than the original course.

Alongside paid programs, there are informal reading groups, forums and online communities working through one Part a week. Anyone can start one, since the text is free.

Belief, history and evidence

The history is clear enough. Haanel's ideas fed into The Secret, the book quotes him directly, and The Secret in turn revived interest in his work. The belief at the center of both, that thought draws matching circumstances by a natural law, has no demonstrated scientific basis. A 2023 study from the University of Queensland, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that strong believers in manifesting felt more successful but were not more successful by objective measures.

For readers, the more useful lesson may be the contrast. If The Secret introduced you to these ideas, Charles Haanel offers a slower, more demanding version, built on daily practice, attention and an ethic of not taking from others. Whatever you conclude about the metaphysics, it is worth reading the original rather than the quotations.

References

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