Master Key System Study Questions and Answers

Every part of The Master Key System closes with ten study questions, each followed by a short answer. Across the 24 parts that makes 240 questions in all. Charles Haanel used them to test whether a student had understood the week's lesson. Read together, they also work as a compact outline of the whole course, in his own words.

Where the Questions Came From

The Master Key System was first issued in 1912 as a correspondence course, and it appeared in book form in 1916. Students received the course one part at a time by mail. The 1919 St. Louis edition describes the arrangement plainly:

"The Master-Key System comes in twenty-four parts, one part is mailed each week. Each part has a series of questions by which your understanding of the lesson is tested."

The same passage says students were "invited and urged to ask any and all questions that may occur to you concerning the lesson or the application of the principles in question to your own particular problem." So the questions ran in two directions. Haanel asked his questions, and the student could send back questions of their own.

Letters printed in that 1919 edition show students mailing in their answers. A. T. Clarke wrote from an army supply base in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 3, 1919: "Herewith, I am sending you my answers to the questions in Part 24 of the Master-Key lessons." Ten days later, Horatio A. Johnson of Oakland, California, began his letter: "In sending you my answers to Part Twenty-four, I feel not unlike one who has just completed a most interesting voyage of discovery in uncharted seas."

How the Questions Are Built

The questions follow the lesson closely. Most are short and direct, and most answers are one sentence, often taken almost word for word from the numbered paragraphs of the same part. In the modern editions checked for this article, the questions are numbered straight through the course, from 1 in Part One to 240 in Part Twenty-Four, instead of starting again at 1 each week.

Within a part, the ten questions usually form a chain. Each answer sets up the next question. Part One shows the pattern:

• "What is the world without in its relation to the world within?" Answer: "The world without is a reflection of the world within."
• "Upon what does all possession depend?" Answer: "All possession is based on consciousness."
• "How can the Individual act on the Universal?" Answer: "The ability of the individual to think is his ability to act upon the Universal and bring it into manifestation."
• "What is the result of this action and interaction?" Answer: "The result of this action and interaction is cause and effect; every thought is a cause and every condition an effect."

Some answers are only a word or two. In Part Four, "What is thought?" is answered "Thought is spiritual energy." The question "What is the secret of Power?" gets a one-word reply: "Service." The next question asks why, and the answer is "Because we get what we give."

Sample Questions with Haanel's Answers

A few more examples, taken from across the course, show the range of subjects the questions cover.

Part Two: the subconscious

"What method is necessary in order to impress the subconscious?" Haanel answers: "Mentally state what is wanted." The whole part is about the conscious and subconscious mind, and this answer gives the practical point in five words.

Part Eight: imagination

"How does imagination differ from day dreaming?" His answer: "Day dreaming is a form of mental dissipation, while imagination is a form of constructive thought which must precede every constructive action." This is the idea behind the visualization exercises that run through the early parts.

Part Eleven: belief

"What is the formula for the unerring solution of every individual problem?" Answer: "We are to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled; its accomplishment will then follow." The next question asks which great teachers advocated it, and the answer is "Jesus, Plato, Swedenborg."

Part Seventeen: concentration

"What is the true method of concentration?" Answer: "To become so identified with the object of your thought that you are conscious of nothing else."

Part Twenty-Two: science and religion

"Is this system scientific or religious?" His answer is "Both. True science and true religion are twin sisters."

Part Twenty-Four: what thinking means

"What is meant by thinking?" Answer: "Clear, decisive, calm, deliberate, sustained thought with a definite end in view."

The Same Question, Asked Again

One useful thing the questions reveal is how Haanel returns to an idea and answers it differently as the course goes on. The secret of power is the clearest case. In Part Four the answer is "Service." In Part Five the same question, "What is the Secret of Power?", is answered "A recognition of the omnipresence of omnipotence." In Part Twenty-One he asks, "What is the real secret of power?" and answers: "The consciousness of power, because whatever we become conscious of is invariably manifested in the objective world and is brought forth into tangible expression."

The Universal Mind gets similar treatment. Part One describes it as the life principle of every atom. By Part Twenty-Four the answer to "What is the Universal Mind?" is "The totality of all mind in existence." Reading these answers side by side shows how the course builds one layer on another, which is one reason Haanel wanted students to take one part per week instead of reading straight through.

The Question Section at the End of the Book

Many editions also close with a separate section of general questions and answers. These read like questions sent in by students, on subjects such as the two minds, prayer, pantheism and theology, each followed by Haanel's reply. One reads: Is not the Master Key Idea of "God" Pantheistic? The reply begins: "This depends entirely upon your idea of Pantheism." This end section is a different thing from the 240 study questions. It is not tied to any one part, and not every edition prints it.

How a Reader Can Use the Questions

The questions are most useful when you treat them as a test instead of a summary to skim. A few practical ways to use them:

• Answer before you look. Cover the printed answer, write your own from memory, then compare. The original students wrote out their answers and mailed them in, and doing the same on paper shows quickly which parts of the lesson did not stick.
• Find the paragraph. For each answer, find the paragraph in the lesson that it comes from. This sends you back into the text and shows how Haanel builds his argument.
• Review the whole course. After all 24 parts, read the 240 questions and answers in one sitting. They give a short review of the course, and they pair well with a part-by-part summary.
• Keep claims and evidence apart. Many answers state Haanel's beliefs as settled fact. Part Five, for example, says at least ninety percent of our mental life is subconscious. Part Twenty-Two answers the question of how sickness may be eliminated with "By placing ourselves in harmony with Natural Law which is Omnipotent." These are his New Thought teachings, not established findings, and nothing in them replaces medical care.
• Ask your own questions. The 1919 edition urged students to write in with questions of their own. A notebook of your own questions on each part keeps that part of the method alive.

If you are following a weekly study plan, the questions fit naturally at the end of each week, after the daily exercise and before you move on to the next part.

A Small Part with a Large Use

The study questions take up only a page or two in each part, and many readers pass over them. Yet they show what Charles Haanel himself thought mattered most in each lesson. Answering them honestly, in writing, is one of the simplest ways to study The Master Key System the way it was first meant to be studied.