The Master Key System vs The Science of Getting Rich

The Master Key System and The Science of Getting Rich teach the same core idea, that one intelligent substance fills the universe and responds to human thought. They use it for different ends. Wallace D. Wattles wrote a short manual for people who want money first and philosophy later, and he asks readers to take his statements on faith. Charles Haanel wrote a 24-part course that treats money as one subject among several and asks students to understand the law and train their attention. This page compares the two books from their texts, using the 1910 first edition of Wattles on Project Gutenberg and the standard text of Haanel's course, and it reports what each author taught without endorsing either.

The two books at a glance

• Authors. Wattles (1860 to 1911) was an American New Thought writer from the Midwest who also ran for office twice as a Socialist Party candidate in Indiana. Haanel (1866 to 1949) was a St. Louis businessman who turned to writing in his forties.
• Dates. The Science of Getting Rich was published in 1910 by Elizabeth Towne of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the publisher of the New Thought magazine The Nautilus. Wattles died the next year. Haanel's course began as a correspondence course around 1912 and appeared as a book in 1916.
• Form. Wattles wrote a preface and seventeen short chapters, ending with a one-chapter summary. Haanel wrote 24 parts in numbered paragraphs, each with an exercise and a set of questions.
• Promise. Wattles promises riches. Haanel promises mastery of conditions, with wealth as one of them.

The shared foundation: a substance that thinks

Both books rest on the same picture of reality. Wattles opens his fourth chapter: "Thought is the only power which can produce tangible riches from the Formless Substance. The stuff from which all things are made is a substance which thinks, and a thought of form in this substance produces the form." Haanel's Part Six says of Universal Mind that "this Mind is not only all intelligence, but all substance."

They even describe that substance in similar terms. Wattles writes that the Formless Stuff "is alive, and is always impelled toward more life." Haanel's Part One says that "every atom is continually striving to manifest more life." And both place the individual inside it. Wattles calls man "a thinking center" who can impress thought on the formless. Haanel writes that "Each individual is but the individualization of the Universal, the Cosmic Mind." Wattles names his philosophical sources in his preface, which traces the "monistic theory of the universe" through Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Emerson.

Faith versus understanding

The clearest difference is in how each author wants to be read. Wattles is blunt: "This book is pragmatical, not philosophical; a practical manual, not a treatise upon theories." He writes for "men and women whose most pressing need is for money; who wish to get rich first, and philosophize afterward." He asks the reader to "take the fundamental statements upon faith," and in Chapter IV he goes further: "Do not ask why these things are true, nor speculate as to how they can be true; simply take them on trust." He even advises against reading books or attending lectures that teach a contrary idea.

Haanel asks for the opposite. His course explains, in part after part, why the method should work, using arguments about cause and effect, electricity and the nervous system. In the introduction to Part Twenty-One he says that understanding the law behind answered prayer "takes the foundation of Christianity out of the realm of superstition and credulity and places it upon the firm rock of scientific understanding." The aim is a student who knows the principle, not one who accepts it on trust.

Money: end or means

For Wattles, getting rich is the goal, and he defends it on principle. His first chapter says it "is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich," and that to be content with less "is sinful." Haanel takes a more guarded line. Part Sixteen opens: "Wealth is a product of labor. Capital is an effect, not a cause; a servant, not a master; a means, not an end." A few paragraphs later he adds: "Wealth should then never be desired as an end, but simply as a means of accomplishing an end." Our page on money and success in the course follows this thread further.

Both men agree that the honest way to wealth is to give more than you take. Wattles tells the reader to "give to every man a use value in excess of the cash value he receives." Haanel's Part Twenty-Three says: "The first law of success then is service."

Creating instead of competing

Here the books come closest. Wattles writes: "You are to create, not to compete for what is already created," and "You are to become a creator, not a competitor." Haanel's Part Ten says: "Constructive thought must necessarily be creative, but creative thought must be harmonious, and this eliminates all destructive or competitive thought."

Both also warn against force, though they aim the warning differently. Wattles's chapter "How to Use the Will" forbids mental pressure on other people: "You have no right to use your will power upon another person, even 'for his own good.'" Haanel, in Part Twenty, warns against trying to force the universal law itself. Forcing compliance "by the power of the individual will is an inverted conception," he writes, because "it antagonizes the very power which it is seeking to use."

Method

Wattles's method fits in a few steps, which his final chapter summarizes. Form "a clear and definite mental image" of what you want. Hold it with steady faith and "a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude" toward the Formless Intelligence. Then act every day "in the Certain Way," doing all that can be done that day and doing each act well. Gratitude carries great weight for Wattles. He gives it a whole chapter and calls it the way to "perfect unity of mind with God."

Haanel's method is a graded training of attention. It begins with the sitting exercise in Part One, moves through relaxation and the release of negative emotion, then into visualization of a friend's face, a battleship and a growing flower, and later into concentration on a single idea. Part Nine adds affirmation, such as "I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy." Gratitude, so central to Wattles, plays no comparable role in Haanel's course.

Claims and evidence

Wattles makes the stronger promise. His preface says that every reader who acts on his statements "will certainly get rich; for the science herein applied is an exact science, and failure is impossible." His last chapter repeats that riches will come in "exact proportion" to the definiteness of the reader's vision and the depth of his gratitude. Haanel also speaks of law that works "with invariable precision," and he prints testimonial letters, such as one in Part Nine, dated March 7, 1917, from a reader who says his experience was published in the March issue of The Nautilus.

Neither book offers evidence in a modern sense. Both present untested metaphysical claims as science, and the idea that thought alone draws money has not been shown to work as described. The practical advice that survives without the metaphysics is similar in both: decide clearly what you want, act on it every day, deal fairly, and give good value.

Which to read

The Science of Getting Rich is short and single-minded, which is much of its appeal. It became newly famous when Rhonda Byrne named it as her inspiration for The Secret. The Master Key System is longer, broader and built around exercises. Readers who want a one-evening statement of the money side of New Thought will find it in Wattles. Readers who want a course of mental training will find it in Haanel. Both are in the public domain, and both belong to the same tradition as later books such as Joseph Murphy's The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963).