Inside the Master Key System: Charles Haanel on Thought, Destiny, and the Universal Mind | #Success - Ep. 76

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This is the Russell Brunson Show.

Hey, this is Russell.

Welcome back to the vault.

Today, I'm going to show you guys some insanely cool stuff from one of the pioneers of this industry that almost nobody has ever heard of before.

Yet, he was one who inspired and actually helped so many of the top people, in fact, including Napoleon Hill.

I got a testimonial from Napoleon Hill about the course right here that we're going to be diving deep into.

This is the same course, three different publications.

The first one, this is the first edition Master Key System.

I spent exactly $1,324.95 on the first edition master key systems, which is pretty cool.

But then, before the master key system was a book set, it was a home study course.

This is an original copy of the home study course.

What they would do is every single month, they would ship it out.

You go through the lesson, you'd fill it out, you send it back in, and then you get the next lesson.

And so it's almost impossible to find because nobody has all the lessons.

You would fill it out, send it in, and they send you the next one.

So you'd only have the last lesson.

So I found two complete sets.

This one right here, I was able to buy from one of our members at secrets of success one of our members had it spent eight thousand dollars to buy this edition and then this is one other edition i found which is the most pristine copy it looks like it's brand new but is this was published in 1916 and i spent a hundred thousand dollars to acquire this version of the entire home study course so these are all of the master key systems written by charles hannell who's one of my favorite authors from the new thought movement in a minute i'm going to show you guys my favorite lesson i learned from the master key system which is one of the coolest things ever.

And I'm also going to show you Napoleon Hill's actual testimonial that he sent to Charles Hannell, which is inside of some of these books.

But before I do, I want to tell a little bit of the story because you may have heard of this before.

If you have heard Master Key System, there's some big controversy behind it, okay?

So Charles Hannell launched the home study version of the Master Key Systems in 1912.

And then four years later, we came out with the first edition book, and it ran for a long time.

And I said, it changed so many people's lives.

From 1933 to 2003, for 70 years, it was out of print and it disappeared off the face of the planet for the most part, other than old copies that people were sharing and handing around, but it wasn't in print for that time.

And so, because of that, there are all these big controversies.

In fact, if you Google it, you'll see there's people that talked about how the church banned this, and that's why it disappeared.

Like, the churches did not want people finding out about this.

There's other stories and folklore that there were business entities who did not want these secrets of the master key system falling in their competitors' hands.

And there's all these different things about it being banned and literally taken offline.

And we have no idea which of those stories are true or not true, but we do know it was off-print for 70 years until 2003 is when somebody found it, found it in in the public domain, and started reprinting it and bringing it back forward.

And in the last little while, there's a lot of really big celebrities.

Like one good example is Terry Cruz, who literally quotes that his success came from Charles Hannell and the master key system.

So it's kind of a cool thing that was disappeared for so long that it now is back in our world.

Like we can read it, we can study it, and it brings back some really cool philosophies that I think have been lost to time.

Oh, and I'm going to show you actually the ads of how Charles Hannell used to sell this in some of these magazines like Nautilus.

I'll show you that here at the end.

I think my favorite principle came from the whole master key systems.

Okay, the master key system is broken up into 24 lessons, right?

So each week you get a lesson and ship it back.

And all of them, like they compound and they build on each other.

But the very last lesson in the series is my favorite.

The title of it is that you are the architect of your own destiny, right?

And he talks about here how so many people, they look at the circumstances of life and they think like, this is what God gave me.

This is the life I have.

This is my family.

This is where I was growing up.

They think that that is their life.

And what he's trying to show everyone is like, you are literally the architect.

You can design whatever it is you want.

You can design.

If you you want to be rich, you want to be poor, you want to be an athlete.

You have the ability to architect it.

And the way you do that, it all comes back to your thoughts, like learning how to control your thoughts and how to structure things.

You said that your thoughts create your environment, right?

A lot of times we think that the environment we're in is the environment we're stuck in.

You see people who are grown up in poverty and come and become like these

amazing influencers or people.

So it's not the environment you're in.

It's the thoughts that create the environment that you're locked in, you know?

And so what happens a lot of times people are in a bad environment because of that, they hear bad thoughts all the time.

It's going through their head.

And so so they lock themselves in this prison that's not real, right?

These prisons that they're locking themselves are aren't actually real.

And when you learn that, you're like realizing that the environment I'm in is all tied to my thoughts and what's happening here.

Then you can break away and you say, okay, how do I want to architect my life?

What do I want to believe?

What do I need to do to be successful?

What are other people who are successful?

What are they doing?

And how do I tap into that?

And that's one of my favorite lessons from the entire master key system is understanding that and really believing that you are the architect of your life.

If you are the architect, you know, what does an architect do?

It has a vision for like, this is what the building is going to look like.

And based on that, you know, I'm going to design it.

I'm going to map it out.

You start kind of figuring those things out.

Like, that's what you can do as well.

It's come back and say, what's the life that you want?

Right?

Who already has the thing that you desire?

Like, what does that look like?

And you can find people who've already figured it out, right?

People have already built the house that you're trying to build.

And you look at that.

And from there, you can reverse engineer and architect your life.

Tony Robbins calls this modeling.

Like, if you want to be successful, all you got to do is find somebody who's already successful and model them, right?

And that's what architecting is all about, is finding those things, not defaulting to like, here's the environment that I'm born in, therefore I will be this way forever.

It's like, no, no, no, my environment is based on my thoughts.

Let me change my thoughts.

I can change my environment.

I can change my life.

The other really interesting thing he talks about in the master key system, he calls it the universal mind.

Napoleon Healy used to call it infinite intelligence, right?

But basically, it's God, it's the universe, it's this thing.

And he talks about, he's like, all of us are tapped into that, right?

I believe Charles Hannell's beliefs.

A lot of people from the early thought movement, they talk about we have our conscious mind and our subconscious.

And their subconscious minds, what they believe is attached to infinite intelligence.

So what he calls to the universal mind, right?

It's the mind of God across everything, and we're all tapped into that.

And so, what's interesting, think about for most of us, like if we want to consciously figure something out, you've got your five senses.

You can see something, you can smell something, you can taste something, you can hear something, you can feel something.

Like, those are our five senses.

We can get things from those things, right?

From the five senses.

I can go read a book, I can watch a video, I can listen to something, but if I can't get it from those five senses, it's not in my brain.

So, how does our brain get all the other ideas and thoughts and everything?

And their belief, and his belief specifically, is that there's this one universal mind, our subconscious mind, that we're all attached into the infinite, we're all attached to God.

And so when we understand that, it's like, okay, I'm one with God.

Like if I will sit and I will concentrate.

He said, I talk about concentrated thought.

Like you want to have concentrated thought on something, it's not like you're going to read and find it.

You're concentrating your thought to your subconscious mind so God can bring you the answers and hand it to you on a silver platter.

And it's true because think about how many of us in our life, when we're trying to consciously figure out the problem to something, we can't figure it out, we can't solve it, we're studying, we're learning, we're checking chat GPT, we can't figure it out.

And then you take a break and you go to the bathroom or you jump in the shower and you're showering and five seconds later, the answer pops into your mind like what just happened like the answer just popped my head like where'd that come from okay well it came from again what he calls the universal mind it's your subconscious mind that's attached to God he's the one who can give you these ideas that are external from the things that we're getting from our five senses and Napoleon Hill again he calls it the sixth sense like you're tapping into the sixth sense that isn't the things that have been put into your brain these are things that are delivered to you when you need them when you're willing to tap into it I know it's kind of woo-woo for some of you guys out there but you can't deny that these things happen to you where you get an idea that that didn't come from anywhere that didn't come come from me sometimes i'm on stage speaking in a seminar with 5 000 people and something shows up i start talking it turns out to be the thing that people need i'm like i don't where did that come from this is not something i studied or i read or i have had notes on it just magically shows up and the way that charles handling the master key systems explains it is through the universal mind It's interesting, as I've been studying the new thought movement, it's really fascinating.

There's different shades of it, right?

And what I find the most interesting is like when people started, so the new thought movement happened between 1880 and like 1920, right?

And there's all these people who started realizing like i can think and i can change my life right i can think and grow rich i can think and change my circumstance i can think and change my environment right and they're freaking out about this and then over here in america you had this uh you know the beginning of like christianity really coming and growing and a lot of times the christians believed that this stuff was evil and vice versa and uh but there was this time where in between these two like the christian community and new thought movement kind of bumped into each other and it's fascinating because you read a lot of the authors during this time who are trying to reconcile these two things like wait a minute i believe in god and christ but these things are happening How does this work?

And like, is this coming from God?

Is it not coming from God?

And there's this crossover that happens in the middle.

And so for me, like, I really enjoy the crossover where it's like the personal development stuff where you're focusing on thinking in, you know, your mindset, but I believe it's coming from God.

And I'm obviously a Christian, so I believe that it's coming from Christ and those things.

And so, but then inside there, there's this whole other section, which is more of the metaphysical, which then transitions more to, you know, what we would affectionately call more woo-woo stuff.

I like studying those things, but like sometimes it goes deeper than I'm willing to believe.

And I think everyone, for all of us, it's our shot to figure out what do we actually believe or not believe.

Because it goes deep into telekinesis and

all sorts of different levels here inside of people's beliefs and thoughts.

For me, I default a lot more towards understanding the conscious, the subconscious, mind, using thoughts to rewire our subconscious mind.

And I believe God is definitely tied into and part of the whole thing.

But I don't tend to go all the way.

to the purely metaphysical side.

I think for me, as I get closer to those things, I get more and more uncomfortable.

I'd rather stay closer on the spiritual side.

So that's kind of me personally where things fall as I'm studying a lot of the things from the new thought movement.

Okay, so what's cool about Charles Hannell is he was out there, he wrote this, and he wanted to promote it like crazy.

And they said that, oh, I think over the first three or four years, he sold 200,000 copies of the actual Master Key Systems book set.

Like, think about that.

Most people don't sell like 20 copies of their book, and they've got Facebook, Instagram, all the different tools, right?

He's selling this back, way back in the day.

So, how in the world did he sell 200,000 copies of this?

Now, in the thought movement, there are a lot of different magazines that kind of popped up, but there's one specifically, and we'll probably go deep into this woman and her writings in the future, but her name is Elizabeth Towne, and she had a magazine called The Nautilus.

And this became like literally like the distribution channel of all of this kind of work, these books, these magazines, all these kind of things back in the day.

The Nautilus magazine was, I mean, her subscribership was huge.

And so I've been collecting as many editions of this all the way back to the late 1800s, all the way through like 1950, 1960.

This magazine is out there.

And what's interesting is you read these, you see that this was the core way that people got their message out back then.

And so they would come, and so Charles Hannell would come to Elizabethtown and say, hey, I want to write a free article for your magazine.

So he'd write a free article talking about Master Key System.

Then he's like, I want to buy an ad in here talking about master key system.

Okay.

You see Napoleon Hill, same thing.

Napoleon Hill would write articles about thinking and growing rich.

And then he would link in the bio back to buy thinking, grow rich.

And then he would pay for ads about thinking, grow rich inside of here.

So this magazine was the distribution channel.

This was what TV was in the 80s, how to get your message out, right?

This is what the internet is today to get your message out was Nautilus Magazine if you were in the new thought movement.

And so inside of here, I literally just grabbed one off the shelf.

I'm like, I'm pretty sure Charles Hannell promoted it in here.

I grabbed them when this one is from December 1924.

You open it up and page number one, you got the Nautilus news, and then boom, right there is Master Key Systems.

And so right here, Charles Hannell is promoting Master Key Systems.

He says, the Master Key is the key with which thousands and tens of thousands are converting loss into gain, fear into courage, despair into joy, hope into fruition.

It's a concise, definite statement of the mighty law that underlies and controls every living thing.

It is the open sesame to the treasure house of nature.

By it, you may compel conditions by controlling and causing by which the conditions are produced.

And then it goes on and calls out like inventors, mechanics, economists, psychotherapists, chemists, lectures, and da-da-da-da, get a copy of it.

It says, send for your free bookman.

So basically, you send out for a free copy and says, send for a master keys booklet, which will be sent without cost or obligation of any kind, and has an address.

So you would watch that, and then you would send out, send me a copy, and then they would ship you out a copy of the book set, and then you send it back money afterwards.

and so that's how it worked and literally you see ads for the master key system in front of almost every magazine that was published during this time so inside of Napoleon Hill's Hill Golden Rule magazine boom Charles Hannell was promoting it inside of yeah basically all the publications back there almost 100% time you open it you'll see Charles Hannell promoting the master key system so kind of exciting just the first magazine I grabbed today literally had it right there on page number one And now I want to take you guys to the testimonial.

So Napoleon Hill, I'm not sure if he got the home study version.

Can you imagine if this was Napoleon Hill's copy of it?

That would be insane.

Maybe it is.

I don't know.

Napoleon Hill read it or he read the book, but somewhere as he was growing and developing, he found this book set.

He found these lessons.

He studied them.

And this is the actual testimonial he sent back to Charles Hannell.

April 21st, 1919, it says, Mr.

Charles F.

Hannell, St.

Louis, Missouri.

Dear Mr.

Hannell, you probably know from the editorial in the January issue of Hill's Golden Rule, copy of which my secretary sent to you that I began 22 years ago as a coal miner at a dollar a day.

I had just been retained retained by a $10 million corporation at a salary of $105,200 a year for a portion of my time only.

It having been agreed that I shall continue as the editor of Hill's Golden Rule.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Therefore, I believe I ought to inform you that 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 Systems.

You are doing a good work by helping people to realize that nothing is impossible of accomplishment which a man can create in his imagination.

Surely my own experience proves this.

I shall cooperate with you in getting your course into the hands of the many who are so greatly needed.

This message.

Cordially and sincerely, Napoleon Hill, editor.

And one thing's kind of crazy, later in his life, after Charles Hannell passed away with Napoleon Hill was in later years, he actually also wrote a book called The Master Key Systems.

In fact, I think I have it on the shelf.

Do you guys want to see it?

If I can find it real quick.

So you may wonder, where did Napoleon Hill get the idea for this title?

The Master Key to Riches?

I'm assuming it came from Mr.

Charles Hannell.

And check this out.

This was a signed copy, September 1948, to Mary from Napoleon Hill with Love.

So there's a signed copy of Napoleon Hill's version of Master Key to Riches.

So there you go.

Definitely inspired him.

And Charles Handel is the man.

If you haven't heard of him yet, I highly recommend reading The Master Key Systems.

Obviously, it's a rare book out there.

I did go through the entire book and I got my notes.

So if you want to see my best notes, things I learned the best, my favorite things from the Master Key Systems, down in the description, click on the link, go to the notes page, and you can download my notes from the book and get the highlights of the best things from the Master Key Systems.

You can take those ideas, plug them into your head, and start applying them instantly inside inside of your life.

It's interesting when I look at these authors.

The authors who seem to still be around and still relevant today are the ones who, first of all, they were great marketers and advertisers.

They got their message out to a lot of people.

When they die, who is the person that takes over their estate afterwards?

Like one of the most brilliant things that Napoleon Hill did is before he passed away, he set up the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

He set up a president, CEO, all sorts of stuff.

So there was like a secession plan when he passed away.

With Charles Handel, I don't know the story exactly, but after he died, it stopped.

There's 70 years where this book was no longer published.

There wasn't like a predecessor or a kid or a foundation that was taking this and community message to go out there.

It just kind of ended.

Whereas these other people, the ones who more people are familiar with, are the ones where they're able to figure out how to extend their legacy past their life.

And unfortunately, it's true of so many authors where they spend their life creating and figuring out and writing these books, and then they go out there and they publish them.

And within a generation, within years, then 10 years, like people forgot about them.

And so I think for any of us who are impact-driven entrepreneurs, who are trying to figure out the impact, which is for me, it's like, someone once asked me at one of my inner circle meetings like why are you buying all these old books and i said uh the reason why i'm buying these and republishing and sharing the stories is because the vehicle that i will have to create to extend the lives of these authors are the same vehicle that i will be able to use to extend my life for me like i want my message to continue to go beyond my generation i die i mean another good example is maxwell maltz one of the greatest books of all time psycho cybernetics right and most people never heard of it they've been influenced by it i guarantee because most of the teachers of today have used his ideas to to teach and to frame but because he's his message, and I think he sold like 40 million copies of the book in the 60s, and no one's heard of him anymore, right?

I think it's because after he passed, the family didn't know what to do with it, and it just disappeared.

And so, if you are legacy-driven, like me, make sure you're thinking about like

how do you make sure that when you end, the message doesn't, and that's how you live forever.