The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel --- 26 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Some Questions asked by Correspondents, with the Answers given by Mr. Charles F. Haanel Author and Exponent of THE MASTER KEY

1. In referring to the sub-conscious and conscious minds, or the objective and subjective, which is the technically correct expression, "We have two minds which, although related, are distinct," or, "We have one mind with two distinct functions?"

The correct expression is, "We have one mind with two distinct functions." There are not two minds.

2. Are the Devil in religion, the Negative in Science, and the Bad in Philosophy merely imaginary manifestations of thought energy, or shall we class them as wrong yet real manifestations? If all that we have and are, all of our powers come from one eternal source, to what must we attribute these imaginary entities?

These are not imaginary entities. They are simply perversions. If you use electricity for light, you call it good. If you grasp a wire which has not been properly insulated and it kills you, it is not for that reason bad or evil. You were simply careless or ignorant of the laws governing electricity. For the same reason, the one Infinite Power, which is the source of all Power, manifests in your life either as good or as evil, as you make use of it constructively or destructively.

3. Is not the Master Key Idea of "God" Pantheistic?

This depends entirely upon your idea of Pantheism. Pantheism is a loose term and may be interpreted in various ways, for instance, Pantheism conceives the Universe to be one eternal, involuntary evolution of an Infinite Being, as contrasted with Atheism, which is a positive denial of the Divine Immanence, and Agnosticism, which is a dogmatic doubt of
the existence of God.

4. Is this right? Truth is absolute, but conception of truth varies with the
individual consciousness. Therefore, no one can say when the ultimate
truth has been reached, because no one can say when the individual
230
consciousness has been developed to the point where further
development is impossible.
Yes, truth is absolute, but the conception of truth varies with the
individual consciousness. On the other hand, truth is not a matter of
belief. It is a matter of demonstration. It is not a question of authority,
but a question of perception.
5. Since the real "I" is spiritual and there-tore perfect, and since it
"controls and directs both the body and mind," how is it that we see
such imperfect results?
We see no imperfect results. We see nothing but perfection. Perfection
means that the Law operates with immutable precision. Spiritual law
always operates perfectly. If the individual thinks constructively, results
are constructive, harmonious. If he thinks destructively, he reaps exactly
what he sows. The Law works perfectly. We see no imperfect results
whatever. We may freely choose what we think, but the result of our
thought is governed by an immutable law.
6. "What is Life?"
Life is that quality or principle of the Universal Energy which manifests
in so-called organic objects as growth and voluntary activity, and which
is usually co-existent in some degree, with some manifestation of that
same Universal Energy as the quality or principle termed intelligence.
You must understand that there is only one Supreme Principle, evading
all comprehension of its essential nature. It is the Absolute. Man can
think only in terms of the relative. Therefore, he sometimes defines It as
the Universal Intelligence, the Universal Substance, as Ether, Life, Mind,
Spirit, Energy, Truth, Love, etc. His particular definition at any moment
is governed by the particular relationship of the phenomena of Being in
which he thinks of this Principle at that moment.
7. How is the law governing success or prosperity placed in operation?
The human brain is the finest and most vibrant mechanism in existence.
Every time you think you send a message into the formless energy from
which and by which all things are created. This starts a train of causation
which relates with the things that correspond with the image of your
thought. If your thought is sufficiently refined and concentrated you will
231
be placed in harmony with the object of your thought quickly; if not,
more time will be required. Most persons are busily engaged in
concentrating upon lack, limitation, loss and inharmony of every kind,
and they are therefore attracting these conditions, a few are busily
engaged in concentrating upon success, prosperity and harmonious
conditions generally, and find that their environment reflects the quality
of their thought.
8. How is prayer answered?
The Universal Mind, the Omnipotent Power, the Supreme Being, does
not change the modus operandi of the Universe, in order to comply with
our requests, nor does it make exception, but it does act through wellknown laws, and these laws can be placed into operation, consciously or
unconsciously, by accident or design. It is the operation of this
marvellous law of attraction which has caused men in all ages and in all
times to believe that there must be a personal Being who responded to
their petitions and manipulated events in order to meet their demands.
9. You correctly state that "Possession depends on use." How can this
fact be best explained to show that this is the only way in which to
acquire a "reservoir of power, possession, etc.," to draw on in time of
emergency, etc.?
By illustration: A man desires to strengthen his ann. He wishes it to
become powerful. He does not conserve what strength he has in the arm
by binding it to his side. If he did this, he would soon lose what strength
he already had. On the contrary, he begins to use it, he begins to exercise
it, and he finds that the more he uses it, the more strength is secured.
The more he gives of his strength, the more he gets. The same rule
applies in regard to mental and spiritual strength.
10. "Unless we are willing to think we shall have to work, and the less
we think the more we shall work, and the less we shall get for our
work." Is it possible to conceive of a world in which there are no
"hewers of wood"?
Thought has taken much drudgery out of work, but much so-called
"scientific management" and "efficiency and engineering systems" look
upon millions of human beings as mere machines capable of making so
many motions less or more per hour.
232
To labour is to serve and all service is honourable. But a "hewer of wood"
contemplates blind service instead of intelligent service. Labour is the
creative instinct in manifestation. Owing to the changes which have
taken place in the industrial world, the creative instinct no longer finds
expression. A man cannot build his own house, he cannot even make his
own garden, he can by no means direct his own labour; he is, therefore,
deprived of the greatest joy which can come to man, the joy of achieving,
of creating, of accomplishing, and so this great power is perverted and
turned into destructive channels. He can construct nothing for himself,
so he begins to destroy the works of his more fortunate fellows. Labour
is, however, finding that the Universe is not a chaos but a cosmos, that it
is governed by immutable laws, that every condition is the result of a
cause and that the same cause invariably produces the same effect. It is
finding that these causes are mental, that thought predetermines action.
It is finding that constructive thought brings about constructive
conditions, and destructive thought brings about destructive conditions.
11. You say that "Life is an unfoldment, not accretion; what comes to us
in the world without is what we already possess in the world within."
Do you not take into consideration knowledge a person acquires from
books, experiences, etc.?
You can derive absolutely no benefit from books, experiences,
environment or anything else until you have created brain cells capable
of receiving the thought. Your world within is an exact correspondence of
your world without. Suppose for the moment that you are unfamiliar
with the Hebrew language. A book might be given to you with the most
beautiful thoughts written in the most wonderful language, but it would
mean nothing to you until you had made yourself acquainted with the
Hebrew language, and so with everything else. No thought, no idea, no
experience has any value for us until we are capable of receiving it. For
this reason the same thought would make absolutely no impression upon
one man, while it would be received with amazement and delight by
another. The first man has formed no brain cells capable of receiving it.
The second man is ready for it. He understands the beauties contained in
the idea.
12. Is it correct to say that true religion and true science are "twins"
and that the death of one death the means the death of the other? Why?
233
True science and true religion are certainly twins. There can be no death
for either, because what is true cannot die. "The essential characteristic
of truth is steadfast fidelity to order and Law. The mind takes offence at
every phenomenon of both inner and outer experience which appears to
contradict that steadiness and constancy which it regards as the very
essence of truth." You will see that this applies to both science and
religion. What is true in science must be true in religion. There cannot be
a scientific truth and a religious truth, all truth is one and indivisible.
13. How do Materialism and Spiritualism find harmony in the Master
Key System?
The Master Key System teaches that there is but one Principle—One
Power. That everything which exists is a materialization of this One
Power. The power itself is Spiritual, but the manifestation of the Power is
material. One is subjective and the other objective. Two phases of one
being. We find this everywhere in Nature, Man is a spiritual being, but
he also has a material body. Spirit must manifest upon the objective
plane in an objective manner. The Spiritual in this sense has nothing
whatever to do with what are usually considered spiritualistic
phenomena.
14. What explanation is to be given of the fact that although a great
majority of the people not only throughout Europe but in the United
States are sick of war and want only peace and a return to prosperous
normal conditions, that the return of the desired normal prosperous
conditions is such a slow hard process?
There is, of course, as you say, no desire on the part of anyone for more
war, just as there is no desire for poverty, crime or for any other
destructive condition, but there is, on the other hand, a conscious and a
sub-conscious desire for the things which bring about war, destruction,
poverty and crime, and this lust of power or separation is the old
question of "who is to be the greatest in the kingdom?"
The law is not a respecter of persons. This is true concerning nations as
well as individuals. Nations as well as individuals will eventually learn
that force can always be met with equal if not superior force, and for this
reason can never be the determining factor of any situation.
234
Objective harmony can come only as a result of subjective harmony, and
subjective harmony can come only as a result of vision, understanding
and perception.
15. In the "Acme of Achievement" aimed at by The Master Key, how is it
possible to ignore Theology?
A few centuries ago it was thought that we must choose between the
Bible and Galileo. Fifty years ago it was thought that we must choose
between the Bible and Darwin, but as Dean Inge, of St. Paul's Cathedral,
says: "Every educated man knows that the main facts of organic
evolution are firmly established, and that they are quite different from
the legends borrowed by the ancient Hebrews from the Babylonians. We
are not required to do violence to our reason by rejecting the assured
results of modern research. Traditional Christianity must be simplified
and spiritualized. It is at present encumbered by bad science and
caricatured by bad economics and the more convinced we are of this, the
less disposed we shall be to stake the existence of our faith on
superstitions which are the religion of the irreligious and the science of
the unscientific."
16. What is the meaning of the statement, "Only five per cent. have the
vision to annex the strategic position, to see and feel a thing before it
happens?"
Ninety-five per cent. of the people are busy attempting to change effects.
Something happens which they do not like and they try to change the
situation. They soon find that they are simply changing one form of
distress for another. The other five per cent. are busily engaged with
causes. They know that in order to make any permanent change it is the
cause which they must seek. They soon find that the cause is within their
control. It is the five per cent. who do the thinking, and the ninety-five
per cent. who merely accept the thought of others. It is those only who
think who can see and feel a thing before it happens.
17. What, more explicitly, is to be understood by the term "polarity" as
applied to the mental process?
Polarity is the tendency or inclination of a thought or feeling in a
particular direction. When we think along certain lines continuously the
235
thought becomes polarized, we can see other and different points of view
with difficulty or not at all.
18. What is Truth?
Truth is the imperative condition of all wellbeing. To be sure, to know
the truth and to stand confidently on it is a satisfaction beside which no
other is comparable. Truth is the underlying verity, the condition
precedent to every business or social relation. Truth is the only solid
ground in a world of conflict and doubt and danger.
Every act not in harmony with Truth, whether through ignorance or
design, cuts the ground from under our feet, leads to discord, inevitable
loss and confusion, for while the humblest mind can accurately foretell
the result of every correct action, the greatest, most profound and
penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly and can form no conception of
the results due to a departure from correct principles.
19. How are Germs created?
Creation consists in the art of combining forces which have an affinity
for each other, in the proper proportion. Thus oxygen and hydrogen
combined in the proper proportions produce water. Oxygen and
hydrogen are both invisible gases, but water is visible.
Germs, however, have life; they must therefore be the product of
something which has life or intelligence. Spirit is the only Creative
Principle in the Universe, and Thought is the only activity which spirit
possesses. Therefore, germs must be the result of a mental process.
A thought goes forth from the thinker, it meets other thoughts for which
it has an affinity, they coalesce and form a nucleus for other similar
thoughts: this nucleus sends out calls into the formless energy, wherein
all thoughts and all things are held in solution, and soon the thought is
closed in a form in accordance with the character given to it by the
thinker.
A million men in the agony of death and torture on the battlefield send
out thoughts of hatred and distress; soon another million men die from
the effect of a germ called "influenza." None but the experienced
236
metaphysician knows when and how the deadly germ came into
existence.
As there are an infinite variety of thoughts, so there are an infinite
variety of germs, constructive as well as destructive, but neither the
constructive nor the destructive germ will germinate and flourish until it
finds congenial soil in which to take root.
20. What has given rise to the idea of Reincarnation?
The germ plasma in each generation always contains the sum of all that
has passed before it. The nucleus of every cell contains the chromosomes
and these reproduce the species of nature and condition according to
definite law. Each chromosome, microscopically small as it is, contains
the elements of every other cell in a matured body, plus characteristics of
species, plus characteristics of form and appearance, plus family
resemblance, plus nature, plus mind, plus matured tendencies, plus
everything that makes personality and individuality. We are then
physically exactly what our forefathers were, plus environment and
education. It is this persistency of the identity of the individual
chromosome from generation to generation which has given rise to the
idea of reincarnation.
21. What is Black Magic?
The idea that there is a phenomenon called Black Magic is attributable to
credulity, superstition and a lack of understanding of the laws governing
in the mental world. All thoughts and all things are held in solution in
the Universal Mind. The individual may open his mental gates and
thereby become receptive to thoughts of any kind or description. If he
thinks that there are magicians, witches or wizards who are desirous of
injuring him, he is thereby opening the door for the entrance of such
thoughts, and he will be able to say with Job, "The things I feared have
come upon me." If, on the contrary, he thinks that there are those who
are desirous of helping him, he thereby opens the door for such help, and
he will find that "as thy faith is, so be it unto thee" is as true to-day as it
was two thousand years ago.
22. I do not seem to grasp fully the application of the law of vibration to
the thought world. How, for instance, are we to change the rate of
237
vibration here? In what direction shall it be changed to produce best
results?
Every thought changes the rate of vibration. As you are enabled to think
greater, deeper, higher and more forceful thoughts, the brain cells are
refined, they become more powerful, and they are enabled to receive
finer vibrations.
This is not only true in the mental and spiritual world, but in the physical
world. As the ear becomes trained in music, it is enabled to receive finer
vibrations, until the trained musician can hear harmonies of sound of
which the ordinary person is entirely unaware.
23. Amid the seeming chaos of present day conditions is it not easy to
discern the coming of that dawn which all the great ones of earth have
foretold, the second coming of the Millennium?
One of the characteristic signs of a general awakening is the optimism
shining through the mist of doubt and unrest, this optimism is taking the
form of illumination, and as the illumination becomes general, fear,
anger, doubt, selfishness and greed pass away. We are not looking for the
Christ child, but the Christ consciousness. We are anticipating a more
general realization of the Truth which is to make men free. That there
may be one man or one woman who shall first realize this Truth in the
new era is barely possible, but the preponderance of evidence points to a
more general awakening to the Light of Illumination.

24. You speak about the originating mind that forms, upholds, sustains and creates all there is. Does this explain the source from which comes man's ability to think lack, to think war and crime, etc.?

Yes, this includes man's ability to think lack, war and crime. If he can think constructive thought he can also think destructive thought; but as soon as man learns that thinking is a creative process, that we are creators, not creatures, he will discontinue the process of thinking destruction for himself and his fellows.

25. You are, without doubt, correct in stating that Carlyle's attitude of hatred of the bad was not conducive toward his own best development; on the other hand, what should be the attitude toward the giant evils of the day, such as war, corruption, murder, vice, theft and the like? Is it not often true that a tearing down, a clearing away of the brushwood, so to speak, must precede constructive work?

No, it is not true, the tearing down process is not at all necessary. We do not need to laboriously shovel the darkness out of a room before letting in the light; on the contrary, all that is necessary is to turn on the light and the darkness vanishes; likewise, if but one-tenth of one per cent. of the money and effort were spent in constructive work that is now being spent in destructive work, the giant evils of the day to which you refer would disappear as if by magic.

The unit of the Nation is the individual. The Government represents only the average intelligence of the units comprising the Nation. Therefore, our work is with the unit. When the thought of the individual has been changed the collective thought will take care of itself, but we try to reverse the process. We try to change governments instead of individuals, which cannot be done. But with a little intelligent organized effort the present destructive thought could be readily changed into constructive thought.

Temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great part of mankind; but in truth, the ideas and images in men's minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them; and to these they all pay universally a ready submission.—Jonathan Edwards.