Charles Haanel - a plagarizer?

[darthangel]

I've read many self-help books and one that I have read that is highly-reputed is Charles Haanel's Master Key System. I admit that the ideas are very good/ maybe a bit too idealistic, but nevertheless he opened my mind to a fresh perspective.

However, I also picked up a several books that were written a few years before called "In Tune with the Infite" by Ralph Waldo Trine and William Walter Atkinson's books also known as Thermont Q. who wrote "The Power of Concentration," "The Secret to Success," and basically most of the books that were the foundation of the secret.

Anyway if you check out these books you'll see that Haanel has extracted complete sentences from Trine's book "In Tune with the Infinite" when he talks about the infinite power that lies within all of us, etc... and also lifting sentences from William Walter Atkinson's books. I'm not going to go into detail and extract all the quotes and compile them, but if you compare the books you will have no doubt that it is plagarism. Sure, the ideas of all the New Thought thinkers were similar but I encourage whoever reads this to research for him/herself, especially comparing Ralph Waldo Trine's In Tune with the Infinite with Haanel's Mastery Key System.

Well, I hate to be long-winded with an issue so archaic but the bottom line is that Haanel compiled the best ideas from his contemporaries and god knows who else into his book the Mastery Keye System and somehow got away with it apparently with nobody noticing. I'm not sure what it was back then, but in these times that is plagarism. Sure, the ideas of all the New Thought thinkers were similar but I encourage whoever reads this to research for him/herself and you will find the exact quotes lifted.

Granted I know hes long dead and the copyright has expired so nobody cares but it still useful to point out that the prime reason that his book was big hit was because his ideas were not all his own, but a combination of the best contemporary thinkers of New Thought.

[newmark]

I've also seen a blog which prints 'The Master Key' without acknowledging Charles Haanel. And the blogger then proudly accepts compliments on the helpfulness of the article.
So the pattern continues.