The Kybalion is an exegetic text of gnostic wisdom attributed to Hermes Trismegistus whose anonymous authorship was mysteriously published under the pseudonym "the Three Initiates." Hermes Trismegistus is Greek for "thrice great Hermes," and the title given to Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom. The three initiates remain unknown.
Speculation has been made as to who the initiates were with the most likely candidates including Paul Foster Case and William Walker Atkinson, occult peers and contributors to the New Thought movement popular in the early 1900s.
Originally published in 1912, The Kybalion purports itself as a master key of wisdom with the intent of uniting the disparate bits of information that students of the occult are likely to collect over the course of their seeking. The Kybalion does not advocate a specific methodology or doctrine, but instead seeks to illuminate through the basic principles of cosmic law. It serves as a magical text in that by its own account, it falls only into the hands of those souls that are ready to receive it.
The Seven Hermetic PrinciplesAccording to The Kybalion, "The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key before whose touch all the Doors of the Temple fly open."
Critical to the text, The Kybalion focuses on seven attributed principles of gnosticism based on Hermetic concepts. These seven principles include:
- Principle of Mentalism – "All is Mind." Everything which exists is the expression of the divine mind.
- Principle of Correspondence – "As above, so below." There is always a correspondence between the laws and the phenomena of every plane of being and life.
- Principle of Vibration – "Nothing rests, everything moves, everything vibrates." Everything has a vibration which eminates from the All, and that the higher the vibration, the higher the position on the cosmic scale.
- Principle of Polarity – "Everything is dual." Everything has its opposite, and that the opposites are the same, only differing in degree.
- Principle of Rhythm – "Everything flows." Everything there is a measured motion, a to and a fro.
- Principle of Cause and Effect – "Every cause has its effect, and every effect its cause." Everything happens according to law and that there is nothing which is chance.
- Principle of Gender – "Gender is in everything." Masculine and feminine principles are at work within every aspect of creation.
Interestingly enough, many of the principles of the more popular manifestation teachings such as The Secret and Law of Attraction teachings today had their initial, if unattributed, beginnings in the writings of The Kybalion.
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