The first year · Lesson 1
The Master Key
What the Kybalion says it is, and its seven principles
Welcome. Our first reading is short: two chapters, about twenty pages. The book opens with a saying: “The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding.” In other words, a teaching only makes sense when you are ready to listen. You are here, so let’s begin.
The reading
- Introduction The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 7–14 · about 1,233 words, 6 min · optional It says much of what Chapter I says. Read it if you like the story; skip it if you want to get going.
- Chapter I: The Hermetic Philosophy The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 15–24 · about 1,542 words, 8 min
- Chapter II: The Seven Hermetic Principles The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 25–39 · about 2,545 words, 13 min
About 21 minutes in all, not counting the optional part. Each link opens the book at the first paragraph.
Before you read
- Chapter I is the book telling its own story: where it says its ideas came from and why they were kept secret. Chapter II is a map of the whole book. Each of the seven principles gets its own chapter later on.
- The words in quotation marks that end with “—The Kybalion” are the old sayings. Everything else is the authors explaining them. Read the sayings twice.
- Don’t let the capital letters slow you down. Writers of 1908 used them for Big Important Ideas.
- Look for the everyday examples the authors use to explain each principle. They are the easiest way in, and the quiz asks about them.
In a nutshell
Chapter I: The Hermetic Philosophy
The authors say their teachings began in ancient Egypt with a great teacher named Hermes Trismegistus, which means “thrice-great Hermes.” They tell us that the Egyptians later worshipped him as the god Thoth, and that his followers kept his teachings secret. Only students who were ready were taught, often by word of mouth. That is why we still use the word “hermetic” to mean sealed tight. The authors say the Kybalion was a set of short sayings passed from teacher to student and never written down until now. This little book, they say, prints those sayings and explains them for modern readers.
Chapter II: The Seven Hermetic Principles
This chapter lists the seven principles that the rest of the book is built on. Each one starts with a saying from the Kybalion. Then the authors explain it in a page or two, with examples from daily life. Here they are in plain words.
- Mentalism
- Everything that exists is a thought in one great Mind, which the book calls THE ALL.
- Correspondence
- The same patterns repeat at every level, from the very small to the very large.
- Vibration
- Nothing is ever truly still. Things differ because they move at different rates.
- Polarity
- Opposites are really the same thing, only different in degree.
- Rhythm
- Everything swings back and forth, like a pendulum or the tide.
- Cause and Effect
- Nothing happens by chance. Every event has a cause, even when we can’t see it.
- Gender
- Two forces, which the book calls masculine and feminine, work together in everything that is made.
Highlights
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.
The book’s promise in one line. The “Magic Key” here is understanding. The rest of the book tries to earn this promise.
THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.
The first principle, and the book’s favorite. Almost every later chapter comes back to it.
As above, so below; as below, so above.
The most famous line in the book. It is much older than the Kybalion. You will meet it again in the Emerald Tablet, the text this site is named after.
Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.
Short enough to remember on a walk. Try it.
When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom.
You may know the newer version: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” People often call that saying ancient, but here it is in a book from 1908.
Words to know
- Hermetic
- Having to do with Hermes Trismegistus and the teachings named after him. Also, sealed tight.
- THE ALL
- The book’s name for the one great Mind that it says everything exists in.
- Principle
- A basic rule that other ideas are built on.
- Axiom, maxim, precept
- Three words for a short saying that states a rule. The Kybalion is a collection of them.
- Neophyte, Initiate, Hierophant, Adept
- Ranks of students and teachers, from beginner (neophyte) up to master (adept).
- Plane
- A level of being, such as the physical, the mental and the spiritual.
The real story
Our notes, not the book's.
The Kybalion says it is very old. Historians think it is not. It was first printed in Chicago in 1908 by the Yogi Publication Society. Most scholars think its real author was William Walker Atkinson, who ran that publisher and wrote many books for the New Thought movement of his day. The book even names “The Law of Attraction,” a New Thought idea, at the end of Chapter I. The old writings that really carry the name of Hermes were written in Greek in the early centuries after Christ, not in the time of Abraham. None of this makes the book less worth reading. It became one of the most read occult books of the last hundred years. Just read its history as the book’s own story, not as fact.
Quiz
Answer from the notes or the reading, in any order; you can change an answer at any time. Each answer says why, with a link to the page.