The first year · Lesson 2
The Mental Art
What the Kybalion means by “transmutation,” and what it says THE ALL is
Welcome back. Chapter III opens with a saying: “True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.” It asks you to take an old word from the alchemists and use it for the mind. Then Chapter IV asks a bigger question: what is behind everything? Two chapters, about twenty pages. Let’s open the door.
The reading
- Chapter III: Mental Transmutation The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 43–50 · about 1,248 words, 6 min
- Chapter IV: The All The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 53–63 · about 1,763 words, 9 min
About 15 minutes in all. Each link opens the book at the first paragraph.
Before you read
- Chapter III is short. It says what “Mental Transmutation” means and why the authors think it matters so much. Chapter IV is longer. It tries to reason its way to what THE ALL must be.
- Chapter IV is built like an argument. First the book says what we can’t know. Then it lists three things it says reason tells us, numbered (1), (2) and (3). Then it tests two answers and turns them down before it gives its own.
- Watch for the words the authors borrow from the people around them in 1908: “mental science,” “new-thought,” “treatments.” They tell you a lot about who the book was written for.
- Look for the examples and pictures the authors use to make a point. They are the easiest way in, and the quiz asks about some of them.
In a nutshell
Chapter III: Mental Transmutation
The authors start with an old claim. They say the Hermetists were the first astrologers, alchemists and students of the mind, and that the ancients knew more than modern science gives them credit for. Then they explain their key word. To “transmute” is to change something from one nature or form into another. The old alchemists spoke of changing metals. The book uses the word for changing states of mind. Next comes the big step. If the universe is mental, as the first principle says, then changing the mind could change the world itself. The authors say this is the real “Magic” the old writers talked about. They say today’s mental healers use the same art, but only in part. The chapter ends by pointing ahead to the Principle of Mentalism.
Chapter IV: The All
This chapter asks what lies under all the change we see. Everything around us is born, grows and dies. So, the book says, something real and lasting must be behind it all. Thinkers have given it many names. The book calls it THE ALL. It says no one can know what THE ALL is in itself. But reason can tell us a few things about it. It must be all that really is. It must be without limits in time, space and power. And it can never change. Then the book asks what THE ALL could be. It turns down two answers, and the reasons are worth reading. At last it gives its own answer: THE ALL is a living mind, far beyond ours.
- All that really is
- Nothing can exist outside THE ALL.
- Infinite
- It has no limits. It has always been, is everywhere and has all power.
- Immutable
- It never changes. Nothing can be added to it or taken away.
Highlights
True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.
The whole chapter in one line. The alchemists said they could change lead into gold. The book says the real change happens in the mind.
Nothing endures but Change.
A very old idea. Greek thinkers said much the same thing more than two thousand years ago. Notice how it sets up the question of the chapter: if everything changes, what lasts?
In its Essence, THE ALL is UNKNOWABLE.
A humble line for a book that claims so much. It draws a fence. The book will tell you what THE ALL must be, but not what it is like inside.
But, the report of Reason must be hospitably received, and treated with respect.
The other side of the fence. We can’t know THE ALL in itself, but we can still think about it. The rest of the chapter is that thinking.
"THE ALL" is Infinite Living Mind—the Illumined call it SPIRIT!
The chapter’s answer, and the last line. Hold on to it. The next chapters build on the idea that the universe is a thought in this Mind.
Words to know
- Transmute, transmutation
- To change something from one nature or form into another. The alchemists used it for metals.
- Alchemy
- The old art that tried to change base metals like lead into gold. The book reads it as being about the mind.
- Substance, Substantial Reality
- What really exists under the way things look. The book’s starting name for THE ALL.
- Unknowable
- Not able to be known. The book says this of THE ALL’s inner nature.
- Infinite, Eternal
- Without any limit (infinite), and without beginning or end in time (eternal).
- Immutable
- Never changing.
- Theology, Metaphysics
- Theology is the study of what God is like. Metaphysics is the study of what is real, beyond what we can see. The book is suspicious of both.
- Illumined
- The book’s word for wise people who it says have seen higher truths.
The real story
Our notes, not the book's.
The Kybalion was written for readers of the New Thought movement, and these chapters show it. In the late 1800s, many Americans came to believe that the mind could heal the body. People called this “mind cure” or “mental science.” Healers gave “treatments,” and students repeated “affirmations” and “denials.” Chapter III uses these very words. Chapter IV even says it is not leading you into Christian Science, the best known of these healing churches. The book says these modern methods are weak copies of an Egyptian art. Historians see it the other way around: the Kybalion is a New Thought book that borrows old words, like “transmutation” from the alchemists. Read it that way, and it becomes a window into what many people hoped the mind could do in 1908.
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.