The first year · Lesson 8
Knowledge for Use
The Kybalion’s last chapter, its working sayings, and a look back at the seven principles
Welcome back, and well done. This is our last reading from the Kybalion. Its final chapter opens with a saying: “Knowledge, like wealth, is intended for Use.” In other words, a teaching you only store away does you no good. So as you read, ask yourself which of these ideas you will still remember a year from now.
The reading
- Chapter XV: Hermetic Axioms The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 213–223 · about 1,739 words, 9 min
About 9 minutes in all. Each link opens the book at the first paragraph.
Before you read
- Chapter XV is the shortest chapter in the book, about ten pages. It is a list of sayings, each with a short comment. The book calls them axioms. Then the book simply ends.
- Each saying looks back at a principle you have met: Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Mentalism. Try to name the principle as you read each one. It is a good way to review the whole book.
- Here the authors turn to advice about moods and feelings, in the style of 1908. Read it as what the book says, the way you have read the rest. The quiz asks what it says, not whether it works.
- Watch for the everyday pictures the authors use to explain each saying. They make the ideas easy to hold, and the quiz asks about them. And notice which saying the book chooses for its very last line.
In a nutshell
Chapter XV: Hermetic Axioms
The chapter opens with the Law of Use. The authors say the old teachings were kept secret, but they were never meant to be locked away. Knowledge that is not used is wasted. Then they give a handful of sayings from the Kybalion, each with a comment. Most of them lean on Polarity. A mood and its opposite are two ends of one thing, the book says, so a mind can move from one end to the other. The same skill, it says, lets the Master rise above the swing of Rhythm, and above the ordinary push and pull of Cause and Effect. The book ends where it began. Change is a mental art, because the universe is mental. The very last word is FINIS.
- The Law of Use
- Knowledge is meant to be used, not hoarded.
- Mood and Vibration
- To change a mood, change its vibration. The book says the Will steers the Attention, and Attention changes the vibration.
- Polarity
- The book says an unwanted state fades when the mind dwells on its opposite pole.
- Transmutation
- The mind can be changed from state to state, like the metals of the alchemists. This saying first appeared in Chapter III.
- Rhythm
- Polarity can cancel out the swing of Rhythm.
- Cause and Effect
- There are higher and lower planes of cause. The laws of the higher can overcome those of the lower.
- A Mental Art
- True Hermetic change happens in the mind.
Looking back over the whole book (our words, not the book's)
Here is one way to see the Kybalion as a whole. Mentalism is the ground floor. Everything is a thought in the mind of THE ALL. Correspondence says the same laws work on every plane. So what is true of the mind is true of the world, and the other way round. Vibration, Polarity and Rhythm tell how things move. They vibrate, they have two poles, and they swing between them. Cause and Effect says nothing happens by chance. Gender says two forces work together in everything that is made. Chapter XV then puts the seven to work. Its claim is that a mind which knows these laws can move with them, not be pushed about by them. That is the “Magic Key” the book promised you back in Chapter II.
Highlights
The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals—a vain and foolish thing.
The last lesson starts with a warning. A book so fond of alchemy compares unused knowledge to a miser’s gold. It wants you to use ideas, not just collect them.
To change your mood or mental state—change your vibration.
The Principle of Vibration from Chapter IX, turned toward feelings. Short lines like this one are a big reason the book is still quoted today.
Rhythm may be neutralized by an application of the Art of Polarization.
Two principles joined in one line: Rhythm (Chapter XI) and Polarity (Chapter X). The book first described this “Law of Neutralization” in the chapter on Rhythm.
Nothing escapes the Principle of Cause and Effect, but there are many Planes of Causation, and one may use the laws of the higher to overcome the laws of the lower.
This brings back Chapter XII. Notice the word “Planes.” The idea of higher and lower levels runs all through the book, ever since the chapter on Correspondence.
True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art.
You first met this line at the top of Chapter III. The book closes its teaching with it, and then with the first principle of all. It ends right where it began.
Words to know
- Aphorism
- A short, wise saying. The book uses it side by side with “axiom.”
- Transmutation
- Changing one thing into another. The book means changing one mental state into another.
- Polarization
- Settling at one pole, or end, of a pair of opposites. To “polarize” yourself, in the book’s words, is to hold to one pole.
- Law of Neutralization
- The book’s name for rising above the swing of Rhythm, so that it no longer carries you along.
- Planes of Causation
- Levels of cause and effect, from lower to higher.
- Will and Attention
- Will is the power to choose. Attention is where the mind is pointed. The book says the first steers the second.
- Mental Miserliness
- The book’s phrase for hoarding what you know and never using it, like a miser with gold.
- FINIS
- Latin for “the end.” Old books often printed it on the last page.
The real story
Our notes, not the book's.
The Kybalion calls itself Hermetic, so it is fair to ask what the real Hermetic writings are like. The best known are the Corpus Hermeticum, a set of short Greek texts from the early centuries after Christ. Most are talks between teacher and pupil. In one, Hermes has a vision of a being called Mind. In others, Hermes teaches his son Tat about God, the world and the soul. You will not find the seven principles listed in them. John Everard put these texts into English as The Divine Pymander, and his 1657 edition is on this site, later in the hermetic track. The Kybalion itself has been reprinted again and again since 1908, and its principles turn up in many modern self-help and “law of attraction” books. So it is not the ancient book it claims to be, but it has shaped a great deal of later writing. Read the Pymander one day, and you can judge the family likeness for yourself.
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.