Note from Greygray: The Kybalion was published in 1908 under the pen name “Three Initiates.” Scholar Philip Deslippe identified the sole author as William Walker Atkinson in the 2011 Tarcher/Penguin definitive edition. It is one of the most cited texts in 20th-century occultism and self-help literature, often without attribution. You have almost certainly read ideas from this book without knowing their source.
What the book is: a clear, readable reduction of Hermetic philosophy into seven operable principles. What it isn’t: ancient. Atkinson wrote it in the American New Thought tradition, drawing on classical sources he interpreted freely. Read it knowing that, and it becomes more useful, not less.
The text below is the 1908 public-domain edition. If you want the definitive scholarly edition with Deslippe’s introduction (worth the price alone), find it on Amazon →
The Seven Hermetic Principles
“The Lips of Wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding.”
I. The Principle of Mentalism
“THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.”
The first principle is that everything that exists does so within Mind. Not that mind creates matter in a naive sense, but that the nature of the All — the underlying substance of everything — is mental rather than mechanical. The universe is not a machine that thinks; it is a thought that has the qualities we call physical.
How to use it: when you notice that the story you are telling about a situation changes what the situation is — not just how you feel about it, but what actions become available, what you see, what you miss — you are working with this principle. The world does not change; the mental frame does. The mental frame is not decoration.
II. The Principle of Correspondence
“As above, so below; as below, so above.”
The most quoted line in Western esotericism. The principle: the same patterns that operate at the level of galaxies operate at the level of atoms, at the level of cells, at the level of human relationships, at the level of thought. Not metaphorically — structurally. The spiral that organizes a galaxy is the spiral that organizes a nautilus shell. The pattern of a tide is the pattern of sleep.
How to use it: if you are confused about something at one scale, look for the same pattern at a different scale where it is easier to see. The same dynamic that is playing out in your body is probably playing out in your house, in your work, in your relationships. Find where you can see it most clearly. Start there.
III. The Principle of Vibration
“Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.”
All things are in motion. Matter at the atomic level is not still; it is motion at a rate slow enough to appear solid. Thought is motion. Sound is motion at a rate the ear can detect. Color is motion at a rate the eye can detect. The differences between states of matter — solid, liquid, gas, energy — are differences in the rate of motion, not in fundamental kind.
How to use it: the things you cannot change directly — a mood, a physical state, an emotional pattern — are states of motion. States of motion can be altered by introducing a different motion. This is why music affects mood. This is why breathing affects thought. This is why tuning forks work at all: not magic, physics. A coherent external oscillation pulls an internal one toward it. That is a physical fact, not a promise.
IV. The Principle of Polarity
“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree.”
Hot and cold are not different things. They are the same thing at different positions on a scale. Love and hate are not opposites in kind; they are intensities of the same relational energy. Fear and excitement are the same physical state at different valences.
How to use it: if you cannot move from one pole directly to the neutral, try moving toward the opposite pole. The man who cannot stop hating someone may find it easier to work with the indifference that exists between hatred and love than to leap from hatred to warmth. Travel along the pole, not across it.
V. The Principle of Rhythm
“Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall.”
Every process that moves in one direction also moves back. The pendulum. The tide. The breath. The year. The mood. There is no permanent high and no permanent low; there are swings. The width of the swing varies. The rate varies. The rhythm itself does not stop.
How to use it: when you are in a low, the knowledge that the swing is mechanical — that it will move back without any action on your part — is not passive. It frees you from treating the low as a verdict. When you are at a high, the same knowledge protects you from over-committing to conditions that are going to change. The Hermetics called the practice of this principle “neutralization” — refusing to be carried so far by the swing that you lose your footing when it reverses.
VI. The Principle of Cause and Effect
“Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause.”
Nothing happens by chance. Every event is the effect of a cause; every action becomes a cause of effects. This does not mean the causes are always visible or that the chains are short. It means the world is law-governed, not arbitrary. What appears as luck is cause-and-effect operating at a scale or speed you are not tracking.
How to use it: the question is not whether you are subject to cause and effect — you are. The question is whether you are generating causes or whether you are only ever an effect. Most people are carried by the currents they do not notice. The work is to notice the currents and, where possible, to set some of your own in motion.
VII. The Principle of Gender
“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles.”
The seventh principle is the most misread. Atkinson does not mean biological sex; he means the two modes of generative force that operate in all processes. The Masculine principle: the projective, the active, the giving, the initiating. The Feminine principle: the receptive, the containing, the gestating, the manifesting. Both are necessary. Both are present in every phenomenon and in every person.
How to use it: when a project stalls, the question is whether it is failing on the Masculine side (not enough initiation, not enough projection outward) or the Feminine side (not enough gestation time, not enough receiving of what the world is giving back). Most action-oriented people fail on the second. Most contemplative people fail on the first.
Chapter Summaries
The book’s first three chapters introduce the Hermetic philosophy and the nature of the All. Chapters four through ten address each principle in sequence. The final chapters — on Mental Transmutation and the Hermetic Axioms — describe how the principles operate together as a practical system.
The most important practical chapter is the one on Transmutation: the idea that because all mental states are positions on a pole, a skilled practitioner can move along the pole deliberately rather than being moved by circumstance. This is the core claim of the book and the thing that makes it useful rather than merely interesting.
The rhetoric is dense and repetitive in places — Atkinson was a prolific writer who published over a hundred books under various pen names, and it shows. Read it slowly. Each principle builds on the one before it. The principles do not make full sense in isolation.
Want the full text in book form? The 1908 public-domain edition above is the complete philosophical content. For the definitive scholarly edition with Philip Deslippe’s introduction and Atkinson’s previously unpublished follow-up work, find it on Amazon (affiliate link) →