The Seven Hermetic Principles: Mentalism, Correspondence and the Rest

The seven Hermetic principles are a set of metaphysical axioms that form the doctrinal backbone of the modern Hermetic tradition. They are most commonly associated with the Kybalion, a short book first published in 1908 by the “Three Initiates,” a pen name widely believed to refer to William Walker Atkinson. Although the Kybalion presents these principles as ancient Egyptian teachings handed down from Hermes Trismegistus, the consensus of historians is that they are a 19th- and early-20th-century American New Thought synthesis, drawing on older Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and occult sources rather than directly on any ancient Egyptian text. The broader story of Hermeticism and the orders that use it is treated elsewhere, as is the question of what the Rosicrucians made of these ideas. The wider context of the Western esoteric tradition of which the principles are a part is treated in the linked overview.

The seven principles are Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender. Each is presented in the Kybalion as a universal law of nature and consciousness, derived from the larger Hermetic axiom that “The All is Mind.”

1. Mentalism — “The All is Mind”

The principle of Mentalism is the foundational claim of the Kybalion. It holds that the entire universe is mental in nature, that mind is the substrate of all matter, energy, and event, and that “The All” is itself a kind of infinite living mind. From this first principle the other six are said to follow.

In practice, the principle is used to teach that thought is causative, that consciousness shapes reality, and that the material world is a kind of externalization of mind. This has affinities with 19th-century American New Thought, with Christian Science, and with the mental-creation doctrines of various occult and Theosophical writers. The principle of Mentalism has no known ancient Egyptian source. The “mind is everything” doctrine is closer to Indian Advaita Vedanta, European German Idealism, and American Transcendentalism than to anything in the Corpus Hermeticum.

2. Correspondence — “As above, so below; as below, so above”

The principle of Correspondence is the most famous of the seven. The phrase “as above, so below” is taken from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, a brief, cryptic alchemical text that has been enormously influential on Western esotericism since at least the 10th century. The Kybalion restates the principle as the claim that there is a correspondence between the planes of reality — the physical and the mental, the macrocosm and the microcosm.

In practical terms, the principle is used to justify symbolic and analogical thinking: by studying the patterns of one plane of existence, one can infer the patterns of another. This is the principle behind the use of planetary symbols in astrology, of Sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and of the stages of the alchemical Magnum Opus.

3. Vibration

The principle of Vibration holds that nothing is at rest, that everything moves, vibrates, and cycles, and that the differences between matter, energy, mind, and spirit are differences in the rate or mode of vibration. The Kybalion uses this principle to explain the relationship between matter and mind: matter is “spirit vibrating so slowly as to seem solid,” and the higher, finer, faster vibrations are the spiritual planes. The principle has affinities with 19th-century physics, which had recently discovered that light, heat, and electricity were all forms of wave motion. New Thought and Theosophical writers were quick to apply the new wave physics to metaphysics, and the Kybalion’s principle of Vibration is a representative example.

4. Polarity

The principle of Polarity holds that everything is dual, that opposites are identical in nature, differing only in degree, and that they can be transmuted one into the other. Heat and cold, light and dark, love and hate, are not absolutely different things but the same thing at opposite ends of a spectrum. In practical use, the principle is invoked in mental healing: by changing one’s mental attitude, one can transmute a negative emotion into its positive opposite. The principle is one of the most clearly New Thought elements of the Kybalion.

5. Rhythm

The principle of Rhythm holds that everything has a natural ebb and flow, that there is a “measure” in all things, and that every phenomenon rises and falls, swings forward and back. The tides, the seasons, the breath, the pulse, the cycle of history, the rise and fall of civilizations — all are examples of rhythm. The principle is used in practice as a counsel of moderation and patience: every negative state will pass, every positive state will pass, and the wise person learns to ride the rhythms rather than be carried away by them. There is also a darker side: the Kybalion suggests that the Hermetist can learn to “neutralize” or escape the rhythm by rising to a plane of consciousness above it.

6. Cause and Effect

The principle of Cause and Effect is, on its surface, the most familiar: every cause has its effect, every effect has its cause. The Kybalion adds that the chain of causation runs upward, that the ultimate cause of every event is to be found in the realm of mind, and that the wise person learns to rise above the plane of material causation into the plane of mental causation. There, the Hermetist is said to be able to “rise to the plane of the causes” and act as a cause rather than an effect. The principle has obvious affinities with Theosophical karmic causation, with the New Thought idea that thoughts are causes, and with the Hermetic idea of the magician as one who has learned to act on the world from the mental plane.

7. Gender

The principle of Gender holds that gender is present everywhere, on every plane, in every thing. The Kybalion does not mean biological sex. It means the principle of generation, of the active and the receptive, the masculine and the feminine. Every act of creation involves both a masculine, projecting force and a feminine, receptive, gestating force. Mind is said to be masculine, matter feminine, and the entire creative process of the universe is a play of these two principles. The principle has affinities with Chinese yin and yang, with alchemical sulphur and mercury, with the Kabbalistic pairing of Chokmah and Binah, and with the alchemical conjunction of opposites at the heart of the Magnum Opus. It is one of the more philosophically rich of the seven principles.

Authorship, Sources, and the Question of Provenance

The most important critical point about the seven Hermetic principles is that they are almost certainly not ancient. The Kybalion acknowledges that “the lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Reason” and that the principles “are not new” — but the historical evidence is that they are new, and that the Three Initiates were a single American author writing in 1908. William Walker Atkinson was a prolific writer on New Thought, yoga, mesmerism, and the occult, and the Kybalion fits within his earlier works. The seven principles have had an enormous influence on the modern Hermetic revival. They are the core doctrine of AMORC, they are taught in various forms by the Rosicrucian Fellowship, and they are the starting point of most modern introductions to Western esotericism. They are part of a much longer history of secret societies and esoteric transmission. The average modern reader who encounters Hermeticism for the first time is far more likely to encounter them in the Kybalion than in the Corpus Hermeticum itself.

Sources and Further Reading

The standard scholarly treatments of the Kybalion are Wouter Hanegraaff, Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013), and the older but still useful Ernest Fortin, “The New England Miltonists” in *Interpreting America (1991). For the Hermetic texts themselves, the standard modern critical edition is Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (1992). For the Emerald Tablet, the critical edition is still the Latin/Arabic/Greek apparatus in Hermetica (Copenhaver), and the relevant articles in Ambix (1960s onward). The authorship question is treated in the essay by Hanegraaff, “The Pseudo-Longinus and the Kybalion” in Aries (2005), and in Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (1994). For William Walker Atkinson, the standard biographical treatment is by R. T. Jeston, “The Mystery of the Three Initiates” in Theosophical History (2008).

The Hermetic orders and Theosophy cluster, Rosicrucians, alchemy and secret orders, Kabbalah and secret societies, and esoteric traditions and mystical orders cover the surrounding context.