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As might befit my presence on any given platform on the Internet, and to help continue the fight to clarify what the deal is about this book that keeps rearing its head in discussions it has no business being in, here's a FAQ regarding "The Kybalion" and Hermeticism that (I sincerely hope) will be the only thing I (or others) ever need to point to going forward.
"The Kybalion" is not a Hermetic text, despite its frequent claiming to be one. It is rather a text representative of New Thought, a New Age movement that arose in the early 1900s. For more information on the history and development of "The Kybalion", as well as its connections (or lack thereof) to Hermeticism, please take a look at these articles and podcasts:
What Magic Is This, ""The Kybalion" with Nicholas Chapel" (August 7, 2021)
The Modern Hermeticist, "Is "The Kybalion" Really Hermetic?" (December 26, 2021)
Despite how much this book loves to call itself Hermetic, "The Kybalion" is not a Hermetic text. Rather, it is an invention of William Walker Atkinson, a prolific author and pioneer of New Thought who wrote under the pen name "The Three Initiates" (along with his other pen names like "Theron Q. Dumont" and "Yogi Ramacharaka"). Although "The Kybalion" claims to be based on an ancient compilation of doctrines also called ""The Kybalion"" that it attributes to Hermēs Trismegistos, no such compilation as a text has ever been discovered, the doctrines within it do not match with those of either the philosophical/theoretical or practical/technical Hermetica, the terminology used within it is foreign to classical texts of any kind but rather match cleanly with New Age terminology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries CE, and it generally lacks any notion of theology or theosophy present in the actual Hermetic texts. Although many modern occultists love "The Kybalion" and despite many people becoming interested in Hermeticism because of "The Kybalion", "The Kybalion" is not a Hermetic text, and is only "Hermetic" in the sense that it has been adopted by many modern Hermeticists and esotericists rather than by any virtue of its own. This isn't to say that "The Kybalion" is entirely without worth depending on your perspective (New Thought can be profoundly useful for some people!), but the fact remains that it is not Hermetic, and so there's no need to discuss it in a Hermetic context or as a source of Hermetic doctrine or practice.
If it comes across like people hate or dislike "The Kybalion" in places or groups that discuss Hermeticism, then it's almost always for the sole (or principal) reason that "The Kybalion", as a text, does not belong in collections of Hermetica because it is fundamentally off-topic. To be sure, there are plenty of places that can accommodate discussions that touch on "The Kybalion", whether specifically or about New Age-related or miscellaneous esoteric stuff more generally, and other people might have specific issues with "The Kybalion" in terms of its content or doctrines, but really the only major complaint that many people make about it (myself included) is that it is not a Hermetic text despite its purporting to be one.
When it comes to studying Hermeticism, the basics are the fundamentals, and the fundamentals to Hermeticism lie in the classical texts that we can all historically and substantiatively agree are Hermetic. For that reason, it's encouraged to at least familiarize oneself with the classical texts first. For the cheap-and-quick start TL;DR, I would recommend getting these two books first:
If you get these two books (both are well-priced and good-quality modern translations of three separate Hermetic texts between them), you'll be well-situated to learning about Hermetic doctrine, practices, and the like.
However, if you can, I'd also recommend getting:
If you get all those, you'll have high-quality translation(s) of all currently-extant classical Hermetic texts with a good few post-classical/medieval ones, complete with plenty of scholarly references, notes, introductions, and appendices for further research and contemplation.
For scholarly and secondary work, I'd also recommend:
Because "The Kybalion" has basically nothing in common with them. It's true that there's often a good bit of disagreement and disparity between some of the Hermetic texts and yet which are all still considered part of the same "genre", but this shouldn't be overstated or overblown: there's far more in agreement between the Hermetic texts than there isn't, and what isn't always in agreement are often matters of detailed interpretations or conjectures regarding the specific nature of the cosmos and how things fit together in a particular worldview that don't often impact the more important points they make. Even if the Hermetic texts differ in the details, they are still a cohesive group with a common underlying worldview and purpose. In contrast, the worldview and purpose of "The Kybalion" is itself fundamentally at odds with those of all the rest of the Hermetic texts combined.
Sure! If you're interested in New Age doctrines and practices or the history of their development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or if you're interested in New Thought or the related modern movements of Mesmerism, Christian Science, or Theosophy, then "The Kybalion" is an important work to read, even if only for its impact on the development of modern esoteric literature and thought generally. Moreover, although this is fundamentally a matter of personal opinion, some people truly do seem to get useful advice or help out of "The Kybalion", especially since it can best be understood as a kind of early attempt at a self-help book (although modern self-help books grounded in actual psychology would probably still be better). There are plenty of reasons why one might read "The Kybalion", but none of those are about Hermeticism.
Basically, but it's more that "The Kybalion" just appropriates the label of "Hermeticism" as a sort of window-dressing for the sake of making its doctrines seem older (and therefore more authoritative or universal) than they are, and therefore easier to sell Atkinson's brand of New Thought. Consider that you could change all of the following about "The Kybalion" accordingly:
...and nothing about "The Kybalion" would meaningfully change in either substance or consistency, except that people unfamiliar with actual Daoism, its teachings, and its practices would be asking about it in Daoist groups instead of Hermetic ones. (As a fun note, a similar thing to the above actually happened with another of Atkinson's set of books under the name "Yogi Ramacharaka" presenting a blend of New Thought and a broadly-interpreted Western-centric notion of Hinduism as being simply Hinduism, although, to his credit, he seemed to show more fluency with that than he did Hermeticism itself.)
There is no such thing; "The Kybalion" is not a translation of any text, but an original production in English. The notion that it is a "translation" of some older text is misleading; even "The Kybalion" itself claims that it is a "compilation of certain Basic Hermetic Doctrines" passed down from "the early days" of time immemorial, but that such a compilation only existed as an oral tradition and was never written or printed ("so far as we know"). The hypothesis of some ur-Kybalion is a literary farce intended to create the illusion of antiquity while obviating a need for any extant evidence of existence because it is supposed a hidden oral tradition, even though there is no concrete claim as to who would have maintained such a tradition.
The "Seven Hermetic Principles" are basically just from "The Kybalion", and are representative more of late 19th/early 20th century New Thought and New Age stuff than anything Hermetic; moreover, you simply won't find any such set of seven axioms in the Hermetic texts neatly laid out or even discussed as such. However, the history of the "Seven Hermetic Principles" can be a little more nuanced than this. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, in part of their introduction to their 1884 translation of "The Virgin of the World", talk about a set of principles (though not as clearly laid out) that Atkinson seemed to have ripped off for "The Kybalion" (and that in a way that shows he didn't understand Hermeticism, but treated it more as a means to an end to propagate New Thought and sell more of his books), and in that light, Kingsford/Maitland's discussion does reference classical Hermetic justifications for some of this, but even then, it's used to support a late 19th century approach to magic and esotericism than they have to do with classical Hermeticism as such. Mary K. Greer once wrote a blog post that tried to establish the origin of "The Kybalion" in Kingsford/Maitland's work:
Mary K. Greer, "Source of The Kybalion in Anna Kingsford's Hermetic System" (October 2009)
...although I note that there are still a number of differences between what Kingsford/Maitland were writing about and how they wrote about it, and that Greer's linking of Kingsford/Maitland's commentary and what's in "The Kybalion" often reads as a stretch and modern interpolation of ancient texts using unspoken assumptions regarding their scope and context.
Putting aside that this simply isn't the case and that many of "The Kybalion"'s laws are simply spiritual hot (mis)takes based on the popular science of the time (in much the same way people nowadays insist that divination or astrology works because of something to do with quantum physics), or which otherwise perpetuate bad Victorian-era/Edwardian-era Eurocentric notions of esotericism and spirituality (especially that of gender, see more here and here) that are not found in other traditions or worldviews (and so do not bind any aspect of the cosmos except in our own approaches to it), "The Kybalion" can say whatever it wants about whatever it wants, and that still doesn't make it Hermetic (or, for that matter, accurate, correct, factual, or true).
That itself is a nuanced debate! The issue here is that what we conventionally consider "mind" is not the same thing as the Hermetic notion of nous, the divine faculty and awareness of God, the Truth and the Good itself, which is what God fundamentally "is". Because Hermeticism is a monist and panentheist mysticism, one can say that there is fundamentally only God and that all things are in God, but whether God is Mind (as in CH I) or whether God is not Mind but the Source of Mind (as in CH II) leads to different interpretations and discussions. It's a nuanced and difficult topic to summarize, but at the end of the day, what the classical Hermetic texts might have to say about the mentality of the universe just isn't what "The Kybalion" would say about it, even if it might seem superficially similar.
"The Kybalion" borrowed one thing from one Hermetic text, the Emerald Tablet, and that was the paraphrase of one of its opening lines: "as above so below". This is the only thing "The Kybalion" actually contains from any Hermetic text—and even then, "The Kybalion" misinforms its readers about where it comes from, saying that it comes from its own invented ur-Kybalion as opposed to an actual Hermetic text. Nothing else in "The Kybalion" can be said to meaningfully come from the Emerald Tablet, or the text the Emerald Tablet itself is found in, the Book of the Secrets of Creation (Kitāb sirr al-ḫalīqa) attributed to Apollonius of Tyana (aka Balīnūs), an encyclopedic treatment of alchemical concoctions and magical talismans.
That said, the Emerald Tablet itself postdates pretty much all the classical Hermetica, and is on the threshold between classical and post-classical stuff. When we talk about "classical Hermetic texts", we refer to texts like the Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, Stobaean Hermetic Fragments, and the like, all of which were composed circa 100 to 400 CE, centuries before the Emerald Tablet is conjectured to have been written at the earliest. And when you look at all that and the contexts that gave rise to the various magical and alchemical texts that are considered to be "technical Hermetica" that gave rise to texts like the Emerald Tablet and Book of the Secrets of Creation, there's plenty in there that just doesn't really mesh with the stuff in "The Kybalion", which is itself more at home among late 19th/early 20th century New Thought, and otherwise New Age beliefs.
Alchemy is an ancient spiritual discipline that is often associated with Hermeticism, although I should note that it technically started apart from it. Like Hermeticism, alchemy originates in Egypt, but specifically in the metallurgical, dyemaking, and other trade guilds employed by or associated with Egyptian temple institutions, and was later "spiritualized" by people like Zosimos of Panopolis into a distinct approach to spirituality, much how Chris Brennan of The Astrology Podcast and I once discussed how classical Hermeticism itself might have been a "spiritualization" of astrology into its own way of living:
Chris Brennan and Sam Block, "Hermeticism and Ancient Astrology" (February 16, 2022)
Although associated with Hermeticism from an early point, not all alchemy is Hermetic, and not all Hermeticism is alchemical, either; at its core, alchemy can be used as an approach to Hermeticism, but it is not a requirement of or cause for Hermeticism.
Moreover, although there has always been an internal aspect to alchemy, it's not alchemy if you're not actually doing the necessary external alchemy that works with physical materials and their properties in a process of change and refinement in order to trigger the according internal alchemy. Many notions regarding the spiritualization of alchemy could be seen to be applied separately from the practical (or "lab") implementation of it, leading to a generalized notion of "spiritual alchemy" as something that happens apart from lab alchemy, but that doesn't mean that only doing the former is equivalent to doing the latter; "spiritual alchemy without lab alchemy" is just spiritual stuff generally, and it shouldn't be called "alchemy" except in that it uses alchemical metaphors, any more than one would call "going on a diet" to be the equivalent of bodily exercise except in some metaphorical way.
In that sense, "The Kybalion" simply makes use of alchemical metaphor and language (and derives much of it from plenty of other extant works, or at least the popular conception thereof) to describe its own esotericism, but isn't itself alchemical in any sense beyond metaphorical, which means it's not even an alchemical text—and, regardless, it still isn't Hermetic.
Now this is surprisingly a difficult topic to discuss! In addition The Modern Hermeticist's podcast I pointed out at the start of this post, there's also Dr. Justin Sledge's ESOTERICA excellent podcast about this topic:
There's no clean or clear answer to this question given the historical development, use, and evolution of the term "Hermetic" since its original inception as a kind of monist mysticism in a Greco-Egyptian philosophical/religious context during the Roman Empire. Indeed, it could well be argued that there isn't even any one single kind of "Hermeticism" out there, and the use of the one and same term as if it were just an overarching -ism might well be doing us all more harm than good at this point.
For me, something is "Hermetic" if it:
In that light, I find myself nodding in agreement with Chapel's concluding notes from his essay "The Kybalion's New Clothes", and quote it here since he put it better than I could:
Hermeticism has long appropriated ideas and even entire systems which have not originated from within its own milieu. As a heavily syncretic movement both in ancient and modern times, it incorporates an eclectic mix of topics. To the original Graeco-Egyptian pagan gnosticism of the Corpus Hermeticum, Renaissance scholars added Jewish Kabbalism and angelic magic. John Dee contributed an entire scheme of Enochian thought and practice. In the seventeenth century, Rosicrucianism flourished under the banner of Hermes Trismegistus. The Golden Dawn contributed its para-masonic ritual influence and provided a coherent structure the likes of which hadn't been seen since Agrippa's De occulta philosophia four and a half centuries earlier. Even these, however, represent the logical evolution of the Graeco-Egyptian magical literature of the so-called "technical Hermetica," and evince a focus on the divine that is entirely lacking in The Kybalion.
In the end, just because the term "Hermetic" can be fuzzy doesn't mean that it can mean anything one wants or that it's all about your vibes.
Not at all! For the same reasons as I pointed out Chapel's concluding remarks above, I fully recognize that "Hermeticism" has indeed evolved in ways that go well beyond what was seen in Hellenistic Egyptian times, and many works of mysticism and magic have been written across the Arabic-speaking and European worlds for the past 1500 years. Although my own specific wheelhouse and interest is in the classical period of Hermeticism and Hermetic texts, especially given that the focus on the religious and mystic aspects of it largely abated in favor of the more magical and technical ones following the widespread closing of pagan temples during the Roman Empire, I do not deny that Hermeticism has since grown to encompass, adapt (or be adapted by), or adopt (or be adopted by) other traditions and practices that serve to expand the means and methods of Hermetic practice and philosophy. Although I may not always be keen on Christian Hermeticism, Islamic Hermeticism, the various blends that Solomonic magic or Freemasonry-structured spirituality make with Hermeticism, or the like, I also acknowledge how Hermeticism has served as a nourishing undercurrent for plenty of mystics for the past millennium-and-a-half.
Even so, "The Kybalion" has nothing to do with these, nor is "The Kybalion" the text of a "Hermeticism 2.0". It has a separate origination that is nearly entirely untethered from the wellspring of Hermetic spirituality and practice.
Atwood's 1918 book is a great example to illustrate some of the above questions! I wouldn't say that Atwood's book is "phony Hermetica", but this is where we get into issues involving the historical reception and later use of the term "Hermetic". As the centuries passed and as the attribution of later texts to Hermēs Trismegistos focused less on mysticism (which made use of astrology, alchemy, magic, etc.) and more on various and sundry kinds of astrology, alchemy, magic, etc. apart from a mystic focus, we see a shift in the use of "Hermetic" as a label to refer to things that are generically esoteric and often syncretic with Jewish kabbalah, Solomonic magic, Freemason-esque lodge-based initiatic systems, and the like. This is largely a result of how some texts got preserved or rewritten after the classical/original period of Hermeticism, since we see a drop-off in mystical/philosophical/theoretical texts being written around the widespread closing of pagan temples in the late Roman Imperial period, and a subsequent rise in the more magical and alchemical stuff. As the magical/practical/technical literature spread and "carried on" the name of Hermēs Trismegistos, so to speak. As a result, when we see the recovery of the Corpus Hermeticum in Renaissance Italy, we end up seeing a sort of split between the humanist Hermeticists of the Mediterranean and the alchemical Hermeticists elsewhere in Europe, and the two uses of that term end up both splitting and merging time and again in the subsequent centuries. As a result of all that historical mess, what we end up with is a situation where you can have a number of different people who can all lay claim to the term "Hermetic" to describe their various esoteric practices and beliefs with varying levels of historical validity and accuracy, but none of whom might see anything "Hermetic" about anything else others might be doing.
In that light, Atwood's book (and many books like it) can indeed be considered "Hermetic" in a broader sense of "Western esotericism" that mingles alchemy (not all of which itself is necessarily Hermetic in a strict sense), kabbalah, and other things together, as a derivative of earlier texts and traditions, some of which do ultimately come from classical technical Hermetica. However, does that mean it's Hermetic in the sense of how I meant above? Not really, except as a possible way to implement some of the lessons and teachings of Hermēs Trismegistos from the classical texts.
That said, the difference between Atwood's book and "The Kybalion" is that "The Kybalion" lacks any sort of historical connection to anything Hermetic, as well as basically lacking anything of substance that can be found in the Hermetic texts. While Atwood (and a good number of other esotericists) can indeed inherit the label "Hermetic" to one degree or another, "The Kybalion" instead only appropriates the label "Hermetic" to describe itself without justification. Similarly, it's also worth mentioning that Atwood makes no pretenses about her book being a primary source of Hermeticism, but simply a discussion of it, while "The Kybalion" invents a primary source from whole cloth.
If you're referring to esoteric orders like the Builders of the Adytum (who claim that one of their founders, Paul Foster Case, participated in the writing of "The Kybalion" together with Atkinson and Michael Whitty) or some instances of the Golden Dawn (or some approaches to self-initiation into it, like the one written by the Ciceros in their Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition), it should be noted that these groups are often highly eclectic and focus on more than the mere study of Hermeticism. As mentioned earlier, although they represent natural evolutions of spiritual practice that center on or otherwise incorporate Hermeticism, they also have a lot going on that is as much Christian or otherwise variously pagan in one sense or another without being specifically Hermetic, instead using Hermeticism and Hermetic teachings as a tool in an expansive toolbox. After all, many such groups also include various texts on Jewish mysticism, Platonism, Gnosticism, Christianity, modern psychology and anthropology, and the like, and that doesn't make all of those texts all of the same tradition, either. Additionally, just as the fundamental issue of "The Kybalion" is that it appropriates the label of "Hermetic" for itself without an actual tie to Hermeticism, there are groups who do likewise, merely calling themselves "Hermetic" without being grounded or influenced by anything actually Hermetic, including those whose principal text is itself "The Kybalion".
Arguably, I suppose. At the same time, however, people who study "The Kybalion" and then try to get a glimpse into what Hermeticism actually teaches will run into problems when they begin to study actual Hermetic texts due to the stark differences between the two. The confusion that results from trying to find New Thought doctrines in the Hermetica (or, conversely, Hermetic doctrines in "The Kybalion") requires one to either compartmentalize, unlearn, or simply forget what "The Kybalion" has to offer and start fresh, or will cause the reader to simply gloss over actual Hermetic texts as being "too difficult" or "too old" as to be relevant, which only cements their misinformed ignorance regarding them. Even if "The Kybalion" is a gateway for some to Hermeticism, then we need to remember that we shouldn't linger at the gate but pass through it and move on. In the end, the cost really may not be worth the benefit, and it'd be better to start people off with actual Hermetic texts all the same.
There are plenty of people who are so sentimentally attached to "The Kybalion", even to the point of a cultish fervor, that any amount of mild criticism or quiet suggestion that there are possibly other books more valid to discuss in the context of Hermeticism than "The Kybalion" yields plenty of upset responses. Yes, it's not from everyone who likes "The Kybalion", some of whom can hold delightfully reasoned conversations about it, but it's really quite a surprisingly large number of people who can't manage that. Heck, I made a Kybalion Bingon't scoresheet once upon a time, with a good number of entries being things said to me on Reddit or elsewhere about it.
Part of this, I think, is that "The Kybalion" is often someone's first esoteric book, and to that end, it often opens a window a crack (not even really a whole door) to a fresh breeze of spirituality. When someone is setting out on their spiritual journey, that really can be a lifechanging experience; good for them! The issue arises when people cling to that as some sort of fundamental revelation when, substantiatively, there's not a whole lot going on in the book beyond "there are things out there" or "think different" (especially when you consider how much of the book wastes ink and paper on fluffing itself up), and think that "The Kybalion" is the be-all end-all of esotericism. That sort of fond memory of it can certainly color someone's perception of the book, even long after they've put it down or moved on. It also doesn't help that Atkinson literally wrote the book "The Psychology of Salesmanship" and could well be said to be a spiritual godfather of viral marketing, coupling that with New Thought techniques to get people to buy more of his works. (That's legitimately one of the reasons why "The Kybalion" has been among the most published texts for over a century; it was literally written that way to be popular by someone who understood how to make things popular for marketability's sake.)
When you couple these two facts together, it's hard to not see "The Kybalion" as an engineered sort of meme (in the technical sense) that weasels its way into people's minds, cementing and perpetuating itself as something more meaningful than it is. It basically functions like a hook that catches people, especially when you're fresh into esotericism and can otherwise be taken advantage of by hucksters and charlatans. When you brush up against that conditioning that the language of "The Kybalion" puts on people, it can (like any sort of anti-cult confrontation) rile people up.
The only time I would "police" such a distinction is if maintaining such a distinction were meaningful. Much as how one shouldn't talk about classical Spartan civic history when discussing current events in Greek politics, there are often good distinctions to be made when raising the interpretations of various Hermetic doctrines between Iamblichus' 4th century "Reply from Abammon" to Lodovico Lazzarelli's 15th century "Crater Hermetis"—but that's not what I'm doing here. Rather, what I'm doing is pointing out a difference between Hermetic texts and non-Hermetic texts, and "The Kybalion" belongs firmly to the latter category. Too many people take "The Kybalion"'s claims of its own Hermeticness (like its own subtitle of it being "A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece") at face value without any investigation or consideration of what Hermeticism meaningfully entails as a term or system. In this light, "The Kybalion" isn't a nonclassical Hermetic text to separate from classical ones—it's just not a Hermetic text at all.
"Gatekeeping" means controlling or restricting who can belong or have access to something, but that's not what I'm doing; I'm not saying that people cannot be Hermeticists or that they cannot study Hermeticism. All I'm doing is pointing out the factual and historical reality that, no matter how much some might people want it to be, "The Kybalion" is not a Hermetic text. As part of that, I'm pointing out what texts actually are Hermetic so that they can better become Hermeticists (and be better Hermeticsts at that, besides), better equipped to discuss and understand Hermeticism. As a result, what I'm doing is arguably the exact opposite of gatekeeping, in that I'm trying to bring more people into Hermeticism instead of trying to exclude them. Just because some people feel or have been mislead to believe that "The Kybalion" is Hermetic just because it says so doesn't actually matter in the face of actual textual comprehension and historical review; going on vibes only takes one so far.
Also, just because someone disagrees with you or offers historically-grounded counterevidence to show that a particular perspective (no matter how popular) might be misinformed is not "gatekeeping". Gatekeeping is a matter of power dynamics and (mis)use of authority. Meanwhile, I'm just some person on the Internet with thoughts and opinions (albeit informed ones); if you think my thoughts and opinions (no matter how well-researched) are somehow slighting your dignity and identity as a Hermeticist-who-doesn't-study-or-practice-Hermeticism when the only thing that makes you think you're a Hermeticist is that you've read "The Kybalion", then you're misunderstanding what I'm saying as well as blowing my personal importance to you way out of proportion.
(This accusation keeps being flung at me in so many cases when I bring up how "The Kybalion" isn't a Hermetic text, and it makes me laugh every time.)
For the same reason you wouldn't go to a Christian Bible study group and start talking about the Qur'ān, to a Talmud study group and start asking about the Daodejing, or to a Buddhist pātimokka recitation and insisting the monks address the anthropology of hairstyling practices, mixing and blending various and sundry texts merely because you like their vibe only results in making an unsavory, distasteful slush of traditions. Some texts and discussions are just off-topic for particular fields, so if you want to learn more about Hermeticism, it helps to focus on things that are Hermetic as opposed to things that aren't. There are appropriate places and times to talk about "The Kybalion", but discussions about Hermeticism just aren't it. Beyond that, however, if you want to take "The Kybalion" (or any other number of texts) for your own personal practice and spiritual development, by all means, have at—I do all the time! However, even in my own practice, no matter how syncretic or eclectic I might get, I still bear in mind the differences in origin, worldview, application, and harmony different texts, influences, or practices I get up to. As far as "The Kybalion" is concerned, however, although I don't think highly of the text, I'm not going to say you can't like it or find it useful for yourself. If you were talking about esotericism or spirituality generally, then yes, "The Kybalion" would absolutely fit in such a discussion—but not in a discussion or context that's specifically about Hermeticism.
No.
