Hermetic Principles

The seven Hermetic principles (mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender), are set out in The Kybalion, published in 1908 under the pseudonym "Three Initiates" and generally attributed to William Walker Atkinson. The book presents them as the essence of an ancient Hermetic philosophy, summed in maxims such as "as above, so below" (correspondence) and "the All is mind" (mentalism).

Each principle states a supposed universal law: that all is mental, that the pattern repeats at every level, that everything vibrates, that opposites are one in degree, that all moves in rhythm, that nothing escapes cause, and that gender is in everything.

Despite its claim to transmit the teaching of Hermes Trismegistus, The Kybalion is a product of the early-twentieth-century New Thought movement, and its seven principles are a modern synthesis rather than an ancient Hermetic text, though they draw on genuine Hermetic themes such as the doctrine of correspondence. The atlas notes this, treating the principles as an influential modern statement.

The entries give each principle its maxim and its meaning. The wider Hermetic literature the book claims to continue is treated under the esoteric-text category, within Texts & the Canon.