Welcome: how this course is meant

What brings you here? Curiosity, perhaps, or a sense that there is more to see.

"When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom."

☿︎The Kybalion, 1912 edition, Chapter I

The Kybalion says of itself that it comes to people when they are ready for it: "when the pupil is ready to receive the truth, then will this little book come to him, or her". Perhaps you found this course. Perhaps, in the words of the book, the course found you. Either way, you are here now, and that is enough to begin.

The Kybalion is a short book. It was first published in 1908. It presents seven principles that, according to the book, describe how reality works. For more than a hundred years, people have read it as a key to understanding life.

How we read the Kybalion

We do not ask you to believe it. The Kybalion suggests a way of looking at reality. This course invites you to understand that view, to observe your own life through it, and to test what it changes.

That is why you will hear three different voices in every lesson. We keep them apart on purpose.

The Kybalion says tells you what the book teaches, often in its own words.

It is assumed, or historians suggest, tells you what is known or believed about history. Much is uncertain, and we say so.

We understand tells you how we use a word or an idea in this course.

And where the book makes claims that this course does not teach or promise, we say so plainly: We present this as what the book says.

Other traditions

From time to time you will meet words from other traditions: Jesus, the Buddha, Laozi, the Upanishads, the Stoics, the mystics. Each has its own path and its own language, and they do not all teach the same thing.

And yet the Kybalion sees something that connects them. It says that the Hermetic teachings "are to be found in all lands, among all religions, but never identified with any particular country, nor with any particular religious sect". In its view, the seven principles are not a new doctrine, but a common ground beneath many teachings. The book goes further still and traces all of them back to Hermes himself. Historians see the connections as more complex.

We understand the principles in this way: as a common ground on which very different traditions can meet. Where one of them expresses a principle in its own way, we show the parallel. The Kybalion itself remains at the centre.

How the course is built

The course has 9 modules and 45 lessons. This first module gives you orientation: the story of the teaching, its history, and its key words. Then one module follows for each of the seven principles. The last module brings them together.

Each principle module has five lessons and moves through six steps. You understand the principle. You observe where it shows up. You try a short exercise. You apply it in daily life for a few days. You reflect. And you put it into your own words.

Your pace

We suggest one module a week. But you are free. Every lesson stays open to you, and you can return whenever you like. It helps to give your learning a rhythm of its own, for example the same two or three days each week, at the same time. A steady rhythm will carry you further than occasional long sessions.

At the end of each lesson there is space for your own notes. They are private: not visible to other learners or in our course administration.