Meditating on The Kybalion with Tarot

I just finished re-reading The Kybalion. It’s one of these things you can return to time and time again and with each visit, get something new from it. For this particular rendezvous, I thought it would be interesting to explore it with tarot in mind. For those who have read The Kybalion, you’ve no doubt noted parallels between the 7 laws and certain tarot cards, particularly those belonging the the Major Arcana.

For myself, this exercise is a way of further cementing these concepts; a kind of out-loud study blog. Of course, I also hope this exploration will be useful for others, whether you’re familiar with The Kybalion or not.

For those who are unfamiliar, in brief, The Kybalion was originally published in 1908 which is just one year prior to the RWS tarot achieving publication. I don’t know if this means anything, except that we can at least note that both works took form around the same time and were likely influenced by similar cultural events and scientific understandings. While no author was originally ascribed to the works, it was believed to have been written by William Walker Atkinson; occultist, attorney and American pioneer of the New Thought movement. The Kybalion is a collection of principles or universal laws that claim to operate on all planes and serve as “master keys” to unlocking the secret doors both within and without. In understanding and applying these principles, one can create change not only in their perspectives , but their practical experiences.

With that, this post will provide an overview of the principles and then suggest a tarot card for each to act as a tool or gateway to further contemplation/meditation.

1. The Principle of Mentalism

“THE ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental.”

Tarot Card to Meditate on: The Fool

The Kybalion states that all is mental, all is mind. This means that everything we perceive is by way of a mental process, everything created begins in the space of mind, and the very place we occupy is that of the mind of God. We can see this in the way our own minds operate; creating worlds, forming ideas, mining for information, as well as inspiring action and movement in the “real world”. The Fool, who is labelled number 0, represents The ALL in many ways. As an analogy for the mind, The Fool speaks to pure potential; a state of being prior to manifestation where anything and everything exists, often undifferentiated but always ready to become. 

2. The Principle of Correspondence

“As above, so below; as below, so above.”

Tarot Card to Meditate on: The Magician

The axiom applied to The Magician is one we see also in relation to this principle; “as above, so below; as below, so above”. The Magician, in fact, demonstrates this in the way they point one hand to the sky and one to the earth, a nod to the connection between all planes of existence. What this implies is that to understand anything, all one needs to do is look to something else, because the same processes and laws apply there as well. In other words, what we find in the smallest thing we find in the largest; the unfolding of a flower may, in many ways, be the equivalent to the unfolding of consciousness. Or, as The Kybalion puts it, “[in] studying the monad, he understands the archangel”. With this in mind, we can use The Magician to tap our intellect and fix our attention on what we wish to know, and then look to something else, already understood, to help illuminate ourselves.

3. The Principle of Vibration

“Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.” 

Tarot Card to Meditate on: Temperance

Temperance speaks to the blending of fire and water through an alchemical process, depicted in the wavy water flowing between two vessels, overseen by a divine presence. The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang points out the following related to this connection (the bolded parts I have added):

“Some special insights may be derived by considering the description of the letter Samekh in the Sepher Yetzirah, although the terms in this document lend themselves to an extraordinary range of interpretation. The word anger (or wrath) is referred to Samekh. However, Case (Paul Foster) states that this is a ‘blind’. That the original meaning of the Hebrew word was quivering or vibration. Such an interpretation is entirely consistent with the alchemical symbolism, for the interchange of Fire and Water is a control of inner vibrations.”

In this sense, Temperance is the constant motion or mixing of forces to achieve a desired (or stable) response. It is an archetype one can look to in order to help “fix the volatile” within themselves, thus achieving balance, poise and control over their own vibration at will.

4. 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; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes must be reconciled.”

Tarot Card to Meditate on: The Hanged Man

There are many cards in tarot that place an emphasis on duality and poles. Pillars, a symbol for this concept, can be seen in The High Priestess, The Hierophant and Justice. As well, The Devil, in all its contradictions and confusions, is another archetype that points to polarity. With that being said, I see The Hanged Man as a powerful ally in being able to reconcile opposites and achieve neutrality. In essence, The Hanged Man reverses ordinary consciousness so as not to be swayed by extremes. In this state, it is important to recognize that the water (moods, etc.) still flows, but one who is neutral remains above it.

Below is an excerpt from The Kybalion, and I think if you read it with The Hanged Man in mind, you’ll see why I’ve paired these two up - is it not a perfect illustration of a pendulum at rest?

“The Hermetists also teach that the Law of Neutralization enables one, to a great extent, to overcome the operation of Rhythm in consciousness. As we have explained, there is a Higher Plane of Consciousness, as well as the ordinary Lower Plane, and the Master by rising mentally to the Higher Plane causes the swing of the mental pendulum to manifest on the Lower Plane, and he, dwelling on his Higher Plane, escapes the consciousness of the swing backward. This is effected by polarizing on the Higher Self, and thus raising the mental vibrations of the Ego above those of the ordinary plane of consciousness. It is akin to rising above a thing, and allowing it to pass beneath you. The advanced Hermetist polarizes himself at the Positive Pole of his Being-the "I Am" pole rather than the pole of personality, and by "refusing" and "denying" the operation of Rhythm, raises himself above its plane of consciousness, and standing firm in his Statement of Being he allows the pendulum to swing back on the Lower Plane without changing his Polarity.”

5. The Principle of Rhythm

“Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.”

Tarot Card to Meditate on: The Wheel of Fortune

I feel as though this principle, along with the next one, are really clearly summarized in the tarot cards I’ve paired them with. The Wheel of Fortune is a clear depiction of rhythm. It points to things moving in cycles or rotations, meaning that everything is constantly ebbing and flowing like the moon, waves, seasons, wake and sleep, life and death. And just when we think we’re down for good, things shift and suddenly we’re on top. This particular principle also promises that one can never quite escape the law of compensation; nothing expands indefinitely, something always has to give.

6. The Principle of Cause of Effect

“Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law.” 

Tarot Card to Meditate on: Justice

Like the principle above, this one seemed like a really obvious pairing. The principle of Cause and Effect is certainly one that is captured within Justice; you do something and then something else happens as a result. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the type of justice we see playing out in the courtrooms. Natural justice is one where opinions have no place and nothing escapes its grip. It assures that even when things don’t appear to make sense, there is always an underlying cause to all that is. In other words, no one just arrives where they are by chance. Everything that happens had something else before it and something before that and so on and on through the whole thread of history. This chain is unbreakable, even if it’s invisible, but I’m hoping that by meditating on the Justice card, it will help to make these hidden workings more apparent.

7. The Principle of Gender

“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes.”

Tarot Card to Meditate on: The Lovers

Consider the principle of gender along the lines of generation (creation, procreation etc.) and not necessarily in terms of child-bearing or physical sex. To produce something, you need to combine elements. Gender entails that there is a symbolically female element and a symbolically male element involved; something active that approaches something receptive and thus initiates or creates a third thing. In relation to The Lovers, we see this play out in the way self-consciousness (the male) approaches
sub-consciousness (the female) who then contacts super-consciousness (the angel above); the male and female thus generate a third. We can also approach this within the realm of attraction and repulsion, or positive and negative poles. Because these principles occur on all planes, we can see it play out in many different ways: electrical charges, magnets, human interaction or even gravity.

The Lover’s is also associated with the sense of smell, which adds another layer to this idea of things which attract vs. things which repulse. All this considered, The Lovers is an archetype that though various channels, captures many components of this principle quite thoroughly.

While I’ve paired each principle with one card, I think it’s important to note that you can most certainly find other cards in tarot that embrace the concepts above. The Empress, for example, may be worthy to contemplate in comparison to the Principle of Gender (or generation), while The Devil may be able to shed some light on polarities, as we discussed in a previous blog post. I’m going to start with these pairings above and see where this study takes me. For those curious, the Kybalion we’re working with is the Definitive Edition which also includes a lengthy introduction and a second work by William Walker Atkinson, called The Seven Cosmic Laws. You can find it on Amazon!

Julia