The Magic Key

The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key before whose touch all the Doors of the Temple fly open.

One of the old Hermetic Masters wrote, long ages ago: “He who grasps the truth of the Mental Nature of the Universe is well advanced on The Path to Mastery.” And these words are as true to-day as at the time they were first written. Without this Master-Key, Mastery is impossible, and the student knocks in vain at the many doors of The Temple.

There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us…a knowledge of the Principle of correspondence enables Man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown. Studying the monad, he understands the archangel.

Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates. “He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the sceptre of Power,”

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 maybe reconciled. Where does “darkness” leave off, and “light” begin? What is the difference between “High and Low”? Between “Positive and Negative”? The Principle of Polarity explains these paradoxes, and no other Principle can supersede it. The “Art of polarization” becomes a phase of “Mental Alchemy” known and practiced by the ancient and modern Hermetic Masters.

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. There is always an action and a reaction; an advance and a retreat a rising and a sinking. This is in the affairs of the Universe, suns, worlds, men, animals, mind, energy, and matter. This law is manifest in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations; in the life of all things; and finally in the mental states of Man.

There is a Cause for every Effect; an Effect from every Cause. It explains that: “Everything Happens according to Law”; that nothing ever “merely happens”; that there is no such thing as Chance; that while there are various planes of Cause and Effect, the higher dominating the lower planes, still nothing ever entirely escapes the Law.

Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles Gender; manifests on all planes. If you would understand the philosophy of Mental and Spiritual Creation, Generation, and Re-generation, you must understand and study this Hermetic Principle.

The Kybalion

Paradoxical Directions

Sotheby's Collection — Van Cleef & Arpels

There was a pause of around three seconds, immediately after which I experienced the sudden and remarkable sensation that I was being elevated at great speed. The extraordinarily active light began at my feet and swept over my entire body in an electrifying wave.

The brilliance in the room – the total change in quality of light – was totally apparent even with my eyes still tightly closed. Indeed, it seemed so bright that I dared not open them for fear of going blind. It was as if someone had adjusted a vast dimmer switch on the greatest lantern.

My heart was beating fast and I felt truly ecstatic; each tangible quality of sensation and atmosphere informed me subtly of a change in dimension. There seemed to have been both a quantitative and qualitative change that could only really have been brought about through an extreme alteration of altitude.

Brilliantly intense, the occurrence stimulated my senses in unprecedented style, so my whole mind was filled with awe, and my body with a sensation of pure bliss, as if all material was somehow being experienced as a factor of light energy.

The first clear notion that came into my head I vocalized with words lighter than air: “I’m in heaven!” I had inspired.

The only obvious mystery I was able to discern was that I had felt myself to arise drastically but the light had noticeably – even from behind closed eyelids – begun at my feet rather than my head or whole body at once.

I have only just considered whether I may have been immersed in a depth of light and it must surely be true that on a round planet which rotates for a living, ‘up’ and ‘down’ are paradoxically named directions.

Who can say?