I found this version of the book too, which just has slightly expanded and more spread out text for people like me who find small, compact writing tiresome.
Just got done reading it! It's very eye opening and many of the seven hermetic principles are very accurate when it comes to magick and occult practice. I highly recommend it!
THe Kybalion was written in the early 1900's. Its three authors, the so called "Three Initiates" were all prominent people in magical community in the United States, one of whom was Paul Foster Case, the founder of Builders of the Adytum. It gives a very good introduction to the Hermetic Laws that govern magical practices, but it should also be understood that it is similar to elementry school. It is just the introduction. There is much, much more to learn before it is actually put into practice.
I was always under the assumption that it was written by William Walker Atkinson.
And I agree wholeheartedly that the Kybalion is an introduction but it is an introduction that is often overlooked. A shame as it demystifies magic, religion, alchemy, and more.
It lays out how magic "works" to some extent, and to another how your thoughts on their own can manifest. Direct magic, Law of Attraction, etc. which is often overlooked but is often the failure point of many operations.
Many practitioners here are not highly advanced, and still do not have much of the foundations the Kybalion provides. They don't have the material to troubleshoot failed operations or the knowledge to perform some things like travel beyond the astral plane.
I do not take the Kybalion as gospel, but it's one of the most useful magical books out there. Which is saying a lot because most magic books are pretty useless.
I don't think it demystifies magick or religion. Matter of fact to me it gives credence to a lot of magick and religion. Every one of the principles can be applied to magical practice in most cases.
It can be practically applied. Magic is no longer an occult and impossible to understand force. It's a thing that's real with its own laws and principle.
It's a force. Not one that can be fully understood scientifically or humanized but also not some mystical and mysterious thing that's out of reach and unfathomable.
I started reading it but didn't entirely get too far because I began to question some if not all of the content within. From what I've seen, it mentions Egypt as being a... Central Hub or the Foundation of religion with Hermes (Who I thought was the messenger God for Greece) sort of being the Master of Masters of Occultism in general. I might not be fully understanding it yet as I need to read the entire thing but where I stopped is when the author mentions that Abraham and some other Jewish Prophets received some of their traditions from this Master of Masters Hermes, who was in Egypt. I'm not entirely sure if this is a faint reference to the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God, but being in Egypt as their history states was not a good time for them at all with the Slavery aspect.
Plus I thought the Egyptians worshipped the many Gods and didn't have a Master of Masters figure? (Unless Ra is the Master of Masters for them, which puts Hermes, who I know as a Greek God entirely out of place.) When you say Hermetic, does that mean that Hermes is now the Central God? That he delivered the teachings? If so where would they have come from, him? Right now I am very confused.
Hermes is more than just a trickster messenger god, Hermes is also a tutelary entity, as there is not only method to his madness, but wisdom in his games.
Thoth, on the other hand, is often seen as a knowledge god who's the master of everything, but as we can see in the myth where he gambles with Khonsu, Thoth(Djehuty) has a strong trickster element to him too.
Of course the two gods are individuals, but they hail from the same entity. The Corpus Hermeticum, Kybalion, Emerald Tablets, all of Hermetic magic stems from the incarnation of their merged form, Hermes Trismegistus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus
Which sounds like hogwash, and very well could be. Now an important note in reading magical texts, IMO: whether backstories in magical works as real and literal, real and allegorical, or fake entirely, is absolutely irrelevant. What matters is that it works.
Same goes for the works of Carlos Castaneda. I don't care if he was a weird cultist who stole ideas, faked Indian sources, to get his PhD, and attract New Agey attention. Regardless of whether Castaneda, or Don Juan, or Don Genaro, or La Catalina are real, his stuff works, which is really all that matters.
Some issues I had with the Kybalion. I found the work to be more defensive than instructive. Defending its validity and place in the scientific and Judeo-Christian community.
The work does contain, unfortunately, a great deal of speculation that could cast shadows of doubt over its credibility. Example, claiming that Abraham was a contemporary of Hermes Trismegistus. How, why, where, and say what?!?!?
Outside of the introduction and the defense, this work does contain very good insights and reasonings with regards to the hermetic axioms. As with most, for the picking and choosing.
