this is my image - Sherpretty Lake, near Leadville, CO
A few days ago I wrote my first article on principles derived from the Kybalion: Evolution & Involution. Here is a link to that article.
Since then, I did a little more research to see what's "out there" about the Kybalion and I came upon articles "debunking" the Kybalion, as well as several different translations Emerald Tablets which is part of the source material of which, assumedly, the Kybalion came to be.
Some people believe 2 of the 3 adepts who wrote the Kybalion are William Walker Atkinson, and Paul Foster Case. No one will ever know for sure. One thing that gives the Kybalion a vote of confidence from me is that it was written by Anonymous authors. People not seeking personal gain by putting out Age Old Truths give the Truths more credibility to me - because no one stood to gain by writing that book except in the gain they saw for humanity. Of the translations of the Emerald Tablets, I did resonate with Dr. Doreal's version and read it over and over while I was working a wedding tonight.
Why is that relevant? Well, because the wedding party are the unbegun. It was either read the Emerald Tablet's or watch a crowd of obese millenials get drunk at the Elk's club in Lousiville, Colorado. Is that bad? Is it wrong of me to judge? Yes, it is wrong, but it is difficult for me to people-watch unconsciously, when so much is going on in this world, and so few people know or care. So, I read Doreal's Emerald Tablets instead, and tried to be more gentle as it suggested...
I also started this post.
How to Think vs. What to Think
Most people want to know what to think about these principles. I saw article after article on the Kybalion that just restated what is in the book. I have got a copy of Doreen Virtue's Divine Magic from the library, but I see things in this book that seem like misunderstandings of the principles, oddly with a bent toward the New Age. And then the debunkers - there were 2 of them - who only sort-of debunked the principles but did not give any source-material divised substantiative evidence to really debunk it - just their opinions.
This is a problem in and of itself - as our education system degrades more and more and people do not learn how to debate logic or inevitably how to think and how to apply deductive reasoning. It does not make a good consumer to teach them HOW to constructively think.
That's why I decided to write this article now, early on in this series, because I want to offer ways to think about the principles offered in the Kybalion and ways to test the principles yourself instead of taking someone else's unverified OPINION for their relevency or not.
Learning how to think is a technique that then can be applied in so many ways to many other situations...and so I suggest using the principles in the Kybalion to teach yourself - the trivium... critical thinking skills...
The Trivium (see The Unity Process for more in-depth articles)
The trivium - grammar- logic- rhetoric - or in more modern terms: data input - process- output.
- grammar - Data input: Asks and answer questions of what? (who?, where?, & when?)
- logic - Data processing: Asks and answers questions of why?
- rhetoric - (wisdom) Data output: Asks and answers questions of how?
again, my image
Let's take one of my favorites - "As Above, So Below" - My first experience with it was with people who don't tell the truth. Here's how I processed it through the Trivium.
What? Even though it's no longer "in" to think this, I agree with Nassim Harameen that the Universe is Fractal - which is sort of a visual explanation of this Principle. I have experience with it - If someone is dishonest in one area, I have found that they are a liar altogether. People who lie about one thing - even including something stupid, LIE, PERIOD. Once I catch them in a fib, I know that they lie and that's it. I don't trust them.
Why? If a person feels that it's ok to lie in one instance they obviously don't value their word nor do they constrain themselves to the truth. Also, I have proven this to myself over and over by giving fibbers the benefit of the doubt and then getting really mad when they lie about something big.
How? An untruth is an untruth and size does not matter.
Hence, I proved to myself the principle of Correspondence; As Above, So Below. I have since used the same Trivium method to prove this Principle to myself with regards to other things, such that I now believe this principle underlies all.
"Look thee above or look thee below,
the same shall ye find.
For all is but part of the Oneness
that is at the Source of the Law.
The consciousness below thee is
part thine own as we are a part of thine." - The Emerald Tablets
my image, Leadville, CO
see the Devil in the "disturbed" reflection...I thought it was interesting, given the subject matter
In the Principle of Involution - which I wrote about several days ago - that if things are not evolving - the are involving - I proved to myself tonight when we were setting up the musical equipment. We always joke that the cords twist themselves up seemingly by themselves - they do! They are following the principle of INVOLUTION which is the natural course of things here on planet earth if humans do not assert their will and create order. (And let me just clarifiy that I mean, order that is ALIGNED with that of God's will - Natural Law - taking the Golden Rule into consideration, harming NONE. The New World Order IS NOT what I am talking about...and in light of these principles, the New World Order is the result of a violation of Natural Law - of giving other humans the "authority" (which it is not our right to give) to impose an external order vs. each of us doing our own work being our own inner monarch - but that's a topic for another post.)
Using the Trivium:
What? Do things break down if not maintained by an act of will? YES! Everything is on it's way to death the moment it is created. If something is not maintained it falls apart. If you leave a house closed up for 10 years without living in it and maintaining it, it will fall in on itself, or at least become totally filthy as it heads towards becoming dust again.
Why? Nothing stays the same and things fall apart here. There is dust in the air. It settles on objects. Things that are not maintained and cleaned first become dirty and then start to break down.
How? Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust- if food is left out it will get moldy and goes bad, if no one lives in a house over time the curtains will get burned by the sun through the windows, the dust in the carpet will ruin the carpet, the wallpaper and paint will begin to peal off the walls by themselves, the wiring will become brittle, eventually air will get in the plumbing lines due to none-use - if Order is not maintained, everything falls to Chaos - it definitely is the principle of INVOLUTION at work.
my image, Leadville, CO
"Darkness and light are both of one nature, different only in seeming, for each arose from the source of all. Darkness is disorder. Light is Order. Darkness transmuted is light of the Light. This, my children, your purpose in being; transmutation of darkness to light ." - The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean