The Kybalion

Sources and Further Reading

Base text

Three Initiates. The Kybalion. Electronic transcription no. 14209, last updated 28 October 2024. Downloaded 16 October 2026. The reproduced preliminaries bear a 1912 notice. The transcription, rather than a collated first printing, is the copy text for this edition.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14209/pg14209-images.html

Early edition record

The Kybalion A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece. Chicago, Yogi Publication Society, 1908. Open Library record OL24669832M, with a link to the digitized volume. Used for bibliographical orientation, not a claim of full textual collation.

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24669832M/The_Kybalion

Authorship and modern scholarship

Philip Deslippe, introduction to The Kybalion The Definitive Edition. Tarcher, 2011. The publisher's description was consulted for its authorship attribution and account of scope; the complete modern introduction was not consulted or reproduced.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530627/the-kybalion-by-william-walker-atkinson/

Ancient Hermetic context

Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 1992. The publisher's description and bibliographical material were consulted for historical orientation. This edition does not claim to have checked the full scholarly commentary.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hermetica/A2779DE70B173114CC8669BEB3CF507D

An earlier Hermetic comparison

Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, The Divine Pymander, translated by John Everard, 1650. The Second Book Called Poemander, especially sections 8-14. The old translation is used only as an accessible primary comparison; its book numbering differs from standard modern treatise numbering.

https://sacred-texts.com/eso/pym/pym03.htm

The Emerald Tablet

Isaac Newton, translation and transcription of the Tabula Smaragdina, Keynes MS 28, King's College, Cambridge. Normalized transcription in The Chymistry of Isaac Newton, Indiana University. Catalogue record ALCH00017 in the Newton Project identifies the manuscript and discusses its dating.

https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/norm/ALCH00017

A contemporary primary comparison

William Walker Atkinson, Dynamic Thought or The Law of Vibrant Energy. Segnogram Publishing Company, 1906. Particularly I-II and X-XI. The signed work supplies a comparison for the vocabulary of infinite reality, universal mind, attraction, and mental influence.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41892/41892-h/41892-h.htm

Historical physics

J. J. Thomson, Carriers of Negative Electricity. Nobel lecture, 11 December 1906. Read alongside the Nobel Foundation's biographical account of the 1897 electron work when assessing XIII's terminology.

https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/thomson-lecture.pdf

Current chemical terminology

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Compendium of Chemical Terminology, Gold Book, online version 5.0.0. Relevant entries are cathode C00905, ion I03158, ionization I03183, and reduction R05222. Definitions are used to distinguish the physical terms from the book's symbolism.

https://goldbook.iupac.org/

Cathode

IUPAC Gold Book, entry C00905. See the definition when reading XIII.

https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C00905/PDF

Ion

IUPAC Gold Book, entry I03158.

https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/I03158

Ionization

IUPAC Gold Book, entry I03183.

https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/I03183

Reduction

IUPAC Gold Book, entry R05222.

https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05222

United States copyright status

U.S. Copyright Office, What Is Copyright. As consulted 16 October 2026, the Office states that works published in the United States before 1 January 1931 are in the public domain. The base-text catalogue separately identifies The Kybalion as public domain in the United States.

https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/