Words · Meanings · Passages
The Kybalion Lexicon
A Reading Companion to the Complete Book
92 entries · 347 subsidiary termsEntries
73–92 of 92
Power and control
Power is the capacity to produce or direct an effect.
The Kybalion
Reality and illusion
Reality is used for what ultimately exists and for what is effective within finite life.
The Kybalion
Reason
Reason first means the faculty through which conclusions about THE ALL are drawn.
The Kybalion
Religion and theology
The book defines religion as inward realization of THE ALL and one's relation to it, while theology is speculative attribution of personality and motives.
The Kybalion
Rhythm
Rhythm is a recurring movement of advance and return between poles.
The Kybalion
Science and proof
Science is both a source of analogy and a competing explanatory authority in the book.
The Kybalion
Secrecy and silence
Secrecy restricts the circulation of teaching; silence withholds an answer or a disclosure.
The Kybalion
Seven Hermetic Principles
The seven principles are mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender.
The Kybalion
Spirit
Spirit names the living and intelligent character attributed to the ultimate source.
The Kybalion
Substance
Substance means what underlies outward appearances; substantial means fundamental in that sense.
The Kybalion
Suggestion and hypnotism
Suggestion is the impressing of an idea upon a mind so that the idea affects thought or action.
The Kybalion
Teacher and pupil
Teacher and pupil are the roles through which the book stages the transmission of wisdom.
The Kybalion
Telepathy
Telepathy names an alleged communication between minds beyond ordinary sensory transmission.
The Kybalion
THE ALL
THE ALL is the technical name for the comprehensive and ultimate reality on which every finite manifestation depends.
The Kybalion
Time and space
Time and space are conditions of finite manifestation.
The Kybalion
Transmigration
Reincarnation is the continuation of an individual's development through successive lives.
The Kybalion
Unity
Unity means that the ultimate source is one.
The Kybalion
Vibration and undulation
Vibration names physical motion and, in the author's wider usage, the difference between levels of matter, mind, and spirit.
The Kybalion
Will
Will is the directing power through which the author explains deliberate mental activity.
The Kybalion
World and universe
The universe is the created order, considered as a whole or in its parts.
The Kybalion
About this collection
Diotimos Editions · 2026
The Kybalion · Three Initiates
About this collection and downloads
92 complete articles through the original introduction and fifteen chapters, with 479 selected excerpts and 347 attested-form records.
About these entries
This lexicon gathers the key words, distinctions, images, named authorities, and scientific terms of The Kybalion. It follows the original introduction and all fifteen chapters, selecting 92 substantial entries from the whole work. It is a companion for close reading, with definitions, the development of a term in the argument, passages to read, editorial observations, attested English forms, and cross-references.
The entries are arranged in eight subject groups and alphabetically within each group. Each article begins with At a Glance, followed by Meaning, Use in the book, Places to read, Reading the argument, wording, attested forms, and See also. Related texts appear where a specific comparison has been checked. Since The Kybalion was written in English, the wording sections discuss its original English expressions rather than choices made by a translator.
The lexicon explains the book on its own terms while distinguishing the author’s claims from historical or scientific evidence and from the present interpretation. It does not treat a metaphor as an experiment or an attribution as a proved authorship. Interpretive headwords such as Immanence, Unity, and Motion and frequency sometimes gather a concept under a familiar label that is not itself attested in that exact form.
The alphabetical index includes alternative terms and names, while the passage key gives the opening words of every numbered source block. The entries vary in length with their role in the book. The selection is comprehensive as a reading companion, rather than an exhaustive dictionary of every English word or a census of every possible theme.
How to use the references
References such as VI.13 identify chapter VI, text block 13, in the electronic copy text used here. Intro.1 identifies block 1 of the original introduction. These are new lexicon reference numbers, not historical paragraph numbers or page numbers in the earlier annotated edition. Use the passage key to find a block by its opening words in that edition or another copy.
A text block is a paragraph, a separately set maxim, a list, or one of the numbered principle subheadings in chapter II. Chapter headings, the closing signature, FINIS, front matter, and Gutenberg’s licence are excluded from the numbered reading corpus. The signature is quoted as bibliographical evidence in the Kybalion entry, where its locator Intro.11 is marked as a signature. No later chapter numbers are shifted by these exclusions.
Places to read gives selected exact excerpts, not an entire passage or a substitute for its context. Ellipses outside the quotation show omitted words at its beginning or end. An excerpt may include a statement disputed by the editorial discussion. The surrounding entry explains the importance of the passage.
Words and forms in the text is a computed lexical concordance of the original introduction and chapters, excluding the signature and FINIS. Counts use whole-word or whole-phrase boundaries and ignore case except for THE ALL, ONE, SPIRIT, and capitalized Will. Quotation marks form part of the search for the I and Me. Forms may overlap, so their counts should not be added. A count reports occurrences of spelling, not occurrences of a single philosophical sense. All matching block locations are supplied; a range such as IV.15–18 includes each intervening block.
Related-text notes identify the particular comparison used. They do not assert a direct influence unless the book itself names the source. The brief source list records what was actually consulted. Cross-references lead to the relevant full entry. The alphabetical index includes alternative terms and names.
Editorial note
The copy text is Project Gutenberg ebook 14209, the same transcription used for the accompanying annotated reading edition. This separate lexicon does not reproduce the full book. Source excerpts retain its wording and apparent errors, including Imminent in VII.4 and Sanoni in VIII.25. The entries explain immanent and Zanoni openly instead of concealing those differences inside quotations.
The essays are editorial interpretations. The work has not received independent specialist review or a line-by-line collation against a first-edition scan; those remain appropriate steps before publication as a critical or scholarly edition.
The underlying 1908 English work is public domain in the United States. That statement concerns the historical text, not the new commentary or material in later editions. No modern introduction, translation, or annotation has been reproduced here. The bibliography distinguishes primary texts, institutional definitions, and a publisher description used for attribution.
Three Initiates The Kybalion
Project Gutenberg ebook 14209. Electronic English copy text used for the entire lexicon. Its preliminary matter bears a 1912 notice; the work first appeared in 1908. This lexicon does not claim a collation against a first-edition scan.
Early edition record
Open Library record for the 1908 Yogi Publication Society edition, used for the original publication year.
William Walker Atkinson Dynamic Thought
Chapters I–II and XI–XVI are contextual comparisons for universal life, mind, force, and practical thought. The signed primary text was consulted through Project Gutenberg.
Isaac Newton translation of the Emerald Tablet
Keynes MS 28. Normalized transcription of Newton’s English translation, consulted for the above and below formula. This is a particular textual parallel, not a witness to the complete seven-principle list.
Herbert Spencer First Principles
Project Gutenberg transcription of the 1863 printing. Part I on the Unknowable and Part II chapter XI on the rhythm of motion provide the comparisons used here.
Thomson Jay Hudson The Law of Psychic Phenomena
First published 1893; Gutenberg transcribes a 1904 printing. Chapter II, Duality and Suggestion, is the primary context for the quotation and labels in Kybalion XIV.
Edward Bulwer Lytton Zanoni
Primary text consulted to identify the title alluded to as Sanoni in the Kybalion copy text at VIII.25.
Metropolitan Museum Head of Hermes Thoth
Collection record 700048. The object and curatorial account were consulted for the ancient association of Hermes with Thoth, rather than for the legendary biography narrated in The Kybalion.
Philip Deslippe edition publisher description
The Kybalion, 2011 edition. The Penguin Random House publisher description was consulted for the modern attribution to Atkinson. The full modern introduction was not consulted.
IUPAC Gold Book Cathode
Terminological reference consulted for the definition of a cathode as an electrode at which reduction occurs.
IUPAC Gold Book Ion
Terminological reference consulted for an ion as an atomic or molecular particle with a net electric charge.
Nobel Prize J J Thomson facts
Institutional account consulted for the 1897 cathode-ray work and its relation to electrons as atomic constituents.