Mentalism: The First Hermetic Principle

Here’s the most important takeaway about the antiquity backing up the Kybalion’s first Hermetic Principle. Which the naysayers of the Kybalion and the Hermetic Principles ought to pay close attention to:

1. The ancient myths all have supreme Gods. 
2. The Supreme Gods of ancient myth symbolize the Mystery of Existence itself, which always includes the Mystery of the existence of an Eternal Consciousness, symbolized as the culture’s supreme deity or God.
3. An Omnipresent, Eternal Consciousness (the supreme deity of any given mythological tradition the world over), symbolizes what is called in philosophy today as a “Mind at Large,” or “Universal Consciousness,” or simply a unified field of core subjectivity that acts as a ‘Conscious Substratum’ of all Existence. Trying to get away from the ancient premise of “ALL-Mind” will fail. It’s everywhere and in everything. And trying to get away from the modern premise of ALL-Mind will fail too, for the same reasons! 

The First Hermetic Principle is grounded deeply in cross-cultural mythological and religious representation, therefore defendable in myriad ways, which involve parting ways with mainstream ‘metaphysical materialist’ misconceptions about the very Nature of Reality. Those misconceptions are leftover relics from the Kali Yuga period. Again, even if the inclination is to reject the Platonic Great Year, the issue remains because our ‘linear timeline thinking’ today aligns with linear progress following the last Dark Ages periods that are behind us now. Crawling out of those dark, dense, self-unaware periods behind us, posits increasing knowledge and awareness today, right now.

The bottom line is that regardless of anything behind us, ahead lies the newer frontier of “Primary Consciousness,” making its way further and further into the mainstream crosshairs. The 1st Hermetic Principle (and indeed the remaining 6 principles) is valid and worthy of progressing forward in the modern world. I will consider one Hermetic Principle at a time, using strong-minded arguments that I feel are capable of handling any objection that comes along.

The Principle of Mentalism. The ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental. –The Kybalion

The Kybalion goes on to explain that the substratum of all Reality, beneath the “appearances” and “representations” of materiality and physicality, is “Mentation.” This is credited back to ancient Egypt and beyond, to Universal knowledge, which is part of the Eternal Reality itself. It has no real “beginning” because it’s simply what the Eternal Reality actually is below all of the “appearances” of form, shape, and discrete or standalone existence. I saw this upon my first exposure to this literature, and it is exactly what the modern Idealist movement within cognitive science and philosophy of mind are arguing for!!! According to the ancient celestial timetable models, knowledge is lost during the descending half of the cycle and then rediscovered during the ascending half of the cycle. 

Happenstance put the Kybalion in front of me. So, I acted on it and read the book. I realized right away that the content is dated with various cultural bias, having been written in 1908, with only very early quantum mechanics (QM) knowledge and referencing abilities. But it’s still right on point. Even not having the ability to relate in the ways that we can now do in 2023, having things like Analytic Idealism at our disposal, which is the 21st Century’s only plausible metaphysics (new book title, not yet released). 

This is where the naturalist-oriented philosophy of mind steps in and shows what a Primary Consciousness Reality would look like. And how it would look and map out according to our ‘currently accepted’ models, which involve visualizing Reality as a unified quantum field in which all subset “fields” (particles) have their very existence. The way in which the First Hermetic Principle of “ALL-Mind” is now viewed according to the forefront of modern Idealism, is to place it into the currently accepted “Fields” model. 

“A spatially unbound field of core subjectivity with constant excitation of the spatially unbound field.” 

Infinite Reality

In simple terms, this translates into Reality being visualized as an all-present, endless, “Conscious Substratum” with no fixed beginning or end, and no fixed borders or boundaries. It’s called the irreducible “ontological primitive” because it’s the point where no further reductions can be made. And the argument is a strong one. If aware experience exists and can only be explained in terms of primary Consciousness existing–without triggering the hard problem of consciousness as an immediate red flag–then this further solidifies the strong point of the 1st Hermetic Principle of “ALL-Mind” as well as the 1st premise of “Mind at Large” (MAL) within modern Idealism.

That concludes my initial discussion of the First Hermetic Principle. Stay tuned for the Second Hermetic Principle–The Principle of Correspondence. 

Thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support! I have now started a YouTube channel for “Hermetic Idealism” to accompany this blog page. Video content is not yet uploaded, but I’ll make some announcements when it is. I plan on booking famous names and conducting interviews with some of the brightest minds alive in the world today, both from the materialist/physicalist camps and the idealist camps within the academic sciences and philosophy. I’d like to get real-time footage of how these positions and arguments will playout, with the big names and highly credentialed players being questioned and engaged in discussion with various members of the “Hermetic Order of 21st Century Idealists,” camera rolling! It should get increasingly interesting! 

Stephen Wollard, 

The Hermetic Idealist