Western Esoteric Currents

Is “The Kybalion” Ancient? The 1908 Book and the Hermetic Sources

Not supported The Kybalion was published in Chicago in 1908 and names no surviving source: by its own account its maxims were never written down, and no earlier text of that name is known. The Greek and Latin Hermetic writings, composed in the first centuries CE, share some of its themes, above all God as Mind, but contain neither its seven Principles nor its maxims, and “As above, so below” shortens a line of the Emerald Tablet, a separate text first known in Arabic.