From Law to Harmony: The Seven and Twelve Principles of Hermetic Thought

Welcome to the Deep Dive. We’re here, as always, to take those stacks of sources and really distill them down into the insights you need. And today, we’re tackling something quite profound, I think. Hermeticism. Right. This ancient wisdom tradition that, well, it keeps popping up in modern thought, doesn’t it? It really does. At its heart, Hermeticism teaches that the universe isn’t just random chaos. It operates according to these fundamental universal laws. And the kicker is these cosmic laws aren’t just out there. They’re mirrored right inside us in our minds, our spirits. Exactly. So understanding them is, in a way, understanding yourself. It’s a path to self-knowledge through cosmic knowledge. Now, for most people looking into this today, the entry point is the Kabbalion. That 1908 text, it laid out the famous seven hermetic principles. That’s the foundational text for many, yes. Those seven principles describe the structure, the underlying mechanics of how reality works. Think of them as the fixed rules of the game. But that’s where our sources get really interesting today because there’s been an expansion, hasn’t there? There has. While those seven are absolutely core… Some modern esoteric thinkers, well, they’ve synthesized this framework, expanded it into 12 principles. And this isn’t about ditching the original seven. Not at all. It’s not a replacement. It’s framed more as a shift in perspective. It’s about changing our relationship with those laws, moving from just knowing the mechanics. To understanding the harmony. Precisely. From universal law to cosmic harmony. That’s a good way to put it. Okay, so that’s our mission for this deep dive. We need to unpack the original seven, those non-negotiable mechanics, and then explore this symbolic expansion to 12. And really dig into the why. Why add five more? What was missing? Or rather, what deeper understanding were they aiming for? Exactly. Why introduce harmonics to what seemed like a complete set of mechanics? Let’s get into it. So starting with the original seven from the Kabbalion, these are presented as the absolute bedrock, the foundational rules governing everything on all planes of existence. They’re the constitution of reality, you could say. Fixed. Yes. And the first one immediately throws a wrench into our everyday assumptions about reality. Principle one, mentalism. All is mind. The universe is mental. That’s the quote, right? That’s the one. And it’s meant quite literally. It asserts that the physical universe, everything we see, touch, experience, isn’t the primary reality. It’s a mental creation. So galaxies, oceans, even our own bodies, they’re projections, thoughts in a larger mind. Essentially, yes. Projections of an infinite living universal mind. It posits consciousness, not matter, as the fundamental ground of being. Wow. I mean, that completely reframes everything, doesn’t it? The observer and the observed aren’t truly separate if we’re all part of the mind that’s thinking the universe into existence. It breaks down that separation entirely. We’re not just living in the universe. We are like fractal expressions of the mind that dreamed it. Which explains from their perspective how thought can influence reality. It’s not magic in the spooky sense, but… Yeah, more like operating within the fundamental nature of things. If reality is mental, then mental focus, intention, these become causal. It aligns, interestingly, with some interpretations of quantum physics, the observer effect, or even ancient Eastern ideas like Maya. So my own consciousness isn’t just some random biological fluke. It’s an echo of the universal consciousness. That’s the core takeaway of mentalism. It sets the stage for everything else. Okay, moving on. How does this universal mind connect its different levels? That brings us to principle two, correspondence. Ah, the famous as above, so below, as within, so without. Everyone’s heard that phrase, but what does it really mean as a principle? It’s the principle of analogy, but it’s structural. It states there’s a fundamental pattern, a mirroring, between the macrocosm, the universe, the big picture, and the microcosm, the individual, the atom, the cell. So the same patterns repeat at different scales, like a fractal. exactly like a fraxel. It implies that the universe is intelligible because its organizing principles are consistent everywhere. You can study the stars to understand your own psyche or study your inner world to grasp cosmic truth. Which means self-reflection becomes a tool for understanding the universe and observing nature becomes a tool for understanding ourselves. That’s powerful. It really is. If you’re facing inner chaos, correspondence suggests you could look at how a natural ecosystem finds balance because the underlying principle of equilibrium must apply universally. Makes sense. Okay. Principle three, vibration. Nothing rests, everything moves, everything vibrates. This feels a bit more intuitive, maybe. Like modern physics tells us atoms are always moving. It does resonate with physics, yes. But hermetically, it’s broader. It’s not just physical motion. The difference between spirit, mind, emotion, and even dense matter is simply the rate of vibration. Ah, so it’s a spectrum of frequency. Spirit is vibrating incredibly fast, matter incredibly slowly. Precisely. Nothing is truly still. Even a rock is vibrating. Just at a frequency our senses don’t perceive as motion. And the implication for, you know, someone studying this? It means change is always possible. Transmutation. If everything is vibration, you can potentially change your state by changing your frequency, elevating your personal vibration, moving from lower frequencies like fear or anger towards higher ones like joy or peace. So practical application there, shifting your own energetic state. Yes. And that connects nicely to the next one, which can be tricky. Principle four, polarity. Everything is dual. Everything has poles. Everything has its pair of opposites. Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree. That last part is key. Right. So things we think of as total opposites, hot and cold, light and dark, love and hate, aren’t actually separate things fighting each other. According to this principle, no. There are two extremes of the same thing. Hot and cold are just different degrees on the spectrum of temperature. Love and hate are different degrees on a spectrum of emotional connection or intensity. So they share an underlying nature. Exactly. Yeah. Think about, say, political extremes. The far left and far right might seem utterly opposed, but polarity suggests they’re both concerned with societal organization and justice. Just approaching it from vastly different degrees and perspectives on that shared spectrum. Okay. And the value of understanding this? It allows for mental transmutation. If you’re experiencing an extreme you don’t want, like fear, you don’t fight the fear directly. You mentally focus on its opposite, courage, and slide up the pole, raising the degree of that shared underlying energy towards the positive end. So you’re not eliminating the energy, just changing its expression. That’s subtle. And it removes the idea of an external enemy in quite the same way. It internalizes the process, yes. You’re always working with degrees of the same fundamental energy. Following that, we have principle five, rhythm. Everything flows out and in. Everything has its tides. All things rise and fall. The pendulum swing manifests in everything. If vibration is constant motion, rhythm is the pattern of that motion, the cycles. Precisely. The predictable ebb and flow. We see it everywhere. Day and night, seasons, economic cycles, moods, the rise and fall of civilizations. It’s the universal pendulum. And it seems kind of unavoidable. The pendulum has to swing back. That’s the challenge of rhythm. The law implies inevitability. You can’t stop the tide from going out. So what’s the hermetic approach? Just suffer the downswings? No, the aim is mastery through transcendence. You can’t stop the pendulum swing in the world, but you can use mental laws like raising your consciousness to avoid being emotionally swept away by the downswing. It’s about achieving a mental state above the swing. Neutralizing its effect on your inner state, even if the outer circumstances follow the rhythm. Exactly. You acknowledge the law, understand the cycle, but don’t let it dictate your inner equilibrium. OK. Principle six feels very foundational to cause and effect. Every cause has its effect. Every effect has its cause. Everything happens according to law. Chance is but a name for law not recognized. No accidents. Basically, everything is connected in a chain of cause and consequence. It establishes an orderly universe. Absolute consequence. Nothing happens randomly. There’s always a preceding cause, even if we can’t see it or don’t understand it. And this links back directly to mentalism, doesn’t it? If the universe is mind. Then thought becomes the initial cause. A conscious intention sets a chain of effects in motion, leading to an eventual manifestation in the world. Which really puts the onus on personal responsibility for your reality. Your thoughts, your mental states are the seeds of your future experiences. It grounds the whole system in that responsibility. Now hold on to this one because the absolute nature of cause and effect, well, it creates a really interesting tension when we get to the expanded principles, particularly free will. Ah, okay. I see where that might clash. We’ll park that for now. Good idea. So finally, the seventh of the original principles, gender. Gender is in everything. Everything has its masculine and feminine principles. Gender manifests on all planes. And crucially, the sources emphasize this is not just about biological sex. Right. It’s about universal creative forces, archetypes. Yes. The masculine principle represents the dynamic, projective, initiating energy. Will, assertion, the outward impulse. The feminine principle represents the receptive, nurturing, formative energy. Magnetism, intuition, the inner space where things grow. And you need both for creation to happen. Always. On any plane. Mental, physical, spiritual. You need the spark, the seed, masculine in the field, the womb, feminine, for anything due to be generated or manifested. Like Yang and Yin, or Jung’s Animus and Anima. Very similar concepts, yes. It’s about the two poles necessary for generation, for bringing potential into reality. Okay. So those seven mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, gender, they paint a picture of a universe that is mental, patterned, constantly moving in cycles between opposites, governed by consequence, and generated through complementary forces. That’s a perfect summary. They describe the fixed architecture, the fundamental mechanics of the cosmos as laid out in the Kabbalion. Right. So now we hit the central question of this deep dive. If those seven principles give us the complete blueprint, the functional mechanics of everything, why the expansion? Why add five more? That’s the core of it. The sources suggest this wasn’t about finding flaws in the original seven. It was more about, well, a shift in spiritual focus, particularly influenced by developments in modern metaphysics. You mentioned new thought earlier. Can you expand on that? What did new thought bring to the table that made the seven feel maybe not wrong, but perhaps incomplete for some? OK, so new thought emerging in the late 19th, early 20th century really emphasized things like the inherent divinity of the individual, the power of positive thinking or mental manifestation and crucially radical subjectivism. Meaning our inner state strongly shapes our outer reality. Very strongly. While mentalism sets the stage for that, the original seven are quite impersonal. They describe how the machine works. New thought was much more focused on the operator, the individual consciousness, and its power to consciously direct the machine towards desired outcomes, particularly spiritual growth and well-being. So the seven are like the physics textbook, but New Thought wanted the driver’s manual, including chapters on intention, feeling and purpose. That’s a great analogy. Yeah. The original seven, while allowing for mental mastery, don’t explicitly have principles centered on concepts like love is a force or free will is a core aspect of consciousness or unity is the ultimate goal. These became much more central in New Thought and later esoteric movements. They wanted to bridge the gap between the maybe colder objective mechanics and the warmer subjective journey of the soul. Exactly. It’s an attempt to integrate the how it works with the how I work within it towards higher states. And it’s super important. We stress this again. This expanded framework of 12 isn’t found in classical hermetic texts. It’s a modern synthesis. Absolutely critical point. It’s not canonical hermeticism. It’s a later interpretation, blending hermetic ideas with other streams of thought. And the choice of 12. That wasn’t random, was it? There’s symbolism there. Definitely symbolism. 12 is a number of completion and cosmic order in many traditions. You have the 12 signs of the zodiac mirroring the soul’s journey, 12 disciples around a central figure, 12 months in a year cycle. Compared to seven, which often relates to process or structure, like the seven days of creation, seven visible planets in antiquity may be seven chakras. Precisely. Moving from 7 to 12 is symbolically moving from understanding the structure to achieving a sense of wholeness or integration within that structure. So the goal of this expansion, this synthesis, seems to be about showing how consciousness evolves beyond just acknowledging the laws of polarity and cause and effect. Yes. It’s about evolving into a state of integrated wholeness, consciously using forces like love and awareness to navigate and perhaps even transmute the effects of the original seven principles. From the structure of reality to the potential resonance of the self within that reality. That nails it. Structure to resonance. Okay, let’s dive into these five harmonics. How do they shift the focus? Well, as you said, they focus less on the objective how of reality and more on the subjective how of consciousness interacting with reality. They’re more about the spiritual application, the inner journey. So principle eight in these expanded systems is often listed as divine oneness or unity. Right. The core idea. All forces and beings arise from the one source. Separation is illusion. This feels like a direct response or counterbalance to principles like polarity and gender, which emphasize duality and distinction. It absolutely is. While the seven differentiate reality into opposites, into masculine and feminine, into different vibrations, unity pulls it all back together. It provides the ultimate context. Yes, hot and cold exist, polarity, but they’re both expressions of the one underlying energy rooted in the one universal mind, mentalism. So it’s the principle of non-duality, essentially, seeing the interconnectedness behind the parent separations. And the implication is profound. If separation is ultimately illusory, then conflict, fear, otherness, these are based on a misunderstanding of reality’s true nature. Embracing unity is seen as a path to peace and compassion. Okay. Then principle nine, truth, often called paradox. Definition, opposites coexist within higher truth. Paradox reveals the multidimensional nature of reality. Now this connects back to polarity principle four, doesn’t it? But it seems to go a step further. It does. Polarity says opposites exist on the same spectrum. Paradox says that from a higher perspective, the opposites might actually be the same thing, or at least both true simultaneously. Can you give an example? Think about free will versus determinism. Are our lives predetermined, cause and effect, or do we have free choice? Paradox suggests that maybe from a high enough viewpoint, both are true in ways our linear minds struggle to grasp. Reality might be complex enough to hold seemingly contradictory truths. So polarity identifies the spectrum. Paradox embraces the points where the spectrum seems to loop back on itself or requires holding opposing ideas at once. That’s a good way to think about it. It challenges simplistic, either thinking, and encourages acceptance of ambiguity. It suggests our mental models aren’t big enough to capture the full picture, which often involves paradox. It prevents intellectual rigidity, maybe, forces you to keep expanding your understanding. Exactly. And that leads us right into the tension point we flagged earlier. Principle 10, free will or choice. Definition. Conscious beings are co-creators, shaping experience through awareness and intention. Okay, here’s the rub. We establish principle six, cause and effect, as absolute. Every effect has a preceding cause, no exceptions, no chance. How can that coexist with genuine free will? Doesn’t one negate the other? That’s the philosophical nod, isn’t it? How do these modern systems resolve that apparent contradiction? The typical reconciliation distinguishes between the laws governing energy and the initiation of energy. Cause and effect dictates the unavoidable consequences once a cause is set in motion. Free will, in this view, is the capacity of a conscious being to choose the initial cause. Ah, okay. So the laws of physics are fixed, but I can choose where to throw the ball and how hard. The trajectory is then determined by law, but the initial impulse was my choice. That’s the essence of it. You operate within the absolute law of cause and effect. But you have the freedom to initiate the causes through your thoughts, intentions, and choices. So it shifts the focus from being a passive victim of effects to an active agent setting causes in motion. Precisely. It elevates consciousness from being just a cog in the machine to being a co-creator with the machine. This principle is arguably central to the entire new thought influence empowering the individual within the cosmic structure. Makes sense. Principle 11, compassion or often love. Divined as the harmonizing current that reconciles polarity and restores equilibrium. This presents love not just as an emotion but as a fundamental force, like gravity or electromagnetism. Very much so. In these systems, love, or compassion, is often described as a high-frequency vibration, an objective force that acts as the ultimate harmonizer. If the other principles describe how energy behaves and divides, love is the force that integrates and brings coherence. So if you’re stuck in a conflict driven by polarity, applying compassion isn’t about giving in, but about introducing a higher frequency. That emphasizes the underlying unity, principle eight, neutralizes the extremes of the polarity, and helps the rhythm, principle five, return to balance more gently. It dissolves opposition rather than fighting it. It’s the solvent for duality. In a sense, yes. It’s seen as the energy that allows the conscious individual to work with the mechanical laws without being broken by them. It aligns the microcosm, the loving individual, with the macrocosm in a harmonious way. Okay, that leads to the final one, principle 12, transformation or transmutation. Definition. The alchemical process of refining energy and consciousness into higher expression. This sounds like the culmination, the practical outcome of applying all the others. It is. Transformation is the evidence of mastery. It’s the ability to consciously and deliberately change the quality of your own energy or experience using the understanding of the other principles. It’s applied alchemy. So take a difficult situation, maybe one dictated by the downswing of rhythm. You apply awareness, free will, recognize the underlying unity, oneness, perhaps embrace the paradox, respond with compassion. And through that process, you transmute the experience. You refine the lead of the difficult experience into the gold of wisdom, resilience, or higher understanding. You consciously shift your vibration. It makes the whole system actionable, not just descriptive. It’s about actively evolving your consciousness. Exactly. It moves beyond just understanding the rules to actively playing the game towards spiritual growth and elevation. Okay, let’s really crystallize the difference between these two sets, the 7 and the 12. You used the terms structure and resonance earlier. Yes, I think that’s the clearest way to frame it. The original 7 are the mechanics. They describe the objective structure of reality, how the mental universe operates. Fixed laws impersonal the rules. And the full 12, incorporating the additional five, are the harmonics. They describe how consciousness interacts with, navigates, and evolves within those laws, aiming for resonance and mastery. It’s the subjective experience, the optimal way to play. Precisely. The seven tell you what is. The 12 suggest how to be within what is in order to grow and harmonize. And that symbolic shift from seven to 12, you mentioned completion. Right. Mystically speaking, seven often represents the planes, the processes, the divisions needed for manifestation. 12 represents the completed cycle, the fully integrated whole. Think of the zodiac encompassing all archetypes of experience. It suggests moving from understanding the parts to embodying the integrated self within the cosmos. I like the musical analogy you brought up too. Can we revisit that? The seven are like The basic diatonic scale, dur mi fa sol la ti, the fundamental notes, the structure of Western music. You can’t really violate them and still have what we recognize as tonal music. They are the mechanics. Okay, so then the expansion to 12. That’s like adding the five accidentals, the sharps, and flats to get the full chromatic scale. Those extra notes don’t break the original scale. They add color, nuance, complexity, emotional depth. They allow for modulation, tension, resolution, harmony. So understanding polarity, principle four, is like knowing the basic C major scale has no sharps or flats. But applying compassion, principle 11, to resolve a conflict is like knowing how to use a G sharp in accidental to create tension and then resolve it beautifully back to A minor, creating that feeling of emotional harmony and release. Exactly. It’s moving from just knowing the notes to knowing how to combine them to create music that resonates emotionally. It transforms the understanding from intellectual structure to felt experience. So the universe through this expanded lens isn’t just a machine running on laws. It’s well, it’s capable of becoming a song conducted by consciousness. Beautifully put. The core hermetic laws remain timeless, but these sources suggest humanity’s relationship to those laws evolves. True wisdom, in this view, comes from blending the knowledge of the seven, the mind, with the application of the five, the heart, the awareness. The seven establish the universe’s mind. The additional five emphasize that navigating this mental universe effectively requires heart, requires conscious, compassionate engagement. And that engagement, that intentional direction fueled by compassion and awareness, is what powers the alchemy, the personal transformation, that is the ultimate aim. Hashtag Hagout Outro. So reflecting on this deep dive, it seems the hermetic journey doesn’t end with understanding the laws of the universe. That’s just the beginning. It moves from grasping the mechanics to participating in the harmony, from recognizing the structure to composing the music of one’s own consciousness within it. We’ve traced that path from law to harmony, from, as you said, mind to music. The universe isn’t just thought. It’s thought that can be consciously shaped into experience, hopefully into song. And while the seven principles provide the unchanging cosmic framework, the expansion to 12 really highlights how our approach, our interaction with those timeless laws, changes everything about our experience. Which leads us perfectly to our final thought for you, the listener. We know the original seven principles like rhythm’s inevitable cycles or cause and effect’s consequences, or polarity’s extremes describe the often challenging structure of existence. So consider this, if you find yourself experiencing a difficult phase, maybe the low swing of rhythm, or caught between the poles of a conflict. How might consciously, intentionally applying one of the harmonic principles, say principle 11, compassion or love, or maybe principle 10, exercising your free will in how you frame the situation, how might that fundamentally change your subjective experience of that otherwise rigid mechanical law? Does the objective law feel different when met with subjective harmony? Does the inevitability of the structure yield in some way to the resonance of conscious choice and love? How does your inner state transform the outer law’s impact on you? Something profound to mull over. Thank you for joining us on this exploration of hermetic thought, tracing its evolution from structure to resonance. We hope it sparked some new connections for you. We look forward to diving deep with you again soon.