Hermetic Principles of Law

 “The principles of truth are seven; He who knows these, understandingly, possesses the magic key before whose touch all the doors of the temple fly open” – The Kybalion

What are the most important things? The principal things, which are 'principles'. It is in the word itself, that which comes first is what is most important. “Relationships have no value if they are not based in principles” (Mark Passio). Natural Law is based on seven underlying principles based in Hermes Trismegistus’ tradition: the hermetic principles. Hermetically sealed binding laws.

Hermeticism focuses on the pursuit of Gnosis (knowledge). This knowledge was passed on from the Master Hermes Trimegistus, to his disciple nearly 2000 years ago. 

In 'The Secret Teaching of All Ages', Manly P. Hall wrote: "Master of all arts and sciences, perfect in all crafts, Ruler of the Three Worlds, Scribe of the Gods, and Keeper of the Books of Life, Thoth Hermes Trismegistus - the Three Times Greatest, the First Intelligencer - was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the embodiment of the Universal Mind."

It is said the Emerald Tablets written by Hermes concern the Law of One, and this wisdom connected ancient Egypt with Greece. Each time a student read the highly encoded Emerald Tablets, it was understood or interpreted in another way and on another level of cognition. These seven Laws are some of the oldest and most influential systems of thinking and understanding reality. 

The Hermetic Principles

MENTALISM – “The all is mind; the universe is mental”

Everything that happens is a manifestation of a mental state which preceded it. Whatever we think, we create. Thoughts are seeds. Therefore, taking responsibility of our thoughts is crucial in order to change our reality.

CORRESPONDENCE - “As above, so below; as below, so above”

As within so without, macrocosm is a mirror reflection of the microcosm. The whole universe is inside the individual; and the entire universe is also like an individual. 

VIBRATION – “Nothing rests. Everything moves. Everything vibrates”

Death as ‘cessation of all energy’ is an illusion. At the most fundamental level, the universe is pure vibratory energy. There is no solidity as such.

POLARITY – “Everything is dual, everything has its pair of opposites.”

Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree. Extremes meet, paradoxes may be reconciled. Opposites are merely a matter of degree.

RHYTHM – “Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates”

There is rhythm between both poles. Like a pendulum, time and rhythm move it to one side and to the other side, and there is not much we can do to go against the movement. 

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 recognised’ There are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law.”

Every effect has its cause, free will can be used to break Natural Law but the Law cannot be broken without consequences. Inaction, not trying to rectify wrong, leads to wrong effects too. There are physical laws, emotional laws, mental laws and spiritual laws.

GENDER – “Gender is everything. Everything has its feminine and masculine principles. Gender manifests in all planes”

This does not refer to someone’s physical sex nor does it mean that someone’s physical gender relates to their spiritual gender. Each person has a male or female body, however, psychologically each person is androgynous, with a left brain and a right brain. It exists on all planes of existence; physical, mental and spiritual; and represents different aspects on different planes. Without the feminine, the masculine is said to act without restraint, order, or reason resulting in chaos. Without the masculine, the feminine is said to constantly reflect and fail to act what results in stagnation. Both working together produces harmony. Yin and Yang.  

‘Know thyself’ is the spiritual path to balance and integration. Balancing gender within us and the earthly and spiritual aspects of oneself. Understanding these universal laws that govern our being is understanding God’s laws.

There are several consequences of knowing these laws to be true. How does this relate to the Law?

We are starting from the premise that Nature is infinitely wise and perfectly designed. Men have free-will to go against (their) nature as, if infinite awareness is understood as pure unconditional love, we (mankind) would not be able to appreciate it or even understand it without the lack of it; what is commonly called evil, fear, ignorance, etc., absence of light. This love would not be unconditional if we were predetermined to live by it without choice because that would establish a first condition. The choice to ignore it makes it unconditional. This is relevant to the law since we can understand Natural Law as the body of laws that govern men’s souls. The cause-and-effect principle, the self-correcting principle, the idea that truth always comes to light, if you do harm, you’ll receive pain, energy flows where the focus goes, etc. They all permeate man-made laws, but their deviances too. That is why every one of us is the source of law and it is up to us to discover it and align ourselves with these laws or be a shade for them and suffer as a consequence of it.

The collective consciousness is just a macro expression of the laws of each and every one of us, manifested as a collective construct, sometimes more in harmony with nature’s laws, sometimes at odds. As everything is rhythm, and the pendulum has to move left and then forcibly right. The self-correcting principle will always bring those discording moments to an end. Chaos from order and order from chaos. That is why this does not work for people who just want to use this as a “get out of jail free card”, because a lack of responsibility, and thus chaos, will not bring harmony to the individual but more chaos. Only what is in line with the universe’s laws will work if the intent is in line with responsibility because it will be the right mental intent for the right desired outcome.

The correspondence principle, also known as the law of attraction, is a law of instruction to all the other laws to mobilise to restore balance where a man or woman is not taking responsibility for the emotions inside of their soul which are out of harmony with love and law and for the consequences of the actions they take as a result of those emotions and the beliefs they have built around them in order to keep their self-deception at play. Everything we do in our lives that is motivated in its core from fear, triggers the compensation principle to kick in and restore harmony.

Forgiveness is a state of being which you occupy when you have released all of the emotion inside that was a consequence of the unloving action of someone else. It is the mechanism which the law provides to enable a man or woman to take responsibility for cleaning up the emotions that others of mankind put inside of them. And for the actions they take which are out of harmony with love and law as a result of those emotions they have built around them.

Repentance is the mechanism which the law provides to enable a man or woman to bring remedy for harm he or she has done to another. And therefore, the law of attraction is motivating us to experience what we are avoiding but that brings us the greatest learning. It is a gift. Once you go through the pain of facing a fear, there is a release that removes that particular fear. That particular one will not be attracted to you anymore and you can move onto the new thing, but you are not stumbling upon the same stone over and over.

If everything is mental, our beliefs will determine our actions and thus our behaviour. This is like that phrase that we wrongly attribute to Gandhi: "Be the change you want to see in the world" and also why our inner self is what is going to determine our outer reality. The only way to affect change in our world is to go through it first inside ourselves. And if this is the case, then judging others becomes futile as what bothers us from others is but a mirror reflection of our inner world. Complaining is futile also as we regain all the power over our lives with this 'knowing' and it becomes evident that only we can take action to change what is bothering us from the outside world. The idea of mirror-like realities formed by language and abstract constructions is very much present in this blog, specifically pertaining to the construct of the legal system counterposed to the laws that we are here talking about.

Here, the actual quote from Ghandi is relevant:

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do" - Mahatma Gandhi