Refutation of The Kybalion
THOOTR Responds
Preamble Some have inquired whether The Hermetic Order Of The Ruminantia™ (THOOTR™) is connected with Hermes Trismegistus or the popular occult tract known as The Kybalion. Let it be stated plainly: no. To assume such a kinship is akin to mistaking a cowbell for a cathedral bell; both may ring, but only one calls the faithful to something worth attending.
On the Question of Hermes Trismegistus The authors of The Kybalion claim to channel the so-called Hermetic Philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical composite of the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes. This figure, while historically interesting, is the spiritual equivalent of an online avatar, conveniently shaped to say whatever the user requires. His alleged teachings come to us not as robust metaphysical systems, but as vague allegories and aphorisms stuffed into New Thought clothing.
By contrast, THOOTR draws not from synthesized Greco-Egyptian speculation but from deliberate contemplation and bovine patience. Where Trismegistus offers axioms like "The All is Mind," THOOTR replies: Sicut Cudum Sic Mentem. Deep truths require digestion, not merely assertion.
On the So-Called Seven Principles The Kybalion organizes its teachings around seven alleged universal laws:
Mentalism
Correspondence
Vibration
Polarity
Rhythm
Cause and Effect
Gender
Each of these principles is presented with the solemnity of a commandment but the clarity of a fogged-up mirror. Consider “Mentalism”: "The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental." What does this mean? Is it a metaphysical claim? A psychological one? A vague koan to impress one's tarot reader? It is not clear. And what is not clear is not helpful.
THOOTR maintains: obscurity should be employed only when concealing the obvious. This is Hermetics in its truest adjectival form, as Frater Bovious defines it: the deliberate use of exceedingly obscure, convoluted, or esoteric literary or graphical symbolism and imagery to seal from the outside world things not worth knowing anyway. Hence why Frater Bovious, 9th Level Adept, is known as The Master of the Obvious.
The Kybalion, by contrast, uses mystical language not to hide the banal, but to give it a mask of profundity. Its teachings are not so much secret as they are vague, and like mist on the field, they vanish under scrutiny or sunlight.
On Authority and Lineage The so-called "Three Initiates" who authored The Kybalion, allegedly channeling ancient wisdom, are likely a marketing ploy by William Walker Atkinson, a prolific New Thought writer and peddler of mind-power pseudoscience. Unlike the secretive but meticulous scribes of THOOTR, who labor in silence, cigar smoke, and absurdity, the Initiates of The Kybalion hide their names to inflate their mystery rather than to uphold solemnity.
True hermeticism, ruminant hermeticism, does not require secret identities. It requires sacred digestion. The Four-Chambered Path to Enlightenment (Ingest, Ruminate, Digest, Disseminate), demands time, repetition, and the humility to recognize that some truths must be chewed many times before they are worth sharing.
Conclusion To read The Kybalion is to sip lukewarm tea brewed from recycled fortune cookies. It may amuse, and it may momentarily flatter the reader with a sense of insider knowledge. But it does not nourish. It does not sustain. It is not Ruminantia.
THOOTR stands apart, not as keeper of hidden truths, but as the Order willing to profess most hidden truths are not worth knowing. That is the true mystery.
Rumina et Illumina.
