Seven Hermetic Principles: (Cliff Notes)
Principle Meanings and Art Descriptions
Comprehensive Guide for True Mental Alchemy
Written and Illustrated by arthur-BARDford KLEMMER, Outlined useing Chat GPT
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1- The Principle of Mentalism:
The All is Mind. The Universe is mental.
Everything Begins in the Mind
The Universe is mental, meaning all of reality exists within a higher consciousness/the mind of God called The All (God, Source).
Just as writers create characters and worlds in their imagination, we are expressions of Source Consciousness, connected to everything and everyone through God.
You Are Both the Creator and the Character
Imagine you are the main character in a "choose your own adventure" story.
Your soul is experiencing life within the infinite mind of The All, shaping your reality through your thoughts and perceptions.
We Are Spiritual Beings Having a Human Experience
The Universe is not just physical; it is conscious energy.
Everything that exists is part of one higher mind—which we are all unique expressions of.
Your Thoughts Shape Your Reality
Thoughts and emotions create one another, and together, both fuel actions, which lead to our experiences.
To change your reality, you must first change your thoughts and emotions.
Self-awareness helps you understand your subconscious fears, desires, and motivations, allowing you to create the life you want.
Three Levels of the Mind
Conscious Mind – Your everyday awareness and logical thinking.
Subconscious Mind – The hidden part of your mind that holds deep beliefs, habits, and emotions.
Superconscious Mind – The higher intelligence that connects all things (also called the Collective Unconscious).
These three parts work together to bridge your individual self (microcosm) with the universal mind (macrocosm).
Science Confirms Spiritual Truths
Quantum physics supports these ideas:
The Observer Effect shows that reality shifts based on our focus.
The Double Slit Experiment suggests that the Universe responds to consciousness.
Physical matter is actually energy and thought, appearing solid only when observed.
Avoiding Extreme Views
Some may say, "I am God," believing they control everything.
Others may say, "Life is just a meaningless simulation."
The truth lies in between: We are all expressions of God, co-creating reality within a conscious, intelligent universe.
How to Shape Your Life
Your external world is a reflection of your inner world.
To manifest your desires:
Remove ego-based distortions (fears and limiting beliefs).
Align your thoughts with higher truth and wisdom.
Meditate to connect with your subconscious and The All.
Balance intuition and logic to gain a deeper understanding.
Daily Practices for Mastery
Meditation helps unlock your subconscious and access higher wisdom.
The subconscious mind determines reality based on your expectations and beliefs.
Though God/The All is beyond human understanding, we can tap into its intelligence through deep self-exploration.
You Are Always Manifesting
Whether you know it or not, you are constantly creating your reality.
Shadow work (exploring hidden fears/emotions) helps you consciously shape your experiences instead of reacting unconsciously.
The more control you have over your mind, the more control you have over your life.
Final Thought
The Universe is Mental. Everything begins with thoughts and emotions, from personal experiences to our collective reality. By understanding this, you can take control of your mind and co-create a better world for yourself and for all.
2- The Principle of Correspondence.
As above, so below. As below, so above. As within, so without. As without, so within.
Everything Reflects Everything Else
"As above, so below. As below, so above."
The small (microcosm) and the large (macrocosm) are reflections of one another—the individual mirrors the Universe, and the Universe mirrors the individual.
Your inner world (thoughts, emotions, beliefs) shapes your outer world (experiences, relationships, reality).
Life is Like a Mirror
Imagine a mirror that doesn't show your current reflection but the future outcomes of your current thoughts, emotions, and choices.
If your face showed your future reality, would you choose to smile more, even on bad days?
What you focus on mentally and emotionally will become your future physical reality.
The Universe is Fractal and Holographic
The same patterns repeat on all levels—from atoms to galaxies.
Every part of the Universe contains the whole in some way.
Nature shows this through Fibonacci sequences, spiral galaxies, and even the structure of human cells.
Personal truth is what the subconscious mind is willing to accept, which becomes one's fractal point reality of lived experience.
Three Planes of Existence
Mental (thoughts), Emotional (feelings, energy), and Physical (matter, action).
Change one plane, and the others respond—shifting thoughts can shift emotions, which in turn shifts reality.
The spiritual and mental realms comprise 99.999999% of reality, while physical matter is only 0.000001%.
Energy Flows Where Attention Goes
Your focus magnifies what you experience in life.
Reality begins as waves of possibility and takes form based on your awareness and energy.
To change your life, you must first change your dominant thoughts and emotions.
Keeping a Healthy Mind and Environment
A "mental diet" is just as important as a physical diet.
Eliminate negative media, toxic relationships, and cluttered spaces.
Engage in shadow work, meditation, breathwork, exercise, and creative activities to raise your energy.
The Mirror Principle
Your external world reflects your inner world—your beliefs, thoughts, and emotions attract matching experiences.
If you want to change your reality, change how you think, feel, and treat yourself and others.
The Universe is like a multidimensional mirror, reflecting what you project into it.
Elevating Your Reality
The more you raise your vibration (through gratitude, love, and self-awareness), the more your external world transforms.
Focus on what you are grateful for, and life will reflect more reasons for being grateful.
Your willpower and intention shape the world around you.
Final Thought
The kingdom of heaven is within you and all around you. When you truly know yourself, you will understand your connection to The All—and your power to shape reality.
3- The Principle of Vibration
Nothing rests; Everything moves and vibrates; Everything is energy.
Everything is Energy in Constant Vibration
Nothing is truly solid; everything is vibrating energy, even if it seems tangible and still.
Atoms, thoughts, and emotions all exist in constant motion.
The higher something vibrates, the lighter and more powerful it becomes (like Spirit), while lower vibrations feel heavier and more dense (like physical matter).
Your Thoughts and Emotions Have Vibrations
Your mental and emotional state determines your vibrational state.
Higher vibrations = love, peace, joy, enlightenment → Life flows easily.
Lower vibrations = fear, guilt, shame, anger → Life feels like a struggle.
How you choose to think and feel shapes your experience of reality.
Science Supports This Idea
Dr. David Hawkins created a vibration scale measuring emotions and energy levels.
The higher your emotional frequency, the closer you feel to Source Consciousness (God, The All).
The lower your frequency, the more you feel disconnected and stuck in negativity.
You Send and Receive Energy
Each person has an electromagnetic field that flows through and around their body, emerging from the heart.
Thoughts are electric → They send out energetic signals to the Universe.
Emotions are magnetic → They attract experiences that match your energy.
Truth and Vibration are Connected
The higher your vibration, the more your personal beliefs (subjective truth) align with what truly is (objective truth).
Ignoring reality (the denialism of toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing) lowers your vibration.
Accepting reality with love, peace, and clarity is key to raising your vibration.
Heaven and Hell Are Mental States
Your state of mind creates the "Heaven" or "Hell" you experience in life.
High vibrations (love, peace, and the acceptance of Truth) create a beautiful, fulfilling life.
Low vibrations (fear, guilt, and shame) trap you in painful experiences.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." – Luke 17:21
Final Thought
To live your best life, raise your vibration by choosing love, peace, and enlightenment. The more you align with high-frequency energy, the more positive experiences, people, and opportunities will come your way.
The Principle of Polarity
Everything is dual; everything has its poles, and everything has its pairs of opposites.
Everything Has an Opposite, But Opposites Are Connected
Everything exists in pairs of opposites, like light and dark, hot and cold, good and bad.
These opposites are not separate—they are just different degrees of the same thing (e.g., hot and cold are both temperatures).
Understanding this helps us see the unity behind all things.
True Peace Comes From Accepting Both Sides
The esoteric meaning (inner circle knowledge) of Jesus' message was about seeing the divine in everything and accepting life with love and compassion.
We find inner peace and salvation when we embrace both the good and bad in life.
Good and Evil Are Part of the Same Spectrum
Love is the sum of all things, including both love and fear, light and dark, good and evil, etc.
What we call "good" expands consciousness and creates unity, while "evil" causes fear, division, and restriction.
Fear is an illusion created by the ego's belief in separation.
Perception Shapes Reality
Good and bad are subjective—what one person sees as good, another may see as bad.
How we experience life depends on our perspective and whether we resist or accept things as they are.
The more we shine light on the dark, the more love and joy we bring into the world.
The Choice Between Unity and Division
Christ-Consciousness (Unity-Consciousness): Seeing the world as whole and perfect, with love, peace, and compassion.
Luciferian-Consciousness (Extreme Separation): Creating division through fear, guilt, shame, and an "us vs. them" mentality.
How we treat others is how we will eventually be treated because we are all one.
Breaking the Cycle of Fear and Hatred
Those who commit harm to others are often deeply wounded themselves ("hurt people hurt people").
Responding with hatred only continues the cycle of suffering.
Holding people accountable for wrongdoing is important, but we must also avoid becoming consumed by anger and revenge.
Trust in the Bigger Picture
Everything is unfolding for the growth and expansion of all.
The key is to respond with love and wisdom, knowing that everything has a purpose in the grand design.
Final Thought
Proper balance comes when we recognize polarity without getting trapped in its seeming duality. By embracing both light and dark with understanding, love, compassion, and accountability, we can rise above fear and create a better world.
The Principle of Rhythm.
Everything flows out and in; Everything has its tides. All things rise and fall. The pendulum swing manifests in everything.
Everything Moves in Cycles
Life follows natural rhythms, like the ocean tides, the seasons, and the rise and fall of civilizations.
Like a clock, life keeps moving round and round, and nothing stays the same forever.
Highs and Lows Are Connected, and Equil in Measure
Success and failure, happiness and sadness, energy and exhaustion—they all come and go like a pendulum.
The greater the struggle, the greater the potential success that can follow.
There is no actual failure, only learning and growth.
Your Perspective Shapes Your Experience
What if you could love life so much that even Mondays felt as exciting as Fridays?
Would you still fear challenges if they were just stepping stones to growth?
You can choose how you see each experience—as suffering or as an opportunity.
Understanding Rhythm Helps You Gain Control
Most of life's ups and downs happen unconsciously, meaning we react without awareness.
By becoming aware of these cycles, you can control how they affect you.
The more conscious you are, the less life pushes you around.
Alchemy: Making the Best of Any Situation
Alchemy is turning the worst into the best.
If you can control your thoughts and emotions, you can rise above any challenge.
Awareness, acceptance, and release help you move through difficult times with ease and grace.
Regulating Your Nervous System for Balance
Your body also follows cycles—stress and relaxation, action and rest.
To stay balanced, use:
Deep breathing with slow exhales
Mindfulness and meditation
EFT tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique)
Proper sleep, exercise, and healthy food
In stressful moments, calming your nervous system helps with better thinking and emotional control.
Final Thought
Life will always have ups and downs, but by understanding and working with the rhythm of existence, you can stay centered, grow through challenges, and create a more balanced, joyful life.
The Principle of Cause and Effect
Every cause has its effect, and every effect has its cause. Everything happens according to law; Chance is but a name for a law not recognized, aka karma.
Everything Happens for a Reason
Every action has a reaction, and every effect comes from a cause, which often starts with one's mental and emotional processes.
What people call "luck" or "chance" is ultimately a law they don't recognize.
This principle is also known as karma—what you put out into the world comes back to you.
Cause and Effect Applies to Both Physical and Spiritual Life
It's not just about physical reactions (like knocking over a glass of water).
It also applies to thoughts and emotions, which create real-world results.
The Universe keeps everything in balance, so your choices affect your mental, emotional, and physical reality, and vice versa.
Your mental and emotional processes cause the greatest effects on your choices and physical reality
The Universe Seeks Balance
If your thoughts, emotions, and actions are out of sync, the Universe will create balancing forces.
Example: If you want success but struggle with self-doubt, life may challenge you until you overcome it.
Tests and challenges come to help you grow—if you pass, your life improves.
Trust the process! Everything is working for your highest good.
You Get What You Give (Objective Morality)
The Universe balances your actions based on the energy you put out for the greatest good of all.
It doesn't matter if you justify bad actions—the Universe will correct them.
This is why the Golden Rule ("Treat others as you want to be treated") is a universal truth.
The Present is a Result of the Past, which stems from one's Thoughts and Emotions
The physical world results from past choices—you can't change what's already happened.
However, you can change the future by changing your thoughts, emotions, and actions in the present.
The real power to create change lies in how you think and feel today.
How to Shift Your Reality
Take responsibility for your thoughts and emotions because they drive your actions.
Use practices like meditation, self-reflection, shadow work, and forgiveness of self and others to clear negative patterns.
Observe the effects in your life and adjust your mindset to create better future outcomes.
Final Thought
You are constantly shaping your future with your thoughts, feelings, and actions. By understanding this law, you can take control of your life, create balance, and manifest the reality you desire.
The Principle of Gender
Gender is in everything. Everything has its masculine and feminine, yin and yang, inward and outward, active and passive forces. Gender manifests on all planes.
Masculine and Feminine Attributes Exist in Everything
Everyone has both masculine (active, logical) and feminine (receptive, intuitive) qualities.
These forces work best when balanced but can also be intentionally polarized for different strengths.
Masculine and Feminine in the Mind
Left brain (masculine) → Logic, intellect, analysis, action.
Right brain (feminine) → Intuition, creativity, emotions, wholeness.
Thoughts are masculine (electric), emotions are feminine (magnetic)—what you think about (masculine) draws experiences to you (feminine).
Meditation helps synchronize both sides of the brain, allowing balanced, holistic thinking.
Thoughts are masculine, whereas the part of the mind that witnesses the thoughts is feminine.
The Balance of Strength and Compassion
Masculine and feminine principles create two pillars of enlightenment:
Feminine = Nonaggression (be peaceful).
Masculine = Self-defense (stand your ground).
In other words: Do no harm, but take no shit.
Understanding Masculine and Feminine Energies
Everyone has a unique balance of these energies, often influenced by family and culture.
The key is to embrace the strengths of both while avoiding their wounded/shadow sides.
Traits of Divine Masculinity
Positive (Divine): Action, strength, focus, leadership, clarity, transformation, endurance, growth, responsibility.
Negative (Wounded): Aggression, control, dominance, ego-driven competition, toxic patriarchy.
Traits of Divine Femininity
Positive (Divine): Creation, healing, intuition, nurturing, love, wisdom, harmony, compassion, forgiveness.
Negative (Wounded): Manipulation, emotional control, emasculation of men.
Final Thought
True power comes from balancing both masculine and feminine energies. When you integrate the strengths of both, you become whole, more self-aware, and in harmony with life. Furthermore, the more one can balance them as necessary and polarize to one desired side, the more one can invite romantic relationships of the opposite polarity.
(Spiritually Modern, Collage Artist and Mindset Coach, arthur-BRADford KLEMMER recently compiled over a hundred words describing the divine and wounded aspects of each gender in his current art portfolio and educational video series, in progress, "Awaken the Divine Within.")
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the philosophers stone: alchemical symbol
The wisdom, after passing from lip to ear for several thousand years before fictitiously being originally written as "The Kybalion," then lost over the centuries, "The Kybalion" was essentially rewritten in 1908 by an American new-thought and occultist author named William Walker Atkinson, penned as Three Initiates. The principles described are attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the mythical reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, venerated as three times greater than the Greek god Hermes, contemporary of Abraham, founder of astrology, and discoverer of alchemy (psychological art of turning thoughts and emotions into spiritual gold).
Just as the word "occult" accurately means hidden, referring to esoteric (meaning inner-circle) spiritual knowledge, so to does the word "hermetic" mean hidden, referring to the protective containment of such higher wisdom from persecution, abuse, and dogma. "The lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding." Likewise, "When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with wisdom" The Kybalion. These principles are the master keys to unlocking the Universe's secrets and many occult teachings.
These principles were first written down by the scribes of Alexander when the Greeks conquered Egypt in 332 BCE. Over a thousand years later, those writings resurfaced in the late Medieval and early Renaissance periods throughout Europe and the Middle East. They became the source material of gnostic works called "The Corpus Hermeticum" and "The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, " which, though more poetically abstract, were said to have inspired the creation of "The Kybalion.”
Beyond "The Kybalion" by Three Initiates, several more great resources for this and other related information that I'm sourcing and recommending are:
kybalion.org/TheKybalion.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=QIZD_OSYuT0 (The Kybalion audio version)
"Letting Go" by David Hawkins
"Reality Transurfing" by Vadim Zeland
”Reality Transurfing” (audio version)
"The Holographic Universe" Michael Talbot
"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle
"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle (Audio Version)
"The Gap and The Gain" by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
"Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz
"Psycho-Cybernetics” (Audio Version)
The Holy Bible
"The Lost Gospel of Thomas," scribed by Didymos Judas Thomas, translated by Thomas O. Lambdin | (“The Lost Gospel of Thomas” Audio Version)
dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4448086
Imagining 10 Dimensions - the Movie by Rob Bryanton (YouTube)
The Holographic Universe Workshop Series (YouTube)
youtube.com/@davidmcewenemt
youtube.com/@QuaziJohir
youtube.com/@spiritualawakening1111
youtube.com/@TealSwanOfficial
youtube.com/@officialthealchemist
youtube.com/@neroknowledge1
youtube.com/@AaronDoughty44
youtube.com/@AaronAbke
youtube.com/@AbrahamHicks
youtube.com/@AmandaFlaker
youtube.com/@ManlyHallSociety
youtube.com/@nevillegoddardofficial
youtube.com/@GreggBradenOfficial
youtube.com/@BruceHLiptonPhD
youtube.com/@AlanWattsOrg
youtube.com/@TherapyinaNutshell
youtube.com/@MarkPassio (Authors Note: Mark Passio is an ex-satanic preacher turned light luciferian preacher and is essentially a cult leader, so I would highly advise you not to follow him too closely as I once did years ago. Nevertheless, I did learn a few things of value from him.)
Last but not least, thanks to Holosync, binaural beats meditation program.
Also, thanks to a realization I had while on DMT.
Also, please follow Brad Klemmer's YouTube and other social media channels: @AwakeningArtwithBradford
Much Love, and God Bless Humanity,
arthur-BRADford KLEMMER
Spiritually Modern Collage Artist and Mindset Coach
AwakeningArtwithBradford.com
Purchase Limited Edition Prints from this Art Portfolio
Subscribe to Bradford's Weekly Newsletter and Receive this Free pdf Alchemical Art Book!
If you got value from viewing this art and reading these words, please consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. You will receive inspirational emails that are super short, along with occasional artist updates, special offers, and tips for collectors.