First edition of The Kybalion (1908) from the Philosophical Research Society library.

The Kybalion without Tears

Understanding a controversial occult classic

A little book of “Hermetic Philosophy” from 1908 called The Kybalion has recently polarized online opinion. Denizens of the “true way,” if ever there was such a thing, damn the slender work of popular metaphysics as fraudulent, plagiarized, or “crap.”