Atkinson is particularly supple in adapting the Hermetic conception of gender , in which the masculine (conscious mind, in Atkinson’s terms, and original man in the Hermetica) impregnates the feminine (subconscious mind to Atkinson, and nature in the Hermetica), to create the physical world.

The Kybalion is not merely, or at least not only, modern New Thought clothed in antique conceit; rather, the book connects readers, however tenuously, to late-ancient Hermetic themes of correspondence, development of psyche, scale of creation, and an all-­creative overmind .

in traditional literature, Hermes Trismegistus addresses himself to three disciples: Tat, Ammon, and Asclepius, which may have been a source of inspiration for William Walker Atkinson’s byline (or possibly his own use of a tripartite byline).

The Kybalion was written and published by New Thought philosopher William Walker Atkinson (1862–1932), a remarkably energetic Chicago publisher, writer, lawyer, and spiritual seeker.