The Law of Mentalism, which is the first principle of the seven primary principles of Hermetic Sciences, basically states that all of life and reality as we know it is a product of the mind. That Mind is all there is. Everything exists as a mental construct or dynamic concept contained within the mind. The outer reality and world of appearances is produced as an expression of the mind as its nature and character. It states that Spirit is the mind or invisible creative intelligence, as the substance we call subtle energy, matter, material form, and the phenomena of life. All material life forms are accompanied by an invisible electromagnetic energy field that organizes its form giving it distinct qualities and characteristics, and animates it with natural biological processes and behaviors as a means of using it as a vehicle for expression of different levels, degrees, and qualities of consciousness.
Thought, like the mind that produces it, is invisible and acts to shape (astral) light as substance into forms, images, and living scenarios through the faculty of the imagination. What we think and imagine determines how our outer reality “appears” to us as the expression and correspondence of our inner nature or character. Our mental paradigm is formed as a result of thoughts and experiences as we go along in life, all of which are created as the expression of our mental paradigm, and so it acts as a feedback loop of cause and effect, or action that produces a reaction, and we’re always acting “on ourselves to create ourselves”. All perception of the outer world is a projection of our mind, which then forms “how” we experience (interpret) the events of our life, which in turn forms our memories which are systematically integrated to modify the structure of our mind.
Our character as our inner nature is our mind as a paradigm or mental model as a quality, degree, and level of consciousness. All feeling sensation and thought arises from our mind as the invisible electromagnetic energy field that envelops, inhabits, and gives life to our body. Our body serves as a vehicle for our mind to create within the material world. Thoughts form as the demonstration of our inner nature, and is the natural expression and projection of our mind, and what acts to shape us by way of the experiences we create through our perceptions. The mind works “on itself” through outer projections that are then reflected back to it, stimulating those same qualities in our inner nature, and developing us by way of them. The outer is formed as a correspondence to the inner, then acts to stimulate the inner with the same qualities being expressed through a form of return, reaction, or self-reflection. What we put out as an outer expression, stimulates its polar opposite in everything and everyone else, and is returned to us in its polar state, which acts to give us more of the same feeling as an inward experience, that’s actually a response to our own mental projections.
All laws and principles are given as a “system of laws” that produce a systematic operation or creative process of a larger, unified process, and are given in a specific order to demonstrate the nature of the creative process involved as an unfolding, and so they should never be looked at or analyzed individually as though they’re independent of each other. Each one systematically emerges out of the preceding one which serves to activate it as a part of or natural function of the same creative process. All actions and operations of the Spirit-Mind are creative in nature, and all creation comes from a form of growth process of self-regeneration. The primary law contains all the other laws as latent potential that are activated and spontaneously emerge out of each other as the function, operation or set of behaviors of the one birthing it. So the order in which laws and principles are given is important to the understanding of the preceding one as its function, as well as contains all the preceding ones as an accumulative process that initiates and lays the foundation, or provides the necessary means for it to emerge in a spontaneous fashion, while containing all the ones proceeding out of it in their potential state.
Laws emerge from each other as they move between planes of existence in a descending movement from higher, purely spiritual or invisible planes, to a lower material plane as a form of coagulation, organizing and solidifying, or building process, and then enfold and return back into each other through an ascending movement, disintegrating the material form and existence back into a spiritual, invisible one. There’s always a dynamic and self-perpetuating unfolding and enfolding, expansion and contraction, outward breath and inward breath, an electric and magnetic polar component to the same movement. So when contemplating principles they should be seen and interpreted as a dynamic process of creation and disintegration, of life and death that moves from one state to another, transcending multiple planes that are all dynamically connected and the outer growth of each other.
The first principle of the Mind, is actually the unification of three principles into one. There are 10 primary principles (numbered 0 – 9), but the first three form the mind as three-fold in nature and is what gives birth to or makes possible the other seven. All principles form correspondences with numbers, letters, and symbolic images, and the Dyad, the first principle, is actually a combination of zero, one, and two, which form the Vesica Pisces as the “womb of the Universe”, and is considered the “parent number” because it gives birth to the other seven which spontaneously emerge out of it as offspring. The Dyad is the three primary principles, also called the supernal or trinity which originate on a higher plane, that form the material or individual mind, also symbolized by the triangle or pyramid, because it spans two dimensions as the One that enters into the lower material realm where it divides into polar aspects of itself as masculine and feminine, forming an electromagnetic field that’s self-perpetuating. Out of no-thing (zero) comes everything. The One divides and becomes dual as complementary polar opposites that serve to balance each other as a form of perpetual motion, or stimulus – response, cause and effect, being and doing, and passive and active.
The first of the seven is the Principle of Mentalism, the second is the Principle of Correspondence, the third, the Principle of Vibration, the fourth the Principle of Polarity, Fifth the Principle of Rhythm, the sixth Principle Cause and Effect, and the seventh, the Principle of Gender. The Mind is the ALL because everything emerges out of it as its expression and creation. The Mind exists as both the Micro and the Macro, or the Universal Mind that produced what we call the original creation as the Natural world or what we can call our “shared reality”, which is objective and neutral in nature, and the individual mind that then acts to reshape the objective reality into a personal creation as a subjective reality that’s formed as a correspondence to their mental paradigm as a basic form of self-expression.
The mind exists as a mental paradigm or model that forms our individual reality as a correspondence, or to be of the same nature and with the same likeness (qualities as polar opposites) as we are. The movement between extreme poles of the same quality of consciousness, forms the Principle of Vibration as perpetual motion between positive (masculine) and negative (feminine) poles, or from the center outward to an invisible parameter as a range or frequency, that projects outward, then folds back into itself and returns to the center, in a cyclical, rhythmic movement, or as a form of stimulus that produces a response between the inner and the outer, as a form of cause and effect through resonance and sympathetic induction that forms coherence by balancing the inner with the outer. The mind forms a relationship as perpetual movement between polar opposites of the same quality, character, or idea. Polarity provides a range of movement as a gradient scale between opposite aspects of the same idea that together forms the contrast and relationship necessary to create a common or shared reality as a joint experience that requires different roles in order to play out the same idea as a story-line or joint-experience.
The Principle of Rhythm is the back and forth movement between poles, the inward creating the outward by stimulating it into existence, and the outward complementary expression as a response stimulating the inner creating an experience of itself through the other. This back and forth interaction of cause and effect or an action that causes a like reaction, and the reaction becomes the action as a causal force that produces a like effect, and it goes back and forth. The Principle of Cause and Effect describing the reality of resonance as perpetual motion between extremes of the same frequency that “excite” each other into existence. The masculine and feminine aspect of the same dynamic or thematic reality necessary to create it as a joint experience, is born out of a form of passion and excitability for each other. This forms the Principle of Gender, everything, every living form, quality of consciousness, and reality has its masculine and feminine aspects, and in the plant, animal, and human kingdom, one is dominate as our sexual gender. Though each sex still has both aspects within their nature, and their sex doesn’t necessarily determine which energy is dominant emotionally and psychologically. A man can have strong feminine qualities, and a woman can display dominant masculine qualities.
This creative process forms the Principle of generation, regeneration, and creation that takes us back to the first principle as the One that exists in dual aspects, which act on each other to stimulate each other into existence by external forces activating internal forces of the same nature that become outwardly expressed as a shared or unified reality. Latent and passive internal states are made active and “brought out” by exciting or vibrating them. The masculine and feminine of the same vibratory frequency “resonate” with each other, and their energy enters into and effects each other, as a form of energetic sex or procreation, that alter each others vibration and together form a new vibration as a variation (relationship), that’s created by combining aspects that they share in common as polar opposites of the same quality and character, into a unique version that serves to modify and adjust the vibration of both. Forming relationships as new combinations that modify our existing vibration is the most basic way we grow and develop new aspects of ourselves.
The mind as a vibratory frequency moves between two poles as extreme opposites of the same overall pattern as a thematic reality, taking on opposite and complementary roles necessary in acting out the same idea as a drama, joint reality, or co-creation, as the substantial reality that underlies and serves to orchestrate the outward manifestation, producing the phenomena of Life as Reality. As we project onto others and our environment, we don’t act to attract or stimulate the same role or quality that we ourselves play, but the opposite role in the same dynamic necessary for producing the same reality as a joint experience that we play the complementary role in. For example, a person who is imprinted with the role of “victim”, doesn’t attract or serve to stimulate other victims, but rather attracts “victimizers” that will play the opposite role in the same dynamic that they’re identified with (vibrate at that frequency). Abused people attract and act to agitate those who will abuse them so they can play the role they’ve built their identity around. Our identity is created and expressed by the story we tell about things, about ourselves and what happened to us, about others and what they did to us, and about the way life is, which we act out unconsciously through natural behaviors that we employ. Our story forms our pattern as a vibratory frequency and mental paradigm that perfectly attracts and stimulates the person who’ll be ideal for playing the opposite role in the same life theme. We’re always the star of our movie and attracting or looking for our ideal co-star. We naturally enter into relationship with those of the same conditioning and mind-set, the same vibratory frequency and behavioral dynamics as we are.
We “see” in others what’s of the same quality (dynamic) that we ourselves possess that’s the complementary opposite, or that can play the co-star in the same drama as a certain type of experience or reality. All of life is a co-creation between the inner and the outer, and between ourselves and others. Life as a reality forms a correspondence to our mental model, which is what’s creating it by perceiving it and interpreting it to give it the meaning it has, which is what we build our story about it around. All vibration forms patterns as a self-organizing feature that acts as a cause that’s forever stimulating the effect as a return or reflection of the complementary aspect that we serve as the outward expression for that we’re largely unaware of. This reality that we’re imprinted with as a story-line, reflects back to us opposite and unconscious aspects of ourselves in others, that we act to create by stimulating, though we can’t see or realize what we’re doing, because we’re not aware of our own projections and behaviors. We think that projection means we see in others (and react too) the same qualities that we possess, and while this is true, we see and stimulate the opposite aspect of the same quality, it’s polar opposite or what serves to stimulate it into activity where we form an illusion around it as our perception of reality and what’s really going on.
Whatever role or drama as a story-line we’re identified with and always playing out as our natural behavior, we attract, stimulate, and enter into relationship with those who are imprinted with the same patterns – of the same vibratory frequency as a quality and mode of consciousness – that will cooperatively participate in acting it out and co-creating the same type of reality with us. We always attract and are attracted to the perfect co-star for our movie. Whatever dynamic and role we are identified with and use to form our basic perception out of as our life story or consistent type of experience, we vibrate at that frequency, and resonate with the opposite and complementary role in the same reality. Our reality is a product of our mind as our perception and interpretation, and an expression of our vibratory frequency as a quality of consciousness that forms our basic personality.
Dr. Linda Gadbois
Integrative Mind-Body Health Consultant and Spiritual Mentor