The Kybalion, chapter 12: the Law of Cause and Effect and the end of chance

When something goes wrong and someone says “bad luck,” The Kybalion would disagree. Chapter 12 of the book, devoted to the Principle of Cause and Effect, holds that nothing happens by chance and that the word only disguises what is not yet understood. In the Nova Acrópole lecture behind this piece, the philosopher Lúcia Helena Galvão pushes the thesis to its most uncomfortable question: if everything has a cause, who answers for mine?

The principle, the sixth of the seven The Kybalion attributes to hermetic philosophy, is described by the teacher as the most demanding, because it confronts the notions of responsibility, destiny, and freedom. Claims about karma, universal laws, and the meaning of life belong to the hermetic tradition and to the lecture, not to scientific research. The summary below follows her presentation and, at the end, sets it against the philosophical debate over the same problem.

A law with no exceptions

The formulation in the book, published in 1908 under the pseudonym “Three Initiates,” is that every cause has its effect and every effect has its cause; that everything happens according to law; that chance is just the name for an unrecognized law; and that there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law. There would be, then, no voids and no meaningless events. Every thought, word, or action, however small it seems, would produce a consequence.

The teacher uses the image of the lake. Everything one thinks, feels, says, or does would be a stone thrown into the water, and the ripples spread far beyond what the eye can see. Hence the conclusion that no act is insignificant.

Saying “it was chance,” in this reading, is confessing ignorance. Life would have meaning, even if the person does not yet grasp it. Giving up that alibi takes the individual out of the role of victim and makes them a co-author of their own story.

Free causes, binding effects

The lecture ties the hermetic law to Eastern karma. Freedom, then, does not lie in escaping consequences, but in choosing one's causes well. Hermetic philosophy, according to the teacher, divides the world into two fields: in the field of causes, there is freedom; in the field of effects, there is determinism. At the moment of acting, one chooses; afterward, there is no escaping what follows.

The problem is that most people live on autopilot, unaware of the causes they set in motion and always surprised by what they reap. The book says something close to this: the mass of people are moved by their environment, their heredity, and the will of others, like pawns on a board, while masters, by rising to a higher plane, become causers rather than effects.

Clockwork man

Lúcia Helena introduces the figure of “clockwork man.” From the womb onward, cultural, social, and historical conditions would program a child's behavior. In youth, they repeat inherited habits. In maturity, the social mask takes over, and life becomes a repeated script, predictable, almost cloned.

The way out begins with a question: what in me is truly mine, and what do I only think because it was handed down to me? The teacher argues that a human being is more than genetics, culture, trauma, or fashion. It is what one decides to be, with awareness, effort, and principles. Whoever does not decide will be decided by others.

As proof that the repetition can be broken, she cites Giordano Bruno, said not to have been a product of the Middle Ages, Plato, seen as a break from his surroundings, and Leonardo da Vinci and Mozart, taken as works of self-awareness. Intelligence, she notes, comes from intelegere, to choose among, and freedom is born of choosing what is true, essential, and one's own.

No chaos, no absolute evil

By The Kybalion's account, chance would destroy the logic of existence. If effects did not follow causes, there would be no philosophy, no science, no morality. The teacher says that if chaos were real, it would be impossible even to follow the lecture. Order is what makes thinking, dialogue, and evolution possible.

The same logic applies to evil. An absolute evil would limit the ALL, the Absolute of hermetic philosophy. What is called evil would often be something out of place, like a poison that heals at the right dose or a fire that warms when used well. Nothing would be useless, and everything is energy awaiting its right use.

Life, then, appears as a school. The teacher cites the Bardo Thödol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead: if there were ever a minute with nothing to teach, the universe would withdraw it, because it wastes neither time nor energy.

Determinism and freedom, an old debate

Philosophy knows this problem under another name. Determinism is the thesis that, for everything that happens, there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. Its critics claim the absence of causation to justify free will. Others, such as Spinoza and Nietzsche, see no contradiction between determinism and freedom, a position known as compatibilism.

The Kybalion leans toward that latter line by dividing the world into free causes and binding effects. It is not the only possible answer, nor does science confirm it. But it gives the reader a tool for the question the lecture poses: what, in my story, was actually my own choice?

A link, not a copy

Every being that comes into the world would be a new link, with its own role, not a repetition of the one before. Fulfilling that role requires taking up the task; otherwise, one remains just another reflection of one's surroundings. The lecture holds that the closer one is to one's own center, the freer one becomes; the farther, the more enslaved to the crowd. To be free is to hold principles and to rest on the eternal, not the passing.

To illustrate, the teacher compares most people to a statue resting on four legs: money, status, relationships, and appearance. If one breaks, the statue falls. Whoever rests instead on what is high, on what is eternal, stays standing even if everything else collapses. She gives Socrates, Bruno, and Buddha as examples.

There is no escape, the conclusion says. Everyone lives under the Law of Cause and Effect, and the choice is between being an author or being part of the driven crowd. In the lecture's words: “You will leave fruit behind. The only question is which kind.” The next chapter of The Kybalion covers the Principle of Gender.