The Kybalion 14 — Mental Gender

This chapter opens without an italicized Kybalion aphorism; the Three Initiates expound the Principle of Gender on the mental plane in their own words. Its governing axiom, drawn from the Correspondence principle, is restated within: "As above, so below; as below, so above."

This chapter takes the seventh principle inward, locating the masculine and feminine principles within the structure of the individual mind. Drawing on the dual-mind psychology popular in its era (it explicitly cites the "objective and subjective minds" of Thomson J. Hudson and the broader turn-of-the-century interest in conscious and subconscious mind), the authors map gender onto two aspects of the self: the "I" and the "Me."

The "I" is the masculine principle — the aspect of pure being and will that can stand apart, witness the contents of the mind, and project intention. It does not itself do the laborious work of forming thoughts; rather, it "wills" that the creative work begin and "projects an energy" toward the other aspect. The "Me" is the feminine principle — the receptive, generative aspect that receives the projected will and does the actual work of "generating new" mental creations, gestating thoughts and images into form. "The 'I' represents the Aspect of Being; the 'Me' the Aspect of Becoming." Their relationship is the same projecting-and-gestating dynamic the Gender chapter described, now operating inside a single mind — and the authors note this is precisely the Correspondence principle at work: "as above, so below."

The chapter's purpose is practical: it claims this structure is the "master-key" to the whole field of mental influence, attention, and willed creation. Most people, it suggests, let the "Me" run on autopilot, receiving impressions passively from the environment and from others' suggestions. The work of mental mastery is for the "I" to take its proper role — to consciously direct the will, govern the attention, and deliberately set the "Me" to creating what one intends, rather than leaving it to be impressed upon by whatever drifts in. This is the mechanism beneath the book's claims about will, attention, and self-suggestion. As psychological model, the I/Me distinction is genuinely illuminating; as a complete theory of mind it is, like the era's dual-mind theories generally, a schematic that modern psychology has long since complicated.

The distinction between a witnessing, willing self and a generative, productive aspect of mind has deep parallels in the contemplative analyses of consciousness. The Vedāntic distinction between the sākṣin (the witness-consciousness that observes the mind's activity without being entangled in it) and the citta or mind-stuff that does the producing of thoughts and impressions closely tracks the "I" and "Me" division — the witness that stands apart and the faculty that generates. The deeper Vedāntic teaching distinguishes the unchanging Ātman (true Self) from the ahaṃkāra (the ego-sense) and the manas (the processing mind), a more refined map of what the chapter compresses into two terms.

The chapter's masculine-as-projecting-will and feminine-as-receptive-generation mirrors, on the individual scale, the cosmic Śiva–Śakti relationship — Śiva as the still witnessing consciousness, Śakti as the active generative power — and the explicit invocation of "as above, so below" is the author's own acknowledgment that the inner structure repeats the cosmic one. This microcosm/macrocosm correspondence is itself a thoroughly Hermetic and Tantric idea.

The practical teaching — that the witnessing, willing self should consciously direct the receptive, suggestible aspect of mind rather than leaving it open to whatever impressions arrive — resonates with the yogic discipline of governing the mind through will and attention (the cultivation of saṃkalpa, resolve, and the guarding of the mind against unwholesome impressions), and with the Buddhist training of yoniso manasikāra (wise or appropriate attention) as opposed to the unguarded mind that is pushed around by sense impressions and habitual reactions. The honest caveat is that the specific "I/Me" and "objective/subjective mind" framing is a product of late-nineteenth-century psychology (Hudson, the New Thought movement) and should not be read as identical to these older and more carefully articulated maps; it is a popular schematic that rhymes with them rather than a rigorous equivalent.

The most useful insight here is the recognition that there is a part of you that can stand apart and observe your own mind — the witnessing "I" — distinct from the stream of thoughts, feelings, and images it observes. The discovery of this witnessing capacity is, across contemplative traditions, one of the pivotal moves in inner development. To realize "I am the one aware of this anxiety" rather than "I am anxious" is to find a place to stand that the passing states cannot reach.

The complementary teaching is that the generative, receptive aspect of mind — the "Me" — is highly suggestible and is constantly receiving impressions, whether or not you direct it. Left ungoverned, it absorbs whatever the environment, other people, and habit impress upon it, and dutifully generates more of the same. The work of mental self-mastery is for the willing self to take conscious charge of what the receptive mind is fed and set to create — to direct attention deliberately rather than letting the suggestible faculty be shaped by whatever happens to drift in. This is the inner version of the cause-versus-effect teaching from the Causation chapter.

The cooperation of the two — a clear, steady witnessing will that directs a creative, receptive faculty — describes the inner condition of focused, intentional creative work. When the "I" abdicates (no direction, no governed attention) the "Me" runs on conditioning; when the "I" tyrannizes (all force, no receptive allowing) creation is strained and lifeless. The fruitful state is the willing self setting a clear intention and then allowing the generative faculty to do its receptive, form-giving work.

The witnessing "I" is, in contemporary terms, the metacognitive or observing self that is central to mindfulness-based practice — the trained capacity to notice one's thoughts and emotions as events in awareness rather than being fused with them. "Defusion" in acceptance and commitment therapy, the "observing self" in many contemplative-psychological frameworks, and the basic mindfulness instruction to watch the breath and the mind are all cultivations of exactly this faculty. Developing the ability to step back into the witnessing "I" is one of the most practically powerful skills for emotional regulation and freedom from automatic reactivity.

The teaching about the suggestible, receptive "Me" translates into the modern recognition that the mind is shaped by what it is repeatedly exposed to — that attention is the gateway through which the inner generative faculty is fed. This is the practical basis for being deliberate about one's information diet, the company one keeps, and the repeated suggestions (from media, self-talk, environment) that the receptive mind absorbs and amplifies. The willing self's job is to govern that gate.

Two cautions. First, the specific "I/Me" and "objective/subjective mind" theory is dated psychology, and the chapter's confident architecture of mind should be read as a useful metaphor rather than an accurate neuroscience; the modern understanding of conscious and non-conscious processing is far more complex and less cleanly dual. Second, the book's adjacent claims — that this mechanism enables strong "mental influence" over others — outrun the evidence; the well-supported application is to one's own mind. Used as a model for cultivating the observing self and for governing one's own attention and mental inputs, the chapter is genuinely valuable, and these benefits stand independently of the era-specific theory wrapped around them.