Modern systems
Modern systems:
from the Hermetica to practice
The law of attraction is not Hermetic: the phrase is American, in print by 1855. This hub sets the modern systems that borrow Hermetic language on one dated line, from the Greek Hermetica (c. 100-300 CE) to Neville Goddard, Reality Transurfing and practice you can test.
The law of attraction is not Hermetic but American, in print by 1855; the line from the Hermetica to Neville Goddard and Transurfing is borrowed words, not one tradition. This hub follows it, step by dated step, to practice. In a hurry? Pick one of three doors.
How did ideas travel from the Hermetica to today’s practice?
They travelled in eight dated steps, and in most of them what moved was a phrase, a question or a label, not a teaching handed on intact.
c. 100-300 CE
The Greek Hermetica. The Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius, written in Roman Egypt under the name of Hermes Trismegistus. The Emerald Tablet is later: Arabic, 8th-9th century. Passed on: mind (nous) as something offered and chosen, the human being as “a great miracle”, and from the Tablet, correspondence between levels. Starting point: the aim is knowing God, not a technique for getting things.
1463-1486
Florence: Ficino and Pico. Marsilio Ficino puts treatises I-XIV into Latin (1463); Pico della Mirandola’s Oration (1486) quotes the Asclepius. Passed on: the texts, now read across Latin Europe. Changed: Hermes is dated near Moses, and the texts borrow authority from that date.
1614
Casaubon redates the Corpus. Isaac Casaubon shows that the treatises were written after Plato, in the Christian era. Passed on: the texts, whose influence outlives the false date. Changed: a claim that a teaching is ancient now needs a document: ask for the date.
1830s-1888
Mind cure and the occult revival. Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866) meets mesmerism in Maine, where Charles Poyen lectured from about 1836 and Robert Collyer in 1841, and moves to mental healing, the mind cure later called New Thought. Occultists set Hermes into ritual and tarot (Éliphas Lévi by 1856, the Golden Dawn from 1888). Passed on: from Quimby, belief as a cause of health, widened by New Thought to all of life; from occultists, the Hermetic name and correspondence in tables.
1906-1908
Atkinson and the Kybalion. William Walker Atkinson puts “the law of attraction” in a subtitle (1906), a phrase already in A. J. Davis (1855) and Prentice Mulford (1886-1888); The Kybalion (Chicago, 1908), which he later claimed, borrows the Hermetic name. Passed on: one Hermetic phrase, paraphrased from the Tablet. Changed: principles become levers for getting what you want, from a source nobody can check.
1938-1972
Neville Goddard. Neville Goddard (1905-1972) lectures in New York and Los Angeles; his first book, At Your Command, is from 1939. Passed on: New Thought’s premise that inner states shape circumstances. Changed: imagination takes the centre (the law of assumption, his phrase by 1952). His main text is the Bible; in 1954 he quotes Scott’s Hermetica for his own teaching on inner speech.
2003-2018
Reality Transurfing and Tufti. Vadim Zeland’s Reality Transurfing is online from 2003, in print from 2004; Tufti the Priestess follows in 2018. Passed on: by our reading, New Thought’s premise that attention shapes outcomes, and again a source nobody can question. Changed: it inverts the law of attraction (lower the importance, do not want harder) and adds pendulums.
Today
The practice of agency. In 2006 The Secret, inspired by Wallace Wattles’ The Science of Getting Rich (1910), sold the law of attraction as a secret kept from the public, though the phrase dates from 1855. By 20 October 2021 the TikTok tag for the law of assumption had 123.6 million views (Internet Archive). The agency pillar keeps the old question, how much of a life a person steers, and drops the uncheckable claims: five moves for one goal this week, the dichotomy of control, the Seven Moves. Passed on: the old question, not as proof. Changed: each move states its mechanism and limit.
How can you test one move in five minutes?
Turn one dated wish into an if-then plan against your likeliest inner obstacle, with five minutes and paper.
- Write one wish with a date.
- Write the best outcome in one line.
- Name the obstacle in you most likely to stop it.
- Write “when [obstacle], I will [next step you control]” and pick an hour.
Example. Wish: the grant draft done by 30 November.
Outcome: December weekends free.
Obstacle: I open email first.
Plan: “When I reach for email at 9:00, I will open the outline of section 2 instead.”
These are the steps of WOOP, Gabriele Oettingen’s procedure (woopmylife.org); the last step is an if-then plan, which across 94 tests had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006). Studies test these methods, not any system here; a plan makes acting likelier, not the outcome.
Is this one unbroken tradition?
No: it is a line of borrowings and receptions, documented at some links and only a likeness of ideas at others.
| Link | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Hermetica → Ficino, Pico | Documented. Latin of treatises I-XIV, 1463; Pico quotes the Asclepius. |
| Tablet → Kybalion | Documented as paraphrase. One line, via a 19th-century paraphrase; the seven principles as a system appear in no ancient text. |
| Hermetica → Quimby | No link shown. Mind cure came from mesmerism. |
| New Thought → Kybalion | Documented. Atkinson claimed it from 1912. |
| New Thought → Neville | Documented setting. Catalogued as New Thought; his teacher “Abdullah” is unverified. |
| Kybalion → Neville | Likeness. Same New Thought setting; no citation shown. |
| Hermetica → Neville | Documented reception. He quotes Scott’s translation (1924) in 1954, for his own ends. |
| New Thought → Transurfing | Our reading. Same premise, inverted; no citation shown. |
| Neville → Transurfing | Likeness. No borrowing has been shown. |
Which pages are in this section?
Systems and authors from New Thought to today, each page dated and sourced:
- The law of attraction (in print from 1855), Joseph Murphy (1898-1981) and G. I. Gurdjieff (died 1949)
- Neville Goddard (1905-1972), the law of assumption and Neville and Transurfing compared
- Reality Transurfing (2003): the volumes, which to read first, each concept on its own page, Tufti the Priestess (2018) and the braid
- Compared: with the law of attraction, with the Kybalion, with the Hermetic texts, with quantum physics
- What to do with it, whether it is a cult or a danger, what can be established about the author
- Jung and alchemy: what he read into the old texts, and what historians answer
- Enneagram: from Gurdjieff’s figure to the personality test
- Human Design: what the 1987 system is made of, and a blind test
- Alan Watts: the Zen popularizer, and the AI voices in his name
- Synchronicity: meaningful coincidence, and how to count the odds
- Shadow work: Jung’s shadow, today’s prompts, and when to stop
- Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich, and the Carnegie story
- Chaos magic: sigils, belief as a tool, and what studies show
- Akashic records: how a Sanskrit word became a cosmic archive
Where should you start?
Start with the page that matches why you came.
- I want to understand the sourcesFive dates that sort the whole tradition.
- I came from Transurfing or NevilleWhat the two share and where they part.
- I want to do something todayFive moves for one goal this week, with their limits.
What does this line not promise?
None of the systems here is shown to move events you have no contact with, and no ancient-sounding source makes a system older than its date (check a claim’s provenance). The practice pages cite studies of ordinary mechanisms, not tests of any system. Anxiety or low mood is work for a clinician, not for a technique.
| Covers | Systems since the 1830s that borrow Hermetic language |
|---|---|
| Ancient texts | Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius, c. 100-300 CE |
| Revival and redating | Ficino 1463; Pico 1486; Casaubon 1614 |
| Law of attraction, Kybalion | Thought Vibration, 1906; The Kybalion, 1908 |
| Neville Goddard | 1905-1972; first book 1939 |
| Reality Transurfing | Online from 2003; books from 2004; Tufti 2018 |
| Checked | 10 November 2026 |
Fair questions
Is Reality Transurfing Hermetic?
No, and it does not claim to be. It shares with the tradition the idea that inner state bears on outcomes, but no Hermetic text stands behind it. Its datable ancestors are New Thought (1906-1908), the occult egregore, Castaneda in Russian translation and popular many-worlds physics.
Is Neville Goddard Hermetic?
Not by descent. Neville Goddard (1905-1972) taught within American New Thought, and his main text was the Bible, read as a drama inside the person. He did read the Hermetica: in Awakened Imagination (1954) he quotes Walter Scott’s translation, but for his own teaching on inner speech, so he is a reader of the tradition, not its heir.
Is the law of attraction an ancient Hermetic law?
No. The phrase is American: the Spiritualist A. J. Davis used it in 1855, Prentice Mulford made it a rule for thought in 1886-1888, and Atkinson put it in a subtitle in 1906. Wikipedia lists Hermeticism among its inspirations, but what is documented is a name and one paraphrased line passed on by occultists and the Kybalion; the Hermetica give no technique for getting things.
Where does the Kybalion fit, and did Neville Goddard use it?
It sits on this line at 1908, where Hermes became a label for New Thought, and its own page is in the Texts because it presents itself as a Hermetic text. No document shows that Neville read it or Atkinson: he and the Kybalion sound alike because both grow out of New Thought.
Is there an unbroken line from Hermes to modern manifestation?
No. The documented links are a translation (1463), a quotation (1486), a paraphrase (“as above, so below”), a label (the Kybalion, 1908) and a reader’s quotation (Neville, 1954). Between the ancient texts and New Thought no transmission of a teaching has been shown; what passed was a name, a phrase and a shared question.
Sources & further reading
- Asclepius, chapter 6; Who was Hermes Trismegistus?: c. 100-300 CE; Ask for the date: dated cards.
- Marsilio Ficino: Latin of treatises I-XIV, April 1463, printed 1471.
- Quimby: Wikipedia (Poyen about 1836, Collyer 1841); Encyclopedia.com (mind cure “later known as New Thought”).
- The Kybalion: Chicago, 1908; Atkinson claimed it in 1912.
- Law of attraction: A. J. Davis, The Great Harmonia IV (1855), p. 41, 1866 reprint; P. Mulford, Your Forces, I (1886-1887), II (1887-1888); Wikipedia; The Secret (2006): Wikipedia.
- Neville Goddard: Wikipedia: 1905-1972; lectures from 1938; a 1929 certificate signed “Abdoullah” (not seen by us).
- The law of assumption: the phrase in The Power of Awareness (1952); the TikTok tag at 123.6 million views on 20 October 2021 (Internet Archive).
- Transurfing and Neville Goddard: Neville quotes Scott’s Hermetica (1924) twice in Awakened Imagination (1954); no sign Zeland drew on him.
- Vadim Zeland and Tufti the Priestess: St Petersburg, 2004; Tufti, 2018 (Russian State Library).
- WOOP: woopmylife.org (Oettingen); if-then plans: Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006, 94 tests, d = 0.65.
- Human agency in the AI age: the practice and its limits.