Mystical systems
Principle of Rhythm
Direct answer
Principle of Rhythm: The Principle of Rhythm is the fifth of The Kybalion's seven principles: everything flows out and in, rises and falls, and swings like a pendulum between two poles.
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At a glance
- Also called
- law of rhythm, pendulum swing kybalion, kybalion rhythm
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- The Kybalion, Seven Hermetic Principles, Principle of Polarity, Principle of Vibration
The Principle of Rhythm is the fifth of The Kybalion's seven principles: everything flows out and in, rises and falls, and swings like a pendulum between two poles.
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What is the Principle of Rhythm?
The Principle of Rhythm says that all things move in a measured back-and-forth. Tides, seasons, the rise and decline of nations and the alternation of moods are given as examples of one pattern, and the book's image for it is the pendulum, whose swing to one side is matched by its swing to the other. It follows directly from Polarity: if everything has two poles, Rhythm is the movement between them.
The book's advice is not to stop the swing, which it calls impossible, but to avoid being carried by it. It describes a practice named neutralisation, in which a person learns to recognise the backward swing of a mood as it begins and declines to go with it, letting it pass beneath.
On the tree of the hidden arts: The Hermetic principles.
What sets Principle of Rhythm apart
Rhythm adds time to Polarity. Where the fourth principle maps two poles, the fifth says things travel between them and return, and that the distance out predicts the distance back. The practical teaching is unusual in being defensive: it aims at steadiness while the swing goes on, and makes no promise of ending it. The book places the escape on a higher plane of the mind, above the level at which the swing operates.
- Number: fifth of the seven principles
- Axiom opens: Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides
- Image: the pendulum, with equal swing to right and left
- Attached practice: neutralisation: declining to follow a mood's return swing
- Companion idea: compensation, the balancing of one swing by the other
Often mistaken for something else: Cause and Effect, the sixth principle, says every event has a cause; Rhythm says states come and go in a regular swing.
The story behind Principle of Rhythm
The principle appears in The Kybalion (1908) in the sentence that begins 'Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides' and ends 'rhythm compensates'. Observations of cycles in nature and history are ancient and widespread. The book's treatment belongs to New Thought self-culture, and it adds what it calls a law of compensation, by which the swing one way balances the swing the other.
Why Principle of Rhythm matters
Principle of Rhythm gives a calm account of ups and downs, and it is the principle readers most often say they find useful in ordinary life.
How to read Principle of Rhythm
People keep it in mind during both peaks and troughs, to hold good spells loosely and to wait out poor ones without alarm.
Principle of Rhythm in practice: an example
After a week of high energy someone might expect the dip that follows, plan lightly for it, and not read it as failure.
Where readings of Principle of Rhythm go wrong
Persistent low mood is not a pendulum to wait out; anyone who is struggling should seek support from a qualified professional.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- hermetic principle of rhythm, law of rhythm, pendulum swing kybalion, kybalion rhythm
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is the Principle of Rhythm?
It is the fifth Hermetic principle in The Kybalion, which holds that everything moves in a pendulum-like swing between two poles, with a flow and an ebb, a rise and a fall.
What is the law of neutralisation?
It is the practice The Kybalion attaches to Rhythm: noticing the return swing of a mood and refusing to be carried by it, so that the swing passes without taking one's balance.
How does the Principle of Rhythm relate to Polarity?
Polarity says every quality has two poles. Rhythm describes the regular movement between those poles, so the book treats the two principles as closely joined.
