And thus it is with all the worlds; they are born, grow and die; only to be reborn.  And thus it is with all the things of shape and form; they swing from action to reaction; from birth to death; from activity to inactivity—­and then back again.  Thus it is with all living things; they are born, grow, and die—­and then are reborn.  So it is with all great movements, philosophies, creeds, fashions, governments, nations, and all else-birth, growth, maturity, decadence, death-and then new-birth.  The swing of the pendulum is ever in evidence.

Night follows day; and day night.  The pendulum swings from Summer to Winter, and then back again.  The corpuscles, atoms, molecules, and all masses of matter, swing around the circle of their nature.  There is no such thing as absolute rest, or cessation from movement, and all movement partakes of rhythm.  The principle is of universal application.  It may be applied to any question, or phenomena of any of the many planes of life.  It may be applied to all phases of human activity.  There is always the Rhythmic swing from one pole to the other.  The Universal Pendulum is ever in motion.  The Tides of Life flow in and out, according to Law.

The Principle of rhythm is well understood by modern science, and is considered a universal law as applied to material things.  But the Hermetists carry the principle much further, and know that its manifestations and influence extend to the mental activities of Man, and that it accounts for the bewildering succession of moods, feelings and other annoying and perplexing changes that we notice in ourselves.  But the Hermetists by studying the operations of this Principle have learned to escape some of its activities by Transmutation.

The Hermetic Masters long since discovered that while the Principle of Rhythm was invariable, and ever in evidence in mental phenomena, still there were two planes of its manifestation so far as mental phenomena are concerned.  They discovered that there were two general planes of Consciousness, the Lower and the Higher, the understanding of which fact enabled them to rise to the higher plane and thus escape the swing of the Rhythmic pendulum which manifested on the lower plane.  In other words, the swing of the pendulum occurred on the Unconscious Plane, and the Consciousness was not affected.  This they call the Law of Neutralization.  Its operations consist in the raising of the Ego above the vibrations of the Unconscious Plane of mental activity, so that the negative-swing of the pendulum is not manifested in consciousness, and therefore they are not affected.  It is akin to rising above a thing and letting it pass beneath you.  The Hermetic Master, or advanced student, polarizes himself at the desired pole, and by a process akin to “refusing” to participate in the backward swing or, if you prefer, a “denial” of its influence over him, he stands firm in his polarized position, and allows the mental pendulum to swing back