The ALL In All of the Creative Process
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 1652.
Molly Hankins October 23, 2025
Hermetic teachings tell us that to be in the creative process is to engage with the very same energy which creates and sustains all of life. THE ALL of consciousness, known as God or The Creator, becomes all there is in the material realm by way of directing divine will is an idea described by The Kybalion, which contains a comprehensive breakdown of Hermetic principles, as a vibratory transmission. “It is taught that the process consists of the lowering of vibration until a very low degree of vibratory energy is reached, at which point the grossest possible form of matter is manifested. This process is called the stage of involution, in which THE ALL becomes ‘involved’ or ‘wrapped up’ in its creation,” The Kybalion explains. The artist who becomes so immersed in their creation that they come to live inside it is mirroring the very act of divine creation emanating from the original source of consciousness.
Eventually this involutionary process begins to reverse into an evolutionary process subject to the Hermetic principle of Rhythm which states that, like our breath, all must go in and out of being. During the outpouring of creative energy, the principle of Vibration brings inspiration into matter until the cause of this outpouring finally ceases. Only then does the evolutionary process of individualization begin, which will extend mental energy back from the material world towards the divine, as described by the principle of Mentalism.
To engage mentally is to offer divine attention, the Latin root of the word attention coming from the Latin attendere, to reach towards or stretch out. Attention leads to creation, creation leads to individualization, and that extension of mental energy reaches out to reconnect and unify us with the original source of divine, primordial creativity - THE ALL. We can experience this passively via the principle of Vibration just by giving our attention to the creative work of another. Thiscan have measurable, physical impact on us; changing our brainwave state, stimulating the nervous system and triggering the release of hormones.
For Hermeticists, offering our attention to THE ALL in meditation is the portal to access the endless well of divine creative energy. When we close our eyes in meditation and pry our attention away from the grip of the material world, we return attention to THE ALL, the source of all creation. the font of divine inspiration, the all which contains THE ALL.. In drawing from this well, the artist becomes a pure channel for the will of THE ALL. Much of the work of Hermetic students involves removing the blockages of subconscious programming in order to become a pure channel, unimpeded by human limitation and societal conditioning.
The Kybalion asks, “Have the Venus of Medici, the Sistine Madonna, the Apollo Belvidere, spirits and reality of their own, or do they represent the spiritual and mental power of their creators?” Both are true, and for Hermeticists the paradox of that truth is an indicator of its divinity. Only when we recognize paradox are we mentally extending and thereby evolving ourselves beyond the duality of life in the material realm back towards a more holistic, divine understanding. Of course some of Shakespeare’s personality complex is contained in his characters, but so are truths so universal we recognize THE ALL coming through them, even hundreds of years after these works were written.
“Just as every portion of a hologram contains the image of the whole, every portion of the universe enfolds the whole.”
“The ALL is in the earthworm, and yet the earthworm is far from being THE ALL,” The Kybalion states. “And still the wonder remains, that though the earthworm exists merely as a lowly thing, created and having its being solely within the mind of THE ALL - yet THE ALL is imminent in the earthworm, and in the particles that go to make up the earthworm. Can there be any greater mystery than this of ‘All in THE ALL; and THE ALL in all?” This explanation is both philosophically and technically grounded in the holographic model of reality, described by author Michael Talbot in his book The Holographic Universe.
The holographic model suggests that every part of THE ALL, including the earthworm, contains all the information about the whole of THE ALL. In the same way a tiny piece of a holographic image contains the whole image but in lower resolution, so too is the ALL contained in every expression of life. Talbot explained that, “The idea that consciousness and life (and indeed all things) are ensembles enfolded throughout the universe has an equally dazzling flip side. Just as every portion of a hologram contains the image of the whole, every portion of the universe enfolds the whole. This means that if we knew how to access it we could find the Andromeda galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand. We could also find Cleopatra meeting Caesar for the first time, for in principle the whole past and implications for the whole future are also enfolded in each small region of space and time. Every cell in our body enfolds the entire cosmos.” We see this when comparing the striking similarities between images of a neural network in the human brain to images of the interconnected webs of galaxies in outer space.
In keeping with the famous occult axiom, “As above so below, and as below so above,” we maximize our enjoyment of the human experience by engaging in the creative dance of involution and evolution. As we engage in involution, pouring energy into our creations, we’re performing the same creative process as THE ALL. To share our creations with others is to kick off the evolutionary aspect of Rhythm and Mentalism, inviting the mental aspect of the process that extends our consciousness back towards THE ALL to begin. The Kybalion encourages us not to get hung up on asking ourselves why THE ALL creates, because to speculate is useless from our limited human perspective, a low-resolution experience of divine consciousness. From this place we can’t conceive how THE ALL in high-resolution expresses itself creatively, much less why.
The Kybalion does make one concession for those seeking to understand why THE ALL creates, which is that there must be some satisfaction derived from the creative act. We access this divine satisfaction in the material world through giving our attention to creating and to experiencing the creations of others. As conscious fragments of THE ALL, perhaps our ability to participate in this process is why we were created.
Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.
