"Three Initiates" is the pseudonym under which The Kybalion was first published. The authorship has been widely attributed to William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932), an influential writer associated with the New Thought movement, though the work itself presents its teachings as part of a broader Hermetic tradition. Atkinson and his contemporaries sought to interpret and systematise philosophical and esoteric ideas for modern readers, contributing to the dissemination of metaphysical thought in the early twentieth century.