The Emerald Tablet
The Teaching
True, without falsehood, certain and most true: that which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, for the performance of the miracles of the One Thing.
And as all things are from the One, by the mediation of the One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.
It ascends from the Earth to the Heaven, and again it descends to the Earth, and receives the force of things superior and inferior.
By this means thou shalt have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from thee.
Commentary
‘As above, so below’, the Hermetic axiom that collapses the division between spiritual and material, macrocosm and microcosm. This is the same insight as the Fibonacci sequence: the same pattern appears at every scale, from galaxies to nautilus shells.
The Stoics called this the Logos, the rational principle that permeates and structures all levels of reality. John’s Gospel maps Christ onto this same Logos. The Tao is the Chinese name for the same principle.
‘It ascends from Earth to Heaven and again descends’, this is the eternal cycle of manifestation and return that every tradition describes: the Tao’s ten thousand things returning to the root, the Upanishadic Atman returning to Brahman.
Themes
Connections 21
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
Hermeticism and Christianity were in contact, but no influence of Christianity on Hermeticism is documented. Tertullian named ‘Mercurius Trismegistus’ (c. 200–210), Lactantius (c. 300) quoted Hermes Trismegistus as a pagan prophet. Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum for the Medici (1463).
Travelled
Stoicism reached Hermeticism by 100 CE. Stoic cosmology runs through the Hermetica.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Hermeticism and Neoplatonism were in documented contact (from 300 CE).
Arose apart
No known line from Hermeticism to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Shinto while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from Hermeticism to this scientific work.
Arose apart
No known line from Hermeticism to this scientific work.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Gnosticism and Hermeticism were in documented contact (from 300 CE).
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Indigenous tradition while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Indigenous tradition while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Buddhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Shinto while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Sikhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Zoroastrianism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from Hermeticism to this scientific work.
Travelled
Egyptian religion reached Hermeticism by 100 CE. The Hermetica were written in Greek in Roman Egypt, and Hermes is Thoth. Fowden traces their Egyptian elements.
Travelled
Hermeticism reached Sufism by 800 CE. Hermes was identified with the prophet Idris, and Hermetic texts circulated in Arabic.