The Emerald Tablet

June 2008

The Emerald Tablet is a text said to be the work of Hermes Trismegistus, "Hermes the Thrice-Great", a legendary Egyptian sage or god, variously identified with the Egyptian god Thoth and/or the Greek god Hermes. The short and cryptic text contains a description of the meaning of life - which is the perfection of life, ie the turning of Lead, the negative, Earth, Man into Gold, the positive, God, Enlightenment.

Isaac Newton also wrote a famous translation. It must be said that he was not trying to turn lead into gold physically - this is an outrageous materialistic corruption of the secret lead-gold metaphor! In those days it was fashionable to be cryptic, which hardly helped the knowledge escape. Why? Because had the enlightened admitted that were studying God rather than "alchemy" the Christian authorities might have burned them!

Here I include the Beato translation of the Latin text with some, hopefully helpful, notes by myself.

1) This is true and remote from all cover of falsehood.

What follows is the complete truth.

2) Whatever is below is similar to that which is above. Through this the marvels of the work of one thing are procured and perfected.

As above so below, as within so without. This is the mystical connection principle Carl Jung called synchronicity. This is perhaps the staring point of wisdom. Although in the past this principle was universally accepted, eg Shakespeare's plays are full of it, today our scientists reject it as mumbo jumbo and our politicians reject it as immoral. Once one really understands the connection principle the veil is lifted and one begins to live in another world. Some examples: What is beauty? The striking reflection of a harmonious state of consciousness. Of course, it is easier to create striking reflections of disharmonious states, a trick employed by many Modern Artists. Why are we physically attracted to full lips? Because they reflect an aspect of human personality which many value in a mate (place your finger over your bottom then top lip and consider the 'mood' associated). Why is the penis like the snake and its seed lunar white and alkaline which are all feminine symbols while the female vulva is hot volcanic, red and acidic which are masculine attributes? Sex is the unification of the male and female by intimate climatic energy reversal! Very very few people will even understand the question, in fact most will just think you are bonkers! For most people the world is chaos, but those who know this principle see the miraculous order, and how it makes possible the perfecting progress.

3) Also, as all things are made from one, by the consideration of one, so all things were made from this one, by conjunction.

This line is about the relationship between Man and God. God divided itself into individualised units, soul, which strive to return to unity. Properly understanding God is very difficult and way beyond mere mortals like myself. First we understand our connection which is the experience of Cosmic Consciousness (easy). Then we understand what we really are, that part of us which transcends death and takes on so many considered forms for development (eg neither male nor female, black nor white), which is the experience of Self Realization (hard). Much later comes the understanding of the totality sometimes called God Realization (hugely exalted). Let me give another example: Life begins in the dark womb, but you soon learn about light. Gradually you understand that this light is a reflection of the objects before you and you learn to differentiate. Finally you learn about the sun from which this light came, which radiates all the colours reflected and separated by the forms below.

This line also pertains to the paradox that God is in all things, but God is not in all things. That which is manifested is no longer God, it is the daughter of God, sometimes very good, sometimes very evil. Was Einstein evil because he invented the technology used to create nuclear weapons? Of course not but that doesn't let God off the hook say some because he invented the politicians! But God is the totality and capable of all things, so any manifestation of him is to some extent evil. In fact all manifestation is 'evil' in a way, it's not just limited to God.

Plato's "theory of forms" captures this idea as well. The form is the un-manifested concept, and any realisation of that is a flawed reflection which we perceive with our senses or imagination. Ie the concept of a chair compared to a real or imagined chair - the form is ideal, the considered version made from the form is a flawed reflection, an illusion in a way .

4) The father of it is the sun, the mother the moon.

The sun represents the active male principle of freedom, intellect and clarity, the moon the female or passive principle of attachment emotion and illusion. Consistent with the law "As above, so below", the male/female duality is not simply limited to human nature, it reflects the very structure of heaven and earth. In the 1970s it became fashionable to believe that men and women are the same and separated only by their upbringing (the nature vs nurture argument). Although clearly nonsense the theory was popular with the so called great minds of western science until the discovery of the psychological impact of testosterone in the 1980s forced them to change their minds. Nevertheless, an inadequate understanding is often more damaging than ignorance, as the treatment of women in the Arab world clearly shows. Any serious seeker of the philosophers stone must grasp the vital male female duality.

5) The wind bore it in the womb. Its nurse is the earth, the mother of all perfection.

The wind is the holy spirit, love, the energy force which permeates all life and draws us to God. Some say it can be experienced as both light and sound, seeing and feeling. The feminine negative worlds of darkness, attachment, materialism and pain educate us so that we can take our place in the positive attachment free worlds of light. They say Pandora opened the box, but perhaps it makes more sense to say she is the box and if it wasn't for her we couldn't grow.

6) Its power is perfected,  (7a) If it is turned into earth

We can say that the purpose of life is the perfection of life, which, since all life is God, is the perfection of God. Only by creating the lower negative worlds could man reach up to the positive. God created a Darwinian "Dog Eat Dog" world to educate us and eventually rise above it. Christianity proposes "divine redemption", the idea that god will save one. More advanced philosophy teaches "self redemption" which is that we must perfect ourselves. The Semitic philosophy of Christianity is associated with utopia, the other is the Arian philosophy of reincarnation and inequality. This duality extends to politics as the left and right wing. Before one gets too carried away with the righteousness of inequality remember that, like children, we all grow up eventually. Sure children are stupid, but they are not animals for adults to do with as we please.

7b) Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle and thin from the crude and coarse, prudently, with modesty and wisdom.

How does the mind recognise a chair coming as it does in so many forms? Intelligence is the grasping of archetypal forms. Hence great minds, like Winston Churchill, love generalisations. Modesty is the ability to question everything we know and discard it. No stone unturned, no faith, no sacred belief. Eg Carl Jung talks about the idea of man being born a robot of the collective, then a robot of his upbringing, and finally becoming a liberated self aware individual by the application of intelligence. Plato talks about ignorance, knowledge and opinion. Mankind lives in a world of opinion, the philosopher looks to knowledge. Prudently and wisely - the trap so many who study the divine work fall into is to abandon logic, good sense and perspective. They say there are two paths to God, love and power, perhaps the Emerald Tablet describes the male path of wisdom and power.

8) This ascends from the earth into the sky and again descends from the sky to the earth, and receives the power and efficacy of things above and of things below.

The perfecting of wisdom acquired on the negative rising up to the positive and passing back down to the negative for further refinement.

9) By this means you will acquire the glory of the whole world, and so you will drive away all shadows and blindness.

Clearly I am not there because I feel no inner glory and am still plagued by shadows :-)

10) For this by its fortitude snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power. For it is able to penetrate and subdue everything subtle and everything crude and hard.

When you have all this you have the power of God at your disposal. Occultists use the connection principle by speaking or creating symbols which evoke thoughts which in turn manifest.

11) By this means the world was founded

12) And hence the marvellous conjunctions of it and admirable effects, since this is the way by which these marvels may be brought about.

13) And because of this they have called me Hermes Tristmegistus since I have the three parts of the wisdom and Philosophy of the whole universe.

The three parts wisdom & conjunctions refers to the "trinity" concept which Plato describes so well in the "Republic". Understand a trinity by understanding the opposites plus the intermediate they have in common. Between the negative material and positive god worlds we have sprit (in Christianity this becomes the father (god), the son (earth) and the holy spirit). In Plato's Symposium Diotima beautifully explains to Socrates that love is neither earthly-mortal nor immortal-divine, but rather the intermediate between the two which drives the moral to seek, see and become immortal. At the lowest level, love is desire for a body, which is a reflection of the spirit, and the manifesting new life by sexual reproduction. At the highest level one sees past all illusionary outer layers and appreciates the immortal essence in mankind and all creation directly and in doing so one achieves paradise. At this level the lover looses interest in the simple manifestation and upbringing of new life, and instead works at a far more significant level. Hence again, Love is the holy spirit that intermediates between heaven and earth, also between male and female.

If you are very brilliant (not me) you often structure your ideas as trinities: Eg Plato casually lists three arguments against democracy: the urge to power (sea captain with a crew of mutineers), the wild animal trainer who slavishly feeds and works with the bestial nature, and the corrupting influence of recognition and adulation (young man in assembly being clapped). Notice this trinity also fits clearly into the common male-female-love pattern. Newton wrote his his famous laws of motion, (inertia, acceleration and their intermediate force) as a trinity.

14) My speech is finished which I have spoken concerning the solar work.

Great stuff Hermes Tristmegistus!

A final note. Nothing here outlines the practical structure, and since it is supposed to contain all the secrets of life let me add a few random notes: It's important to know that we are organised into classes perhaps 50 strong or less and have a teacher generally called our "spirit guide". Forget the idea of a world saviour, it works up there just like it works down here. Michael Newton's Book "Journey Of Souls" describes this beautifully. After death we return to the spirit world where we review our performance with our guide and other more advanced souls before perhaps eventually returning here for another lesson. The conventional view of Karma (the spiritual counterpart of Newton's third law) and countless lives slavishly working though every human condition is too mechanical and pessimistic, but certainly the goal is to be better each lifetime and one regrets mistakes. The human personality we inhabit (sorry cat lovers, animals and perhaps even some primitive humans don't have souls as we do) is a challenge we have to make the most of. Living an intelligent loving adventurous humorous and creative life making a making a positive difference to the world is the goal. If you are going to be a politician working on the big picture you might need to step on a few lives but that's OK as long as you do it for the greater good not fame or fortune. If a hairdresser then it's simpler, you are working at the personal level, make your customers as happy as you can. Even if you wash dishes there is a chance to touch the world in your own small way. Things that take us away from all this include, of course, putting our welfare well ahead of others, overindulgence in material pleasures, anger, apathy, laziness, fear, stupidity etc. Still, I must not put too positive a spin on Earthly life. It's true this is a hellish world populated by the blind. But compared to immortality a few painful years in this broken school is no problem. If you had really outgrown this god forsaken world you wouldn't be here! I remember a hellish 11 day adventure trek through the jungle in Latin America carving a path with machetes, being bitten by insects and worrying about our water supply. Looking back at those 11 days, which seemed so long at the time but pail in comparison to the many years I have lived, it was, in a way, one of the highlights of my life. Happiness is not what we think, it's not a transitory state of comfort like the kick of a drug, but rather a sense of fulfilment developed over the course of lifetimes of challenge and adventure and love.