The Emerald Tablet

In brief

A short, cryptic text of about a dozen lines, said to have been found in the tomb of Hermes Trismegistus inscribed on a tablet of emerald. Its earliest known version is Arabic, in a book attributed to 'Balinas' (Apollonius of Tyana). Translated into Latin in the twelfth century, it became the founding text of European alchemy. Its most famous line gives us 'as above, so below'.

Key ideas

• ✦What is below corresponds to what is above
• ✦All things come from the One by adaptation
• ✦The Sun is its father, the Moon its mother, the Earth its nurse
• ✦Separate the subtle from the gross gently: the alchemical work

Why it matters

'As above, so below' is the principle behind astrology, correspondences, the tarot's links to the planets and the idea that inner and outer transformation mirror each other. Isaac Newton made his own translation of the Tablet.

“That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do ye miracles of one only thing.”