Emerald Tablet
From Free Encyclopedia of Thelema
The Emerald Tablet (or Smaragdine Table or Tablet) of Hermes Trismegistus is a short, cryptic text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations. Until the twentieth century its earliest known sources were Medieval Latin manuscripts, but subsequent investigations have revealed Arabic predecessors.
The Emerald Tablet is considered to be a cornerstone of the Hermetic movement and fundamental to the Art of Alchemy. Alchemical writings sometimes reference it by a variant title: The Secret of Hermes. Its putative author is Hermes Trismigestus (Hermes the Thrice-Great), a legendary Egyptian adept named after the Greek god of occult wisdom. The origin of the Emerald Tablet is lost in antiquity, and there is no recorded history as to its place of creation or the name of the actual author. Scholars and philosophers have been aware of it since the 10th century.
In the 14th century, the alchemist Ortolanus wrote a substantial exegesis on "The Secret of Hermes," which was influential on the subsequent development of alchemy. Many manuscripts of this copy of the Emerald Tablet and the commentary of Ortolanus survive, dating at least as far back as the 15th century.
A Latin copy of the Emerald Tablet was included among the alchemical papers of Isaac Newton. The manuscript was in Newton's own hand.
C.G. Jung identified "The Emerald Tablet" with a table made of green stone that he encountered in the first of a set of his dreams and visions beginning at the end of 1912, and climaxing in his writing the Seven Sermons to the Dead in 1916. The ideas contained in the Hermetic text are consistent with the enantiodromian processes characteristic of Jungian individuation.
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The Tablet Itself
One translation, by Isaac Newton, runs as follows:
1. Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
2. That wch is below is like that wch is above & that wch is above is like yt wch is below to do ye miracles of one only thing.
3. And as all things have been & arose from one by ye mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother,
5. the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nourse.
6. The father of all perfection in ye whole world is here.
7. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
7a. Separate thou ye earth from ye fire, ye subtile from the gross sweetly wth great indoustry.
8. It ascends from ye earth to ye heaven & again it desends to ye earth and receives ye force of things superior & inferior.
9. By this means you shall have ye glory of ye whole world & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
10. Its force is above all force. ffor it vanquishes every subtile thing & penetrates every solid thing.
11a. So was ye world created.
12. From this are & do come admirable adaptaions whereof ye means (Or process) is here in this.
13. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of ye philosophy of ye whole world.
14. That wch I have said of ye operation of ye Sun is accomplished & ended.
Textual History
The first known source for the text is the Kitab Sirr al-Asar, a pseudo-Aristotelian compendium of advice for rulers dated to around 800 AD. This work was translated into Latin as Secretum Secretorum (The Secret of Secrets) by Johannes "Hispalensis" or Hispaniensis (John of Seville) ca. 1140 and by Philip of Tripoli c.1243.
The Tablet has also been found appended to manuscripts of the Kitab Ustuqus al-Uss al-Thani (Second Book of the Elements of Foundation) attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan, and the Kitab Sirr al-Khaliqa wa San`at al-Tabi`a (Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature), dated between 650 and 830 AD.
Influence
In its several Western recensions, the Tablet became a mainstay of medieval and Renaissance alchemy. Commentaries and/or translations were published by, among others, Trithemius, Roger Bacon, Michael Maier, Albertus Magnus, and Isaac Newton.
Because of its longstanding popularity, the Emerald Tablet is the only piece of non-Greek Hermetica to attract widespread attention in the West.
Tabula Smaragdina in Thelema
In his Confessions, Aleister Crowley described the Emerald Tablet as a "sacred text in Greek" (672). In his 1917 essay "The Revival of Magick," he explained the Tablet as follows:
- That is to say, in order to perform his miracle, [the Magician] must call forth his own God in the Microcosm. That is united with the God of the Macrocosm by its likeness to it; and the Macrocosmic force then operates in the Universe without as the Magician has made it operate within himself; the miracle happens. (14)
- And as the macrocosm is the greater, it follows that what one does by magick is to attune oneself with the Infinite. (18)
Crowley associated the formulae of the Emerald Tablet with certain Qabalistic conundrums. He paraphrased the Emerald Tablet briefly in his glossary entry for Kether in the first volume of Book Four, and quoted the same portion in a description of Tiphareth in "The Magical Theory of the Universe" (Chapter 0 of Magick in Theory & Practice).
In Liber Samekh Crowley writes of the "Table of Emerald," as referencing
- That One Substance ... whose virtue it is to unite all opposite modes of Being, thereby to serve as a Talisman charged with the Spiritual Energy of Existence, an Elixir or Stone composed of the physical basis of Life ... this Eucharist, which createth, sustaineth and redeemeth all things. (Magick, 525)
References
- Crowley, Aleister. (1997). Magick: Book 4. 2nd ed. York Beach, Me. : S. Weiser.
- Crowley, Aleister. (1979). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. London;Boston : Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Crowley, Aleister. (1998). The Revival of Magick. Tempe, AZ : New Falcon Publications.
- Dobbs, B.J.T. (1991.) The Janus Face of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought.
- Jung, Carl Gustav, with Aniela Jaffe. (1963.) Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Pantheon.
- Thorndike, Lynn. (1934.) History of Magic and Experimental Science. (volumes III and IV) New York: Columbia University.
- Wikipedia (2005). Emerald Tablet. Retrieved Jan. 22, 2005.
- Holmyard, E.J. "The Emerald Table" Nature, Oct 6th pp 525-6, 1929.
- Holmyard, E.J. Alchemy, Pelican, Harmondsworth 1957. pp95-8.
- Needham, J.Science and Civilisation in China vol 5, part 4: Spagyrical discovery and invention: Apparatus, Theories and gifts. CUP, 1980
- Ruska, Julius. Die Alchimie ar-Razi's. n.p., 1935.
- Ruska, Julius. Quelques problemes de litterature alchimiste. n.p., 1931.
- Stapleton, H.E., Lewis, G.L, Sherwood Taylor, F. "The sayings of Hermes quoted in the Ma Al-Waraqi of Ibn Umail. " Ambix, vol 3, pp 69-90, 1949.
