Hermes and the Emerald Tablet - A Road to Wisdom

 Today I would like to discuss the Emerald tablet of Hermes or of Thoth. Imagine a text so influential that it has guided the thoughts and practices of alchemists, mystics, and philosophers for centuries. This text is so mysterious that its concise and cryptic lines have inspired countless interpretations and fueled the search for the philosopher's stone and the secrets of all creation.

This is the Emerald tablet. Now it's attributed to the enigmatic figure named Hermes Trismegistus and its origins date back to early medieval and Arabic sources from about the eighth, maybe the ninth century. But its impact has reached across time, cultures, and disciplines, and it is definitely found a place within the greater classical Hermetica.

It was translated into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Emerald Tablet became a key text for both Islamic and European alchemists, blending the physical transformation of metals with the spiritual pursuit of perfection. Its most iconic phrase, often rendered as, "as above so below," conveys a profound principle of harmony between the cosmos and the earthly realm.

And this concept called the Principle or Law of Correspondence is one that continues to inspire Occultists, magicians, and seekers of wisdom. In today's session, we're going to explore the emerald tablet's fascinating journey. The more you contemplate the Emerald tablet, the more you are going to yield even deeper inspirations than what we will touch upon today.

This is just an introduction. Anybody that's going to try to give you a.comprehensive understanding of the Emerald Tablet will probably fail because there's always another level, another layer of inspiration. It's a fascinating document. It's only 18 verses long. It's very brief and that's why we can get through it in one session.

We will read it through once and then we'll go through it line by line.

"It is true without falsehood, sure and most true, that which is above is like that, which is below, and that which is below is like that, which is above to accomplish the miracles of one thing. As contemplation created all things, all things arose from this one thing through a single act of adaptation.

Its father is the sun, it's mother, the moon, the wind carried it in its womb and the earth is its nurse. It is the father of all works of wonder throughout the entire world. Its power is perfect. If cast onto the earth, it will separate the element of earth from that of fire, the subtle from the dense with great wisdom, it gently ascends from the earth to heaven.

Then it descends back into earth uniting with itself the forces of both the superior and the inferior. Thus, you will possess the glory of the brightness of the whole world, and all darkness will flee from you. This is the strong fortitude of all strength, or it overcomes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid substance.

This is how the world was created. From this will come marvelous adaptations. The manner of which is as follows. For this reason, I am called Hermes Trismegistus, because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the entire world. What I have said about the operation of the sun is complete."

So let's explore each of these verses and start to get a surface understanding.

And remember that upon deep reflection of these verses, you will reveal endless inspiration for yourself.

Verse number one. It is true without falsehood, sure and most true. This introduces the text as a statement of irrefutable truth, emphasizing its reliability and significance, putting us in the frame of mind of receptivity, of listening to wisdom, also of understanding that truth is irrefutable when we align ourselves with truth--truth with a capital T, the truth of the cosmos, that everything that is unlike that truth is no longer apparent to us.

Verse number two, that which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that, which is above. This is the principle of correspondence, and this is the way that we are able to, in our magical operations, take an herb say, or a color or a stone, and allow that to be a key for something else that we're trying to obtain.

A lot of superstition engulfs this, and people think that the stone has the power to do something or the herb has the power to do something. Instead, we are looking at the principle of correspondence as a great switchboard. That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that, which is above the microcosm (the smallearthly things) reflects the macrocosm (the universal--the celestial things). And this highlights the interconnectedness of all existence.

Verse number three is a continuation of that sentence to accomplish the miracles of one thing. So the unity between above and below enables the creation and manifestations of great wonders.

So for us studying magic, we have to understand that the principle of correspondence according to the Emerald tablet, is a very important vehicle through which we achieve success. If you're looking for wonders in your life, if you're working a spell for money, you're working a spell for love, you're working a spell for health, whatever it is, you have to understand according to the Emerald tablet.

In order for that to be effective, you must engage in the principle of correspondence. Understanding that that which is above affects that which is below. If you're thinking in regards to the Psalms, the Psalms talk about righteousness. Righteousness means right thinking, right mindedness. And when you're in your right mind, you are automatically linked into this law of correspondence because your desires, if they are right-minded desires also called righteous desires of the heart.

They're automatically linked to the above because the infinite already wants those things for you. So if you're looking for money, if that's a righteous desire of your heart, the infinites right there with you wants that for you. And so if you can key into that law of correspondence in that regard, you don't have to work so hard.

You don't have to worry about having a will strong enough to create money. You just have to tap into the will that already exists for you, that you have that money.

Verse number four, as contemplation created all things, all things arose from this one thing. Through a single act of adaptation, all existence originates from a single unified source referred to here as contemplation.

And it creates through thinking, it creates through contemplating, it creates through deciding. Since as above, so below you create through contemplating if your contemplations are in alignment with that law of correspondence. So this is focused thought and we know what that is. That's imagination. You were created through an act of imagination and therefore you create through active imagination and you're going to create through active imagination, whether you like it or not.

If you are in alignment with. Infinite intelligence's will for you, your imaginations, your active thought are going to be righteous desires of your heart, and you will receive what you desire. You will create what you desire. Now, if you're always butting up against resistance to your desires, it's possible that the law of correspondence is outta whack.

No matter how well you visualize, you're going to have problems. If you are having problems in your life that you need to overcome according to this perspective, when you find a relief from those problems and you start to create that which you desire, it's going to be so much easier because you're not going up against the will of the universe when you achieve what you desire.

It's a natural extension of righteousness rather than contemplating things that are counter to the infinites will for you. It's still pointing to this interconnectedness of creation and the idea that everything is a manifestation of a singular creative essence or consciousness. Now, this adaptation or transformation that it's talking about is the natural sequence of manifestation, and in long-term manifestations, such as the creation of human beings, that would be things like evolution, but even on the microcosm.

When your contemplation starts to manifest itself, it's gonna go through a sequence to manifest. It will go through adaption, after adaption, after adaption. And if we can not get too involved in the process of that adaption and only act when we are inspired to act, we won't be interfering with that adaption and we'll get our desires more quickly.

Just allowing those desires to unfold naturally.

Its father is the son, its mother is the moon. So the creative force being described in symbolic terms here as the sun, active masculine and the moon, passive feminine. It's hinting at the conscious versus the deep mind. Since we are the microcosm of that, our conscious mind is the planter of seeds into the fertile ground of the.

Goddess mind or the female mind. The masculine is the planter of the seed, and the female mind is the womb or the fertile earth that gives forth the manifestation of those seeds. If you are planting seeds of discontent, seeds of discord, and you reap those things, you just have been given the key here.

You've been given the formula of how you can change that, change the seeds that you're planting. You're either planting seeds from that ego mind, or you're planting seeds of your soul.

I think a lot of people believe that they create their own thoughts in their own minds. "I'm coming up with a thought," but actually, unless you're chemically engineering it, you don't create a seed.

You choose a seed. You don't say, well, I'm gonna just go make a marigold seed. You choose marigold seeds, you go purchase them from a seed supplier or however you obtain your seeds. You choose to plant those seeds. And the same thing goes with our thought seeds. We choose what seeds we want to plant, but those seeds are actually already there.

If you observe your mind, you have thoughts coming all the time, you're not coming up with those thoughts all by yourself. Those thoughts are being thought through the Great Mind. Through the macrocosm, and you choose which train of thought you're gonna go down, or you reject that train of thought and you choose another train of thought.

Same with the thought seeds that you're planting as spells. Those seeds already exists in the Great Mind.

The wind carried it in its womb and the earth is its nurse. The wind symbolizes the life force or the spirit, the invisible part of ourselves. Whereas the earth is the visible part of ourselves, so the wind nurtures the force that we're talking about here, and the Earth provides the material foundation for its experience and its development.

If we use our experiences manifest universe as a means by which to nurture and nurse the spirit, imagine how different our lives would be. Rather than thinking of the earth as something other than a place of nursing and nurturing spirit. When we use and dedicate our physical manifest universe as being completely there to nurse and nurture the spirit, then we are on a feedback loop of manifestation.

That is amazing, and that's where wonders never cease when. Aept can find that perspective regardless of what they see in the physical world with their eyes and their senses. They say the world here is only here as a nurse to the spirit. Then those manifestations start to change. Don't judge by appearances.

It is the father of all works of wonder throughout the entire world. This creative principle is responsible for all extraordinary manifestations, all magic. When you acknowledge that the infinite is the source of your thoughts of all of it, and it's up to you, your only function really is to decide what you want and let the universe give it to you.

When you coming from that point of view and you understand that if your desires are in alignment with what we called righteousness before the righteous desires of your heart, you still have to be active. You still have to choose. You still have to plant the seeds. You still have to be the gardener, but you stop trying to think that you have to make the seeds, that you have to make the plant, that you're responsible for everything.

You're only responsible for planting it and tending the garden, but the infinite is the power. Through which all things happen. And so if you learn how to thank the infinite in advance for the manifestations of what you want, what that does is it puts your mind in alignment with the success of whatever your spell is.

So if you're grateful for it before it appears, then you're understanding where the power resides. The power resides in the infinite, not in you. And that doesn't mean that you're unpowerful. It means that you're not responsible for everything anymore. You've taken that burden off your shoulders, and you have allowed the power to flow through you.

Its power is perfect. So the principle is complete. All encompassing, flawless. You don't have to fix God. You don't have to enhance God in any way. You have to just allow yourself to let it work through you. If cast onto the earth, it will separate the element of earth from that of fire, the subtle from the dent.

So this force purifies, it distinguishes between the physical and the spiritual, the material and the immaterial. And it's also what's called the judgment of God in the Psalms. And we want this force to do that. We want it to separate the chaff from the grain. We want it to help us to decide. What we want and what we don't want.

What is good and what is not good? What is ego and what is spirit? We want those things. We want those things sorted out for our benefit. With great wisdom, it gently ascends from the earth to heaven. Then it descends back to earth. So this creative force moves between the physical and the spiritual realms, connecting and harmonizing them, and that reminds you that you're part of this force.

You are as a beam of light from a star. There's no difference in the chemical makeup, in a drop of water from the whole ocean. Therefore, there's nothing different in makeup between you and this force. You're one and the same. The only difference is that it's the whole, it's the oneness of all. It is the creative force, and you are an extension of it, and so you are part of that.

When it says that it ascends from earth. To heaven that's going through you as you ascend and then descending back to earth is when it's manifesting as you and manifesting as your experiences, et cetera, uniting within itself the forces of both the superior and the inferior. In other words, it's a force of integration.

It is a balancer. It integrates the so-called spiritual and the material. Everything is alive, everything vibrates. There's no true physical matter that's an illusion of our senses. Thus, you will possess the glory and brightness of the whole world, and all darkness will flee from you. So one attains, enlightenment and dispels ignorance by understanding and embodying these principles.

And this principle especially that you are a co-creator with the infinite and that everything that you desire, you will get. And that a lot of what we don't like in our lives is a result of being in alignment with something other than the infinite. So when we want that darkness, in other words, ignorance and the fears and whatever, we don't want to flee from us.

We align with this force. We allow ourselves to be this force as us rising up to the heavens and also receiving the blessings of this force that's descending to earth that it was talking about a couple verses ago. This is the strong fortitude of all strength. This principle, this force that's called the Lord in the Psalms is the source of all in, its all power, it's all resilience, and nothing can go up against it.

Whom this force is for. Nothing can be against. So there's nothing but power. And ultimately, when you recognize who you are as a spirit, as an extension of that force, nothing can go up against you either. The only things that can go up against us are things that are going to attack everything that we're not.

Our bodies, our personalities, things like that. Not that we can't use our magic to be safe within our bodies and our personalities, but that can only work for us when we realize that we aren't bodies, we aren't personalities. Those are just things that we have. Those are tools that we have to experience this particular life in this three dimension.

Who we are as spirits is all powerful as well. Nothing can go up against us either because we are one with this force. For, it overcomes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid substance. It can master anything. It can master any reality, seen and unseen the most dense, crusty situations in your life.

It can overcome. And it wants to, so our job is to learn how to align with this and allow it to work through us so that its will and our will are one. This is how the world was created. This creative principle described here is what brought everything into existence. This is how the world is created because the world is created in the present moment, and every single experience that you're having is brand new at each moment.

And so when we believe that nothing ever changes or this situation is long standing, it's not changing. It's not changing in reality, it changes every instant. It's just that we keep recreating it. Over and over again. Once we allow this force in and through, it starts to uncreate that and recreate it in a new way from this will come marvelous adaptations.

This force or this principle, this power holds the potential for incredible transformations. Think about all of the innovations. That have been had throughout all time and space. It didn't come from Edison, it didn't come from Bell, it didn't come from any one person. It came through them. Those symphonies that Mozart wrote were written through Mozart.

That's not to say that Mozart shouldn't have credit for being the scribe. Of course he should, just as you should have credit for all the wonderful things you're doing. But once you understand that any greatness comes through you, not from you, it's like, whew, good. I'm not responsible for being great. I just have to be great because that greatness comes through me.

It's not a responsibility that's sitting on my shoulders. I. So all of the wonderful miracles and magic that you desire in your life, they're ready to come through you. For this reason, I am called Hermes Tris. Majestas because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the entire world. So this is to Hootie or Hermes.

The archetype of the Archangel Raphael. So even if it wasn't physically written by somebody named Hermes's Tris Majestas, it was written through a scribe or several scribes. So you can say that Hermes really did write this, just wrote it through a person, this author that's identifying himself as Hermes's Tris, Masti.

Is a figure representing wisdom and knowledge. He's claiming mastery over three realms of knowledge and wisdom. And those realms are the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. The threefold. Hermes is that which is seen, that which is thought, and that which is, and then it ends with what I have said about the operation of the sun is complete.

So the explanation of the entire creative principle that has been expounded in this tablet and its workings is concluded. It's saying the operation of the sun. If you think about the sun, when the sun created the solar system, what did the sun do? It extended itself as planets. They developed their own atmospheres, and our atmosphere for this planet was developed to sustain the life forms that we have here.

And that's just a microcosmic understanding of what the infinite does at every moment of time in point of space. There's no reason why you can't have a miracle in your life just as important as the creation of a solar system, because the infinite doesn't have big and small, important and unimportant.

You're just as important to the infinite as the solar system is to the sun. And understanding that puts things into perspective as to why we can have our magic work for us and why we can be successful in the realms of the world as we want to be, because that is the infinites will for us. So we just went through a perfunctory understanding of the Emerald Tablet, the first pass.

But you can go through it again and again, it's similar to the Psalms. You're always gonna get something else. It's always going to yield more and more wisdom, and I invite you to do that on your own. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. Until next time, blessed be.