{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "emerald-tablet", "name": "Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina)", "stream": "egyptian-hebrew", "epoch_reflected": "egypto-chaldean", "epoch_written": "greco-latin", "form": "aphoristic axioms", "tradition": "Hermetic-alchemical", "author": "Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus", "year_approx": 800, "note": "Twelve aphorisms attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and accorded scriptural status by the alchemical tradition — including the axiom *quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius* (\"as above, so below\"). Earliest surviving form in Arabic (c. 6th–8th c.); Latin from the 12th c.; present here in the Kybalion volume (Three Initiates, 1908).", "books_slug": "three-initiates--the-kybalion-tablet-of-hermes-emerald-tablets", "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [] }, "parents": [ { "slug": "alchemical-texts", "name": "Alchemical Texts", "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/" } ], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "00-front-matter", "title": "Front Matter", "words": 96, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/00-front-matter/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/00-front-matter.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Publisher's title page and copyright", "blurb": "The bound volume's title-page, copyright notice, and table of works contained: The Kybalion (1908), The Tablet of Hermes, and The Emerald Tablets of Thoth. The composite hermetic anthology in which the canonical Emerald Tablet aphorisms here appear." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "01-preface-what-is-hermetic-thought", "title": "Preface — What Is Hermetic Thought?", "words": 26089, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/01-preface-what-is-hermetic-thought/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/01-preface-what-is-hermetic-thought.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The fusion of Hermes and Thoth from Egypt to the modern West", "blurb": "Editor's preface tracing Hermetic thought to its dual roots in the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. The figure of Hermes Trismegistus as the Hellenistic fusion; the long transmission through late antiquity, Islamic alchemy, and the Renaissance to the Theosophical revival." }, { "num": 3, "slug": "02-introduction", "title": "Introduction", "words": 2781, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/02-introduction/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/02-introduction.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The Three Initiates introduce the Hermetic Teachings", "blurb": "The anonymous Three Initiates introduce *The Kybalion*: the world-old Hermetic Teachings preserved by initiated transmission, their relation to the Egyptian and Greek mystery-schools, and the editorial decision to publish a small accessible compendium of the Master-key." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "03-chapter-ii", "title": "II. The Seven Hermetic Principles", "words": 2601, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/03-chapter-ii/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/03-chapter-ii.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The Magic Key — seven principles of truth", "blurb": "The doctrinal foundation: 'The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key.' The seven — Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, Gender — enumerated in their proper order." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "04-chapter-iii", "title": "III. Mental Transmutation", "words": 1256, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/04-chapter-iii/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/04-chapter-iii.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The first principle applied — mental alchemy", "blurb": "The application of the Principle of Mentalism as the inward alchemy. 'Mind, like metals and elements, may be transmuted from state to state, degree to degree, condition to condition, pole to pole, vibration to vibration.' The true Hermetic Transmutation as a mental art." }, { "num": 6, "slug": "05-chapter-iv", "title": "IV. THE ALL", "words": 1776, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/05-chapter-iv/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/05-chapter-iv.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The Substantial Reality beneath Time, Space, and Change", "blurb": "'Under, and back of, the Universe of Time, Space and Change, is ever to be found The Substantial Reality — the Fundamental Truth.' THE ALL as the unknowable absolute beneath all manifestation — the Kybalion's pseudo-Vedantic monism." }, { "num": 7, "slug": "06-chapter-v", "title": "V. The Mental Universe", "words": 1990, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/06-chapter-v/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/06-chapter-v.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The Universe held in the Mind of THE ALL", "blurb": "'The Universe is Mental — held in the Mind of THE ALL.' The radical idealist principle: not that the universe is illusion, but that it is a mental creation in which the creatures themselves think and live as thoughts within the divine thinking." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "07-chapter-vi", "title": "VI. The Divine Paradox", "words": 2962, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/07-chapter-vi/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/07-chapter-vi.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Both real and unreal, both absolute and relative", "blurb": "'The half-wise, recognizing the comparative unreality of the Universe, imagine they may defy its Laws — such are vain and presumptuous fools.' The middle path between naive realism and naive idealism: the universe is real *as appearance*, unreal *as absolute*." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "08-chapter-vii", "title": "VII. \"The All\" in All", "words": 2621, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/08-chapter-vii/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/08-chapter-vii.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Immanence of THE ALL in every appearance", "blurb": "The complementary truth to Chapter IV: not only is everything in THE ALL, but THE ALL is in everything. The doctrine of total immanence — every grain of sand, every mind, every star is THE ALL manifesting itself in a particular signature." }, { "num": 10, "slug": "09-chapter-viii", "title": "VIII. Planes of Correspondence", "words": 3755, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/09-chapter-viii/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/09-chapter-viii.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "As above, so below — the principle in detail", "blurb": "'As above, so below; as below, so above.' The seven planes of being and their correspondences — the Great Physical Plane, the Great Mental Plane, the Great Spiritual Plane — and how the laws operative on one plane have their analogues on every other." }, { "num": 11, "slug": "10-chapter-ix", "title": "IX. Vibration", "words": 1781, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/10-chapter-ix/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/10-chapter-ix.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Nothing rests; everything moves", "blurb": "The third Hermetic Principle. 'Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.' Spirit, mind, energy, and matter as differentiated only by their rate of vibration — the Hermetic ontology in proto-physical language." }, { "num": 12, "slug": "11-chapter-x", "title": "X. Polarity", "words": 1655, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/11-chapter-x/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/11-chapter-x.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Everything is dual; opposites are identical in nature", "blurb": "The fourth Principle. 'Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same.' Hot and cold, light and dark, love and hate as the same thing at different points on a single scale — the doctrine of reconcilable opposites." }, { "num": 13, "slug": "12-chapter-xi", "title": "XI. Rhythm", "words": 2003, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/12-chapter-xi/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/12-chapter-xi.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The pendulum swings to right and left", "blurb": "The fifth Principle. 'Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything.' The Hermetic doctrine of cyclic alternation — and the Master's secret of how to neutralise rhythm at will." }, { "num": 14, "slug": "13-chapter-xii", "title": "XII. Causation", "words": 3715, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/13-chapter-xii/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/13-chapter-xii.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Every cause has its effect; chance is a name for unknown law", "blurb": "The sixth Principle. 'Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized.' Hermetic determinism — and the distinction between being a cause and being an effect." }, { "num": 15, "slug": "14-chapter-xiv", "title": "XIV. Mental Gender", "words": 3156, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/14-chapter-xiv/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/14-chapter-xiv.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The masculine and feminine in mind", "blurb": "The seventh Principle applied to the mental plane. The Masculine and Feminine principles in every mind — the conscious (Masculine) and subconscious (Feminine) — and the necessity of their balance for both genius and mental health. Anticipates modern dual-mind psychology." }, { "num": 16, "slug": "15-chapter-xv", "title": "XV. Hermetic Axioms", "words": 1762, "url": "/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/15-chapter-xv/", "api": "/api/sources/alchemical-texts/emerald-tablet/15-chapter-xv.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Closing axioms — knowledge unused is hoarded metal", "blurb": "The closing chapter, a string of Hermetic axioms. 'The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals — a vain and foolish thing.' The work's exhortation to practical application." } ] }