The Emerald
Tablet
For this reason I am
called
HERMES
TRISMEGISTUS
because I hold three
parts of the wisdom of the whole world
The Lure and
Romance of Alchemy
A history of the
secret link between magic and
science
C. J.
S.Thompson
Page
31
The
Mystery Of The Emerald Tablet
"An atmosphere of romance
and mystery surrounds the tradition of an emerald tablet or
table that is said to have been discovered
in the tomb of the legendary Hermes.
It is first mentioned in western literature In a treatise
attributed to Albert Magus called De
Mineralibus,written in the early part of the
fourteenth century. In this manuscript it is stated that the
tomb of Hermes was discovered by Alexander the Great near
Hebron, and that in the tomb was found a tablet of
emerald
"
" On this was inscribed in
Phoenician characters the precepts of the Great
Master concerning the art of making gold The Hermes alluded
to is doubtless the traditionary Hermes Trismegistus
"
Alexander the Great invaded
Egypt
332
BC
Alexander the Great
died
323
BC
Aged
32
The Egyptian princess
Mene,died
in 322
B.C.
The Elixir And
The Stone
A history of
Magic and Alchemy
1998
Michael Baigent And Richard
Leigh
Page
21
Hermeticism derives its name
from a figure known as Thoth, or Thoth - Hermes, or Thrice -
Great Hermes,
or Hermes
Trismegistus.
Page
22
note
21
"An inscription dating
from
172
BC mentions 'Thoth
the three times great .'
"
Page
22
note
22
"An even earlier
inscription , from the third century BC, alludes to ' Thoth
Thrice Greatest.' "
"As an Egyptian deity, Thoth
performed a number of functions He was a moon god,
symbolized by the cusped or horned moon, and
silver was sacred to him. He acted as psychopomp - that is
as initiator - into the most arcane mysteries. He served as
sentinel or guardian of the gates to the underworld;and in
this capacity he weighed the souls of the newly dead in
order to determine their posthumous destinies "
Page
23
" Thoth was also regarded
as the god of magic, the supreme master magician who
confided the secrets of his art to his initiates
among mankind "
Page
23
note
23
"
Presiding over
fate and justice, he is also lord of the night and of death
and its mysterious aftermath-
"
'
He knows 'all that is
hidden under the heavenly vault, and beneath the
earth,
'
The Elixir And The Stone
A history of
Magic and Alchemy
1998
Michael Baigent And
Richard Leigh
Page 24
note
24
"In the, sixteenth
dialogue of
the Corpus
Hermeticum for
example, Thoth Hermes declares that the meaning of his work
'will be entirely
unclear when the Greeks eventually desire to
translate our language to their own and thus produce in
writing the greatest distortion
But this discourse,
expressed in our paternal language, keeps clear the mean-ing
of its words.The very quality of the speech and the sound of
Egyptian words have in themselves the energy of the objects
they speak of. '
"
words even individual
letters ,can be the equivalent of storage cells,
repositories charged with a form of divine or magical power
as a battery is charged with electrical energy.
" In general Hermeticism is
a mystical tradition , a mystical body of teachings, a
mystical mode of thought.
"It repudiates codified
dogma and the interpretative necessity and authority of
priests."
It also refuses to accept
the rational intellect as the supreme means of cognition,
the supreme arbiter of reality."
Instead it emphasizes and
extols the mystical or numinous experience-direct
and first hand-apprehension of the sacred , direct knowledge
of the absolute."
Page 25
Hermetic
and
Gnostic
" The word
gnosis simply means direct knowledge. To that
extent Hermeticism is indeed 'gnostic' in
orientation."
Page
26 /
27
" For
hermeticism,
" '
there was ultimately
only one everything . Reality in all its aspects was
embraced as a single all - persuasive ,all - encompassing
totality, a single whole in / which all dichotomies, all
distinctions between body and soul , spirit and matter were
accommodated and harmoniously integrated. Everything in its
own way was valid. Everything was incorporated in the
comprehensive design.'
" Within this harmony,
everything was interconnected with everything else through a
mesh of interlocking relationships. Such relationships
rested on the principle of anology. Things echoed other
things, reflected other things, mirrored other things,
parelleled other things, corresponded to other things.
Reality comprised an intricate,
incessantly vibrating and living
web of correspondences. These correspondences were like
notes or chords of music, recurring in ever new combinations
and permutations, and thus contributing to a single grand
symphony. Or they could be compared to a multitude of
different coloured threads, interwoven with each other to
create a single seamless fabric or tapestry. According to
the Emerald Tablet '
the above comes
from below, and the below
from
above - the work
of the miracle of the One'
Page
27
note
26
Page
27
note
27
In a more widely
circulated version ,
'that which is
above is like
that
which is below,
and that which is below is like that which is
above.'
"This premise has often been
abridged to the simple formula
' As above so
below'.
"
Page
28
note
28
The Way of
Hermes
"The Emerald
Tablet elaborates
further: 'The
structure of the microcosm is in accordance with the
structure of the
macro-cosm'
In other words
the lesser mirrors the greater and the greater
the lesser. The structure of the atom mirrors the solar
system, while the structure of the solar system mirrors that
of the atom. Man mirrors the cosmos and vice versa "
"The world within and the
world without mirror each other. The universe contained
within the human psyche mirrors
the external universe,which
can be conceived of as the 'psyche of the living and
sentient totality
"
Page
28
For the Hermeticist,the
analogies or correspondences con-necting the
diverse skeins of reality were best expressed by symbols.
Thus for example,the interelatioship between microcosm and
macrocosm was traditionally denoted by the famous
' Seal of Solomon
' - a
six pointed star "
" Such symbols were not
however, merely a convenient shorthand .On the
contrary, they were like sounds letters and words
" "
repositeries or storage cells of power
,batteries holding a latent charge of energy. These symbols
often called 'seals ' or 'signatures',were like
cross - stitches in the fabric of reality, the
interlacing holding the mesh
together." "
And what was more ,these
symbols could be ' activated 'in a practical manner. Symbols
could be manipulated , like elements or molecules in
chemistry to form new compounds ,new amalgams of
possibility.By virtue of such manipulation change could be
effected. The process whereby it was ,constituted a form of
magic: 'Recent research'
/
Page 29
note 29
has done much
to show how important a place the practice as
well as the theory of Theurgy - that is the"performing of
divine actions", chiefly with the aid of magical " symbols
"or symbola - occupied
'
From page 3 up to and
including page
32
(notes 32
and 33) there are
33 text notes .Page
33
denotes a Chapter change.
Page 30
"Hermetic thought
provided the basis for a new orientation"
As a result of the new
orientation man ceased to be merely a victim of
reality. He ceased , likewise to be merely an observer of
world around him
Page 31 /
32
"And there were
women alchemists as well, female Faust figures .
One practioner for example, was known as Cleo-patra and
is credited with a statement strikingly similar
to' / the opening of the Emerald
Tablet: '
Tell us
how
the
highest descends to the lowest and how the lowest rises
to the high-est. "
note
31
From page
3
of this book up to and
including page
32
(notes 32
and
33)
there are
33 text
notes .Page
33
denotes a chapter change.
Joseph
And His Brothers
Thomas
Mann
Page 124.
"And here indeed our tale
issues into mysteries, and our signposts are lost in the
endlessness of the past, where every origin betrays itself
as but an apparent halt and inconclusive goal, mysterious by
its very nature - since that has to do not with
distance but with the sphere. For distance in a straight
line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere. But the
sphere consists in correspondence and redinte-gration; it is
a doubled half that becomes one , that is made by joining an
upper and lower half, a heavenly and earthly hemisphere,
which complement each other in a whole, in such a
manner that what is above is also below; and what happens in
the earthly repeats itself in the heavenly sphere and
contrariwise This complementary inter-change of two halves
which together form a whole and a closed sphere is
equivelant to actual change
-
that is to, to revolution. The sphere rolls
-
that lies in the
nature of spheres. Bottom is soon top and top bottom, in so
far as one can speak of top and bottom in such a connection.
Not only do the heavenly recognise themselves in each other
,but , thanks to the revolution of the sphere, the heavenly
can turn into the earthly the, earthly into the heavenly,
from which it is clear that gods can become men and on the
other hand men can become gods again."
Just Six Numbers
The Deep Forces that
Shape the Universe. 1999
Martin Rees
" In this book I shall
describe several ways in which we are linked to the stars,
arguing that we cannot understand our origins
without the cosmic context. The intimate connections
between the 'inner space of the sub-atomic world
and the 'outer space'of the cosmos are illustrated in Figure
1.1- an ouraborus, described
by Encyclopaedia Britannica as the
'emblematic serpent of an-cient Egypt and Greece,
represented with its tail in its mouth continually devouring
itself and being reborn from itself
[It]
expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual
,which never disappear but perpetually change form in an
eternal cycle of destruction and re - creation "
The scribe writ 'tongue in
mouth'
THE PATH OF
HERMES
The Elixir And The Stone
A history of
Magic and Alchemy
1998
Michael Baigent And Richard
Leigh
Page 40
"
they cited certain
of the texts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus
"
" In Harran,,
Hermeticism thrived. And from Harran , it is believed ,there
issued a new hermetic text , and one of the most
important of all for later magical
tradition."
"In Arabic, the book
in question is called the Ghayat al-hakim, or
Goal of the wise
It is known to
western scholars as the Picatrix .The Picatrix is, in
effect, a guide, a textbook and manual for the practice of
astrological magic."
Page 41
"In positing a planetery
influence on terrestial phenomena, it had been regarded as a
supreme illustration and
manifestation of the
Hermetic premise which linked macrocosm
and microcosm , 'above' and
'below'
The Picatrix further
consolidated the position of astrology in the overall
context of Hermetic thought
.
'All things in this
world 'obey the celestial forms,' And: All sages
agree that the planets exercise influence
and
power over this world
' from this it follows that the roots of magic are the
movement of the planets.' note
8
It offered the aspiring
magician meticulously detailed instructions for invoking
,manipulating and deploying on earth the
celestial influence of the planets. " It focused in
particular on what it called 'talismans' which it compared
explicitly to the alchemical elixir
Through the proper
design and construction of a 'talisman', and through proper
performance of the rituals associated with it, the magician
could control the energy emanating from heavenly
spheres "
"The hermetic practioner
thus learned how 'to draw these celestial spirits down to
the earth and to induce them to enter into a material object
(a talisman),which thereupon possesses well defined magical
powers,." note
9
"From such procedures ,
there emerged, in the Picatrix,a portrait of 'Hermetic man'
who is described as 'the magus, the sage, the master of
Heaven and Earth . note
10
In this way,'Hermetic man'
became the nexus the junction, the point of intersection
between macrocosm and micrcosm,the greater world and the
lesser' I tell you that man is called a world ,and this by
comparison to the greater one, just as one
says that whatever is contained in the greater
world ,is contained naturally in the lesser one.' note
11
Page 42
"In Harran the Picatrix
was integrated with the corpus of earlier hermetic
texts,
"Look abroad through
natures range natures mighty law is
change" So
said Zed Aliz ,observing out of the corner of
an I corner, The Blessed Robbie
, trip over the words off of off a
tongue.
The Elixir And
The Stone
A history of
Magic and Alchemy
1998
Michael Baigent And Richard
Leigh
Hermetic Thought
and The Arts The Talisman
Chapter
9
Page 191
"At the route of culture
as Thomas Mann says, lies cult. Ever since the earliest days
of prehistory when man began to weave his pre-Hermetic magic
into coherent systems of belief, the arts have been
inextricably associated with religion."
Page
192
"Inevitably , therefore,
Hermetic thought began increasingly to manifest itself
through the arts-
"
"
In certain
cases, the work of art would simply express or illustrate
key tenets of Hermetic thought, such as the premise of
analogy or the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm.
In other cases, the act of artistic creation would be seen
as nothing less than a magical operation; and the finished
work would itself be a magical object, a species
of talisman, capable of invoking and concentrating occult or
cosmic energies.
Supernature
Lyall Watson
(1974
Edition)
Page
97
"Sound, of course, is a
vibration that can be conducted only through an elastic
medium; it cannot travel through a vac-uum. Electromagnetic
waves do travel through free space, and we know far less
about factors governing their resonance. There is however,
one quite extraordinary piece of evidence
which suggests that shape could be important in
receiving even cosmic stimuli. It comes from those
favourites of mystics throughout the ages-the pyramids of
Egypt." ( see also Thomas Mann Joseph and his
Brothers page 511)
Page 101
" It is possible that all
shapes have their own qualities and that the forms we see
around us are the result of combinations of
enviromental frequencies .In the eighteenth century the
German physicist Ernst Chladni discovered a way of making
vibration patterns visible
"
"
These arrangements
now known as Chladni's figures
"
"
have been extensively
used in physics to demonstrate wave function,but they also
show very well that different fre-quencies produce patterns
with different forms."
"
and by playing notes
with a wide range of frequencies, it is possible to induce a
pattern to take on almost any form
"the study of this
phenomenon, the effects of waves on matter is called
cymatics . note 166
Page 103
" In Switzerland during
the past ten years Hans Jenny has been
refining Chladni's figures and
producing
elegant proof that form is a
function of frequency. One of his inventions is a
"tonoscope," which converts sounds into visible
three-dimensional patterns in inert material. note 167 This
can be used with the human voice as the sound source,and
when someone speaks the sound for the letter O into the
microphone, it produces a perfectly spherical pattern. The
sphere is one of nature's basic forms, but it is startling
to discover that the shape produced by the frequency of the
O sound is exactly the shape we have chosen to
represent it pictorially in our script. It raises specters
of ancient beliefs that words and names had properties of
their own."
" Is it possible that words
have a power by virtue of their own special frequencies? Can
magic words and sacred formulas and chants in fact exert an
influence that differs from other sounds chosen at random ?
It seems so ,and with Jenny's discovery of word patterns, I
find myself looking with some discomfort and awe at St
John's assertion
"In the beginning was the
Word "
Page 106 / 107
"Research is now going on
into the effect of music on plants. It has been / discovered
that geraniums grow faster and taller to the a-ccompaniment
of Bach's Brandernburg concerto. If the domi-nant
frequencies of these pieces of this music are
broadcast to the plants, they have some effect,but growth is
more marked if the frequencies occur in the spatial
relationships so carefully designed by the composer.
Bacteria are affected in the same way, multiplying under the
influence of certain frequencies and dying when subject to
others. It is not a long step from this
discovery to the old idea that frequent repetiton
of certain chants or songs could cure
disease.
Page 107 /
108
Following discoveries
about the nature of light, magnetism, and electricity in the
nineteenth century, the theory of a /
"vibrating universe"
became very popular in occult circles, but it was
Pythagoras, in the fifth century B.C. , who first de-veloped
the idea.The notion that the Universe is connected in a
grand design has always been fundamental to magic, and the
pythagoreans used the mathematical relatioships of musi-cal
intervals to express this pattern numerically.
"
Reight wah scribe
said Alizzed lets get on wi' it
Cassell's
English
Dictionary
1974
Page 485
" geometric
The science of magnitudes
whether linear, superficial, or solid with their properties
and relations in space "
"
geometric,
-al
Pertaining to geometry
;done, determined or
prescribed
by geometry;
disposed in mathemetical figures "
"
geometrical progression
: A
progression in which the terms increase or decrease by a
common ratio,"
as
1, 3, 9, 27; 144, 72, 36,18.
" geometrical
proportion: One
based on equal ratios in its two parts, as
2 : 4 :
: 6 : 12.
Doodling the scribe writ
Pythagorus
then writ
Python
-
ouraborus
and then
writ
Pythaborus and
then wrote writ,and then writ wrote and then
writ
Pythorus
Gee said ZedAliz
there just had to be a B
There
are ten
letters
in
Pythagorus,
said Alizzed
and nine
in
ouraborus
and
10 + 9
is
19
and
I + 9
is10
and
1+ 0 is
O
Then at the further
instigation of the Zed Aliz Zed. The scribe writ
10 x
9
is 90
and 9 +
0 is
9
Then would you believe it
the scribe
writ Phi is
the
21st
letter of the
Greek alphabet
Thus writ the
scribe
Acatalectic
Acatalepsy
Acateleptic
|