The Emerald Tablets: An Ancient Source of Knowledge

The Emerald Tablets are known as a source of secret knowledge about the universe, magical powers, and perhaps even a record of the fabled lost city of Atlantis. The story begins with an Egyptian god called Thoth, one of the oldest and most important gods in the Egyptian pantheon, dating back to the pre-dynastic period some 8,000 years ago. Before there were Pharaohs, there was Thoth.

According to Egyptian myth, Thoth actually wrote down all of his knowledge on tens of thousands of manuscripts, recording the earliest foundations of science, law, art, philosophy, math, and magic. But of all of his works, one stood out above the rest. Known as The Emerald Tablets, it was said to be the place where Thoth recorded the greatest secrets of all, the secrets to changing a person’s existence and becoming one with the universe.

Thoth is a deity from ancient Egyptian mythology, often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon. He was considered the god of wisdom, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art, judgment, and the dead. In Hellenistic times, Thoth was extensively syncretized with the Greek god Hermes and came to be known as Hermes Trismegistus.

The Emerald Tablets, also known as the Smaragdine Table or Tabula Smaragdina, is a legendary alchemical text attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. It’s a compact and cryptic piece of Hermetic text that has been highly regarded by European and Islamic alchemists since the medieval period. The text of the Emerald Tablets first appears in Arabic sources dating back to the late 8th or early 9th century and was later translated into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The Emerald Tablets is famous for its phrase “As above, so below,” which summarizes the concept that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm—the inner world reflects the outer world. This phrase has become a cornerstone in various mystical, philosophical, and religious traditions. The Emerald Tablets text is believed to hold the key to the philosophers’ stone and the process of transmuting base metals into gold, which are central themes in alchemy.

While the physical tablet of The Emerald Tablets has never been found, the text has had a significant influence on Western esoteric thought and continues to be a subject of interest for those studying Hermeticism, alchemy, and mysticism. The Emerald Tablets are sometimes described as containing the secrets of the universe, and various interpretations and commentaries have followed its translations.