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The Emerald Tablet
June 2008 & October 2009 The myth of antiquity, which persisted up until the 20th Century, gave the writings enormous, yet completely unwarranted, credibility. Why? Because inside them are metaphysical theories which Plato and others appeared to have independently rediscovered at a much later date. The writings also 'predict' the rise of Christianity despite supposedly predating it by thousands of years. Somewhat tragically, for the science of metaphysics, many seeks of truth consequently ignored the works of Plato and his contemporaries in favour of these contradictory and cryptic texts, which they considered to be the unadulterated ancient source of all wisdom. Aquinas, on the other hand, was horrified by the blasphemies, and declared the work demonically inspired - satanic occultism instead of divine wisdom. One marvels at how easily scholars were once taken in.
"The Emeral Tablet" is one of the most
famous Hermitic Texts. It supposedly contains the secrets of enlightenment,
what Alchemists called the "Philosophers Stone", the method of turning of
Lead, Man, Mortal into Gold, God, Immortal. Isaac Newton famously wrote a
translation. Of course, Newton was not trying to turn lead into gold
physically, in those days it was fashionable to be cryptic, which hardly
helped the knowledge escape. Why? Because had the enlightened admitted that
they were studying God rather than "alchemy" the Christian authorities might
have persecuted them.
Although in the past this principle was
universally accepted, eg Shakespeare's plays are full of it, today our
scientists reject it as mumbo jumbo and our politicians reject it as
immoral. In fact there is limited circumstantial scientific evidence for
some sort micro-synchronistic process coming from results in quantum
mechanics. It is possible, and has been demonstrated in laboratory tests, to
split particles in two, send the halves in opposite directions, and then
measure one of them for spin. The instant it is measured, and the spin
determined, the other particle adopts the opposite spin. The time interval
is zero, the event takes place instantaneously, even though the particles
are separated, and theoretically would still do so even if they were
separated by a distance measured in light years. This "EPR Paradox"
mystifies physicists and is an apparent example of micro-synchronicity.
Another possible example is the wave-particle like nature of electromagnetic
energy. The photon particle is detected at random but in accordance with the
wave distribution, thus we have probability crystallising into events.
Wolfgang Pauli was a brilliant Nobel Prize winning scientist at the
forefront of quantum mechanics who developed spin theory. Pauli and Jung
collaborated to some extend on the theory of synchronicity. Pauli thought
synchronicity might be an example of a possible fundamental principle which
needs to be properly integrated into Physics at the micro level (Jung's
interest was in the psychological and spiritual ramifications). Pauli was a
brilliant man who wrote a 237 page paper on general relativity at the age of
21 that was praised by Einstein. He was critical of Neo-Darwinian Theory
even before Crick's arguments about the complexity of DNA. Jung considered
Pauli a highly evolved individual whose dreams contained vast quantities of
deep archetypal material. The Pauli effect was named after his bizarre
ability to break experimental equipment simply by being in the vicinity.
Pauli himself was aware of his reputation, he believed this poltergeist like
activity was the synchronistic effect of inner conflict. In 1958 he was
admitted to hospital with cancer. When his assistant visited him Pauli asked
“Did you see the room number?” It was number 137. Throughout his life, Pauli
had been preoccupied with the question of why the fine structure constant, a
dimensionless fundamental constant, has a value nearly equal to 1/137. Pauli
later died in that room. An Enlightened individual is one who can discern the plot and untangle the connections. Take face reading - how can one become conscious of the inner outer associations? By reason and feeling, by sight and sound. For example, place your finger above your top lip and consider the psychological mood associated with this posture. It's pensive, but it's outgoing. Now place your finger on your chin below your bottom lip and feel the mood. It's pensive, but incoming. In one case we are inhibiting the outward flow of energy, we are contemplating what to do. In the other case we are inhibiting the inward flow of sensory data, in order to concentrate and process the data already received, we are contemplating what it means. So we can see why a long pointed beard hanging from the chin is associated with wisdom, whilst moustaches are associated with discipline. Some homework: What do large ear lobes mean? You need detachment and inner calm to release yourself from your ego and feel these subtle energies. To reason you need detachment again and concentration to follow the abstract arguments so remote from ordinary thinking. Plato's Theory Of Forms is another explanation of the "As Above, So Below" cosmology (Jung mentions both Plato and the Hermetic Texts in his original paper on synchronicity). Perhaps we should amend it to: "Whatever is below is a reflection of that which is above..." Plato said that mortal life is the manifest, living, changing, limited, imperfect reflection of immortal truth. Plato described the idea of a physical cat and the philosophical concept of a cat, which he called the Form of a cat. The world of Forms is timeless, immortal and unmanifest. The mortal world is the manifest evolving reflection of that immortal truth. We will come back to this absolutely vital concept of a mortal-immoral duality repeatedly during this article. Compared to Plato the "As Above, So Below" line is both multidimensional and causal. Imagine the physical body of a living cat as a reflection of the cat's state of consciousness. This individual state of consciousness is in turn a reflection of the archetypical cat consciousness. If we were to change the cat's consciousness, its physical form and fate would tend to readjust synchronistically. The superstitious believe that if you alter the cat's physical form it would alter the cat's consciousness, that synchronicity works in reverse as well (this is of course the idea of the voodoo doll). Of course Plato was well aware of the limits of his homogeneous presentation, but it was vital to his presentation of the duality. Plato's real weakness seems to be his failure to discuss and develop the causality aspect, but if I am missing something please email. For the unenlightened the world is in chaos. The miraculous order is what makes the perfecting process possible because the lessons and manifestations are appropriate not random. The "As Above, So Below" concept is the most important principle in mysticism. 3) Also, as all things are made from one, by the consideration of one, so all things were made from this one, by conjunction. Platonists divide the world into three primary levels. We have been discussing the relationship between the Immortal (Form) and Mortal (Reflection) words, which make up two of the three levels. The third layer is called "The One", or "God Itself". The One is the that which the Immortal World of Forms have in common, the source, the first principle, the unity, perhaps "The Good" or "Beauty". All things are from The One, by the consideration of the The One, and therefore The One is the source of all things. Thinking about Entropy, The One has none, the immortal has infinity, the mortal is somewhere between the two.
Recall the paradox that God is in all
things, but God is not in all things. That which is manifested is no longer
God, it is the daughter of God, sometimes very good, sometimes very evil.
Was Einstein evil because he invented the technology used to create nuclear
weapons? Of course not but that doesn't let God off the hook say some
because he invented the politicians! But God is the totality and capable of
all things, manifestations (things below) are limited reflections. All
manifestation is 'evil' in a sense. Thus we have the positive Immortal world
and the negative physical world of limited reflection and illusion. Male attributes include: detachment, intelligence, theory, power, competitive, active, positive. Female attributes include: materialism, emotion, practicality, love, nurturing, passive, negative. Now we understand why women are multitasking and man are single minded. We can see why the Christians call God "The Father" and why Paul said "wives [must] to submit to their husbands as to the Lord". Some homework: Why does the woman suffer from hysteria and the man from lack of purpose? I read a beautiful metaphor describing the male female relationship in a book called "On the Breath of the Gods" by Ariel Tomioka, she described a butterfly (male) landing on a flower (female). So the moral code of rationalist philosophers depends on their perspective. The Mortal Moral Perspective is the nurturing love of the mother. Justice is equality, utopia, cohesive. We have today's popular Christian morality. The Immortal Moral Perspective is the competitive father who forces his children to take risks. Divisive and painful evolution is no longer immoral, instead stasis is the primary evil. Recall the genetic breeding viewpoint expressed in the Republic which is so offensive to modern Christian morality. For modern humanists (who have abandoned religion because God appears inconsistent with their passive feminine Christian morality) Plato & Nietzsche are evil or 'emotionally damaged'. But the passive viewpoint does not withstand reason. Does God care when humans die in a Tsunami any more than we humans care when we stand on a Cockroach? In the 1970s it became fashionable to believe that men and women are the same and separated only by their upbringing (the nature vs nurture argument). Although clearly utter nonsense the theory was popular with the so called great minds of western science until the discovery of the psychological impact of testosterone in the 1980s forced them to change their minds. This remarkable example shows how utterly stupid humanity is - another example is of course the theory of Evolution. The world is full of robots who believe in nonsense and can not reprogram themselves. Trinity: The immortal-mortal duality can be turned into a trinity by the addition of the intermediate spirit, what the opposites have in common. In Plato's Symposium Socrates asks Diotima above love: "What then is Love?" I asked; "Is he mortal?" "No." "What then?" "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two."... "He is a great spirit and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal... Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love...." This is famous Immortal-Mortal-Love Trinity. Love, which mediates between the Immortal and Mortal, is an intermediate by which the Mortal and the Immortal communicate, or do business. In Christianity "Divine Love" is given a prominent place and normally associated with the "Holy Spirit" which intermediates between the Mortal and Immortal. So when a man fills himself with love he can communicate with truth, and act in truthful ways. Nevertheless "Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love...." Two things come to mind: First, God is not love, love is the intermediate. Second: Love is not the only definition of the holy spirit. Man also beholds truth by reason. In fact the holy spirit is best defined as the enlightening spirit, and I define it more carefully in (7b) below. General Causal Trinity: The trinity concept we have just talked about extends more widely. Newton's three laws of motion form a trinity - a set of opposites with an intermediate: inertia, acceleration, force. The two interact by means of the third. General Abstract Trinity: There is another type of trinity which is non-causal. Here the third is not a force, rather the setting under which the opposites are conceived. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant gives us unity, plurality, totality (B114). Quaternary Causal: The duality subdivides by the causal intermediate, by the flow of force, or introversion and extroversion if you like, and as a result we get the four elements Air, Fire, Water, Earth (in order: introverted positive, extroverted positive, introverted negative, extroverted negative). An example: Jung speaks of the male anima, which is the feminine inner personality present in the unconscious of the male, and the female animus, which is the masculine in the female. The anima is feminine-introverted water the animus is masculine-extroverted fire. Men can have an uncomfortable shock realising how earth women are, and women a shock realising how air men are. Why are masculine women stubborn? Their active principle lacks detachment. Why are feminine men moody? Their passive principle lacks practicality. Quaternary Abstract: Check out Kant's first decomposition of the Transcendental Logic into Quantity, Quality, Relation, Modality.
The duality is at the very heart of
everything, yet I have never met anyone who knew much about it. Once one
understands the duality the veil is lifted. What is socialism and
capitalism? Why is music more emotionally powerful than painting? This brings us to idea of evolving perfection key to this line of the text. By the intermediate the mortal world evolves toward the immortal world. Man, for example, becomes Enlightened, becomes divine. In this idea we have the key teological positivism of the Platonic Model of God. Some mechanisms which lift the human upwards from mortal illusion to immortal truth include love, reason, causality and synchronicity. So the Neo-Platonists rejected the ever materialistic nature of mortal man implicit in Christianity, and see in him a divine potential (not just a channel for divine power). The passive 'divine redemption' concept of Christanity, eg saviour from our sins at death, is replaced with the active concept of 'self redemption', personal spiritual evolution to perfection over lifetimes on earth. Heaven is replaced by Reincarnation. The passive oneness with God sought by prayer and meditation is rejected in favour of the razor sharp wisdom of contemplation.
The manifest mortal world (world of
attachment, materialism and pain) is a mechanism of this evolutionary
perfecting process. This Darwinian "Dog Eat Dog" World is the "School of Hard
Knocks" with the motto "No Pain, No Gain". The blood stained earth is the
mother of all perfection. More on this:
Solving The Problem Of Evil. One day man
will walk the earth as a god, brilliant, loving, all powerful. Technology
was the missing key which limited the explanations of the ancients. Perhaps
one day man will shed his physical body and take on a new engineered form,
perhaps one day he will loose interest in physical existence and merge his
essence into the collective, star trek style. The "Forbidden Planet" was
wrong - interface without instrumentation is not the final step! The final
step is omniscience and omnipotence, mastery of our world, becoming God. Although the process which turns the worm into the eagle is evolutionary, Darwin's theory of Evolution is non-divine, its relevance to mortal->immortal progression is only an appealing allegory. In fact Darwin's Theory of Evolution fails anyway, the entire theory is nothing more than allegory. 6) Its power is perfected, (7a) If it is turned into earth Only by exercising ones power in the manifesting of the imperfect is it possible to perfect ones power. Does this article count?! Does this line also mean that God's power is perfected by manifesting it? That would have totally radical implications, it would solve the deepest mystery of them all, why we exist. But only perfection could have created infinitely perfect life, it is like the circular Terminator plot! If time (and therefore causality) is an illusion all the problems collapse. Mystics like to say time is an illusion, but I want to see it explained. 7b) Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle and thin from the crude and coarse, prudently, with modesty and wisdom. This line is pretty complicated and brings us to the characteristics of that intermediate enlightening spirit which turns mortal minds into something divine. Enlightenment is, of course, that which allows us to behold God, that which distinguishes the worm from the superman. We acquire it, as explained in (5) by evolutionary struggle. It is that which the evolved have and the un-evolved do not have, it is that attribute which allows us to survive and master our environment. Careful here, it is not a selfish thing, we are talking about the group, the species if you like (recall the experience of cosmic consciousness - the passive experience of an interconnected universe - the first of the three religious experiences, the limit beyond which few have progressed). Socrates explained how the pragmatic creative response to the challenges of survival lift us out of ignorance. Animals act by instinct, they are essentially robots. If the world changes they die, their behaviour has limited creativity, does not guarantee survival, does not guarantee optimality. Mortal man is also steeped in programming, he inherits the traditions of society and family, he forms irrational assumptions along the way, and he even inherits the animal instincts of biology. He does not question himself, he behaves according to this ideological inheritance. The spiritually evolved man, by contrast, breaks away from this baggage, this ego, sets himself free, and achieves mastery. You can see in this why the enlightening spirit can also be called the creative spirit. In this state of mastery, of creativity, the enlightened one beholds the truth directly, and because beauty is truth, he lives in a state of bliss. There is a tendency to think of Socrates as ultra rational because we are talking about optimal behaviour in a mathematical sounding way. For example, Socrates certainly rejects dogma, he rejects faith, he is the philosophers who questions everything and has no sacred belief. It sounds very masculine, yet there is more to intelligence than meets the eye. It turns out that we think of as 'intelligence', of that which enables optimal response, divides into a duality (Kant's aesthetic vs analytic). I like to describe it as a feeling and a seeing process, and only one half repels touchy feely types! How does the mind recognise a chair coming as it does in so many forms? Chairs and tables are separated according to how they effect us. What about the seeing process? Chairs and tables are also separated in ways unconnected with their impact upon us, by abstract non-subjective concepts. So feeling has an energetic functional essence which we intuit as a sensation. Feeling is a causality concept, as opposed to an abstract concept, so we could also subdivide intelligence with the labels pure and applied. I really believe Kant's utterly unpopular description of the fundamentally non-rational and sensible nature of feeling is correct. If this is right it explains our failure in Artificial Intelligence, we have totally failed to grasp the mechanism by which organisms instinctively recognise form within sensory data. The size of brain shrinks as the number of forms the organism needs to recognise reduces, unlike our modern computers which would essentially have to understand all forms even in order to recognize one. Returning to this line of the Emerald Tablet: The line starts with the earth and fire, the active principles, the highest principles since creation is the goal. Then we compare subtle, thin with crude, course: is that +feeling, +seeing with -feeling, -seeing? Finally we end up with a trinity on which I think: Prudently is the key to the seeing principle and Modesty is the key to the feeling principle (because you have to turn off the ego to sense). Modern Buddhists would use the world "detachment" instead of modesty. Together we have wisdom, the overall essence of enlightenment. PS: I have done my best here, with (7b), but it is an area I am still working on. Untangling and fleshing out the nature of 'wisdom' is my main focus of study these days. What does this mean? It means (a) describing the essential property of englihtenment in both the yin and yang case. Plato, for example, only properly described the yang case. (b) using this to construct the path to enlightenment in both the yin and yang case. 8) This ascends from the earth into the sky and again descends from the sky to the earth, and receives the power and efficacy of things above and of things below. The perfecting of wisdom acquired on the manifest negative rising up to the reflective positive and passing back down to the negative for further refinement. Energy spirals out from The One and returns back to the centre again, said Jung and many others. 9) By this means you will acquire the glory of the whole world, and so you will drive away all shadows and blindness. Shadows: wrong understanding (illusion). Blindness: no understanding. 10) For this by its fortitude snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power. For it is able to penetrate and subdue everything subtle and everything crude and hard. Wisdom is the ultimate goal and brings the ultimate fulfilment. As you understand more and more the circumstances of your life arrange to bring you toward the glory of the whole world. This snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power. Perhaps also it is worth mentioning that one can consciously use the connection principle by speaking or creating symbols which evoke thoughts which in turn manifest. 11) By this means the world was founded 12) And hence the marvellous conjunctions of it and admirable effects, since this is the way by which these marvels may be brought about. I am not going to try and explain the One, the Henads, the Nous etc. 13) And because of this they have called me Hermes Tristmegistus since I have the three parts of the wisdom and Philosophy of the whole universe. The three parts wisdom & conjunctions refers to the "trinity" concept described earlier (in 4). 14) My speech is finished which I have spoken concerning the solar work.
----------------------------------------- Hi, I came across another web site about the Emerald Tablet with different explanations: Link. What do you think? Regards T. Hello T., I had a look at your web site quickly. Eg: (Point 2 - As Above, So Below) The fundamental point being made is that truth and reality can only be grasped by analogy. The Above is not the Below; it is like the Below. That is, we can only understand by symbols, metaphors, parables, poems, mandalas and koans. We can only approach reality indirectly to accomplish the Great Work. This is a typical example of the type of New Age nonsense I utterly despise! It's not just the author's failure to quote Jung's Theory of Synchronicity, which would excite any intellectual snob, it's his failure to grasp even the most fundamental principle of mysticism. Not only is he no further forward than the incorrigible materialist, by discarding his rational mind he is actually moving backwards, back toward the worthless speculations and superstitions of primitive man. The link between "Plato's Forms", "As Above, So Below" and "Jung's Synchronicity" is not a possibly erroneous theory of mine - it is a fact - a truism - and an obvious one at that. Jung's original paper on synchronicity talks about it at length, I wish I could add links to other articles, but all I can find on the internet is junk, the web site you sent certainly being no exception. Yet it gets even worse. Look at these pitiful lines from your suggested site: (Point 4 - Father is Sun, Mother Moon) The One becomes the Many and so, it differentiates into 4 separate steps; Above Þ Below, personified as the astrologer. Heaven sets the pattern for earth. On the Tree of Life, Tiferet is the Sun, Chakhmah is the Zodiac, Binah is Saturn, Chesed is Jupiter and Gevurah is Mars. Again, these are guides for visualisation. It is no use talking about it, we must experience it. In this quote we can see clearly the deeply dangerous New Age & Religious idea that metaphysical truth transcends reason and can only be grasped by feel or faith. Socratic detachment is hard enough for people to achieve as it is, the last thing we need are arguments that it is antithetical to truth. I am afraid that metaphysics is beyond all but the most sophisticated intellectuals. The tragedy is that these few have imparted so little to their fellow man, so the masses live in complete darkness. Instead of Plato, Proclus, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche & William Hooper we have Christianity and other popular religions which are as fit for the human mind as Coca-Cola is for the human body. By sending me this link, you have clearly revealed yourself as just another worm, in a world of worms, who has stumbled across my pearls of wisdom, and slithered past unmoved. You have no chance of intellectually penetrating the mysteries in this lifetime. Instead I suggest you embrace popular books such as 'Journey Of Souls' by Dr Michael Newton. This work is not intellectually challenging, but it is infinitely more uplifting than The Ten Commandments, that pitiful collection of so called sacred rules at the heart of the worlds most popular opiate affliction.
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In
this article I explain the Emerald tablet, making clear as I do so the links
between the tablet concepts and the works of Plato, Jung and others.