Do you want the secret to all knowledge? Look no further than the mysterious, elusive Emerald Tablet of Alchemy. This object, said to be made out of solid emerald or jade, contains the solutions to alchemy’s most pressing problems: the creation of the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, and the transmutation of metals into gold.
Once upon a time, in a cave…
Understanding the Emerald Tablet isn’t easy. Be prepared for an onslaught of its creator’s confusing pseudonyms, confusion over how and when it was discovered, and appropriations by modern-day occultists. It’s a lot to take in.
We start at the beginning, when a young man ventures into a cave in Tyana, Central Anatolia. The Kitab sirr al-haliqi, the Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature, is an Arabic text dating to the 8th century BCE. It tells the story of Balinas, who happened upon a cave housing a mysterious tomb.
Inside the tomb was a statue of a man, and text (supposedly written in Syriac, an ancient Semitic language) on a column accompanying the statue reads: “Behold! I am Hermes Trismegistus, he who is threefold in wisdom. I once placed these marvelous signs openly before all eyes, but now I have veiled them by my wisdom, so that none should attain them unless he becomes a sage like myself.”
There are variations of the discovery myth. In another text called Secretum Secretorum (most likely, a fake letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great), Aristotle spoke to his famed student about alchemy and magic. This text led writer Dennis William Hauck — who published his research on the tablet in The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation — to propose that Alexander the Great had something to do with the tablet. He argued that Alexander discovered a tomb in Siwa Oasis while on an expedition in Egypt. Finding the tomb laden with treasure and the Emerald Tablet, he took its contents with him. To protect the sacred objects during a time of unrest, he buried them in the tomb Balinas later found.
Imagined Emerald Tablet. Photo: Traveling Templar
Hauck claims the tablet was on display in Egypt, and a traveler described it:
It is a precious stone, like an emerald, whereon these characters are represented in bas-relief, not engraved. It is esteemed above 2,000 years old. The matter of this emerald had once been in a fluid state like melted glass, and had been cast in a mold, and to this flux the artist had given the hardness of the natural and genuine emerald by his art.
At this point, it’s important to point out that this so-called Emerald Tablet has been lost for at least 1,200 years, if it ever existed. The intiguing green photo above is an imagining. However, the tablet’s supposed contents have survived, in translations and retranslations from Arabic into Latin. Details have likely been misinterpreted and lost over the years.
What did it say?
Isaac Newton, Roger Bacon, Athanasius Kircher, and John Dee all researched the Emerald Tablet. Opinions vary, with some believing it holds the key to unlocking alchemical processes, while others think it is a hoax.
Around the early modern period, the Emerald Tablet took on a more symbolic or allegorical nature.
Let’s look at the most popular and common translation, known as the Vulgate version.
True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true.
That which is above is like to that which is below, and
That which is below is like to that which is above,
To accomplish the miracles of one thing…
“As above, so below” is the most famous phrase on the tablet, referring to how the macrocosm (the universe) and microcosm (an individual’s interior world) reflect each other. We see these beliefs today in the New Age movement. Helena Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy (a 19th-century religion popular with some intellectuals of the period), drew heavily on these principles. She believed people could awaken their souls and enter a new state of being.
The tablet continues:
The sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry…for this reason I am called Hermes Trismegistus, because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.
Hermes Trismegistus
But who is Hermes Trismegistus? During Hellenized Egypt (350 BCE to 30 BCE), the Greek and Egyptian pantheons were combined. Hermes is the Greek god of travelers and thieves. He guides souls to the underworld and is also the herald of the gods. Some allocate language, communication, and messages to Hermes.
Egyptians saw similarities between him and Thoth, the god of learning, writing, and communication. Trismegistus means “Thrice Great” in Greek and refers to one of Thoth’s titles. Essentially, Hermes Trismegistus means Hermes-Thoth.
Hermes Trismegistus. Photo: Cathedral of Siena.
Hermes Trismegistus is said to be the father of hermeticism, a religious and philosophical movement rooted in esoteric beliefs. It combines occult, ancient Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystic traditions to unite the individual with the divine. This belief system had many texts, supposedly including The Emerald Tablet. Hermeticism continued well into the early modern period.
We don’t have precise details of what the statue of Hermes Trismegistus looked like, but later artwork depicts him not as a Greek or Egyptian god but as an old, wise man with a pointed, turban-like crown.
Later, Christians believed that Hermes Trismegistus was a pagan sage, while some Jewish scholars believed that Adam and Eve’s younger son, Seth, wrote the tablet. Supposedly, the tablet was kept safe by Noah during the Great Flood and hidden in a cave before its discovery by Abraham and his wife. However, these stories have no written sources.
Connection to the Book of Thoth
The story of the Emerald Tablet is not unique. If you browse online, you’ll find articles and AI-generated posts about the “Book of Thoth.”
Thoth is usually depicted as a man with the head of an ibis and a symbol of the moon hovering above him. Egyptians attributed sacred texts, philosophies, spells, rituals, and other vital aspects of their culture to him.
A relief of Thoth in Luxor, Egypt. Photo: Jon Bodsworth/World History
The Book of Thoth contained powerful spells and the “secrets of the universe.” It supposedly granted the reader special abilities, such as understanding animals. However, Thoth would inflict his wrath upon anyone who looked upon the book.
That did not stop an ambitious prince named Neferkaptah. Neferkaptah dove to the bottom of the Nile to retrieve the book, which was guarded by serpents. Upon hearing of the theft, Thoth punished Neferkaptah by killing his wife and child. The prince subsequently took his own life and was buried in a tomb with the book.
There are some similarities between the stories about the Book of Thoth and the Emerald Tablet. Both were found in tombs and hold the so-called secret to the universe, and Hermes and Thoth were essentially interchangeable.
Was the author a deified official?
Egyptian tradition sometimes deifies regular individuals. For example, Cleopatra and the Ptolemies were considered living gods and goddesses. The high-ranking official Imhotep, who served the Egyptian king Djoser, was sometimes referred to as Thoth because he was exceptionally wise and learned. Therefore, some people believe Hermes Trismegistus was Imhotep.
It seems possible that the story of the Emerald Tablet has its origins in the legend of the Book of Thoth, with elements of the story distorting over time.
Belief in the Emerald Tablet continues
The story of the Emerald Tablet lives on in the New Age movement and the secret rituals and beliefs of societies like the Freemasons.
In the late 1940s, cult leader Maurice Doreal published Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean. Doreal claimed he discovered emerald tablets, written by Thoth, in Giza in the 1920s. Bizarrely, Doreal believed Thoth was not a god but an immortal being from the lost city of Atlantis. After the city sank beneath the waves, Thoth escaped and settled in Egypt, teaching the population wisdom.
