The Emerald Tablet

 The Emerald Tablet: Text,History, and Meaning

The Emerald Tablet (Latin: Tabula Smaragdina) is one of the shortest, most famous, and most influential texts in the entire history of Western esotericism. In its classic Latin form it is only 12–14 lines long, yet it has been treated as the concentrated essence of alchemy, magic, cosmology, and spiritual transformation for more than a thousand years.

What does it say?

The Classic Latin Text (13th-century version, most often quoted)

1.  Verum est, sine mendacio, certum et verissimum:

2.  Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius.

3.  Et sicut res omnes fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius, sic omnes res natae ab hac una re, adaptatione.

4.  Pater eius est Sol, mater eius est Luna; portavit illud Ventus in ventre suo; nutrix eius Terra est.

5.  Pater omnis telesmi totius mundi est hic.

6.  Vis eius integra est si versa fuerit in terram.

7.  Separabis terram ab igne, subtile a spisso, suaviter, magno cum ingenio.

8.  Ascendit a terra in coelum, iterumque descendit in terram, et recipit vim superiorum et inferiorum.

9.  Sic habebis gloriam totius mundi. Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas.

10.  Hic est totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis, quia vincit omnem rem subtilem, omnemque solidam penetrat.

11.  Sic mundus creatus est.

12.  Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus est hic.

13.  Itaque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philosophiae totius mundi.

14.  Completum est quod dixi de operatione Solis.

Most common English rendering (slightly modernised)

1.  It is true, without falsehood, certain, and most true:

2.  That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of the one thing.

3.  And as all things have been and arose from One by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

4.  Its father is the Sun, its mother the Moon; the Wind carried it in its womb; the Earth is its nurse.

5.  The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.

6.  Its power is integrating if it be turned into earth.

7.  You shall separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently and with great ingenuity.

8.  It ascends from earth to heaven, and again it descends to earth, and receives the power of things above and things below.

9.  By this means you shall obtain the glory of the whole world, and all obscurity shall flee from you.

10.  This is the strong force of all forces, overcoming every subtle thing and penetrating every solid thing.

11.  Thus was the world created.

12.  From this will be, and will emerge, marvelous adaptations, of which the means (or process) is here.

13.  Therefore I am called Hermes Trismegistus, for I possess the three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.

14.  That which I have said concerning the operation of the Sun is accomplished and completed.

Historical Origins

•  No authentic “emerald tablet” has ever been found. The story that it was discovered in Hermes’ tomb, clutched in his emerald hands (narrated by 16th–17th-century writers), is almost certainly legend.

•  The earliest known versions appear in Arabic in the 7th–9th centuries CE. The two oldest surviving texts are:

•  The Kitāb sirr al-khalīqa (“Book of the Secret of Creation”) attributed to Balīnūs (pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana), ca. 750–800 CE.

•  Jābir ibn Ḥayyān’s (Geber) writings, 8th–9th century.

•  The Latin translation that conquered Europe was made around 1140–1200, probably in Spain, and first appears appended to the Secretum secretorum tradition. By the 13th century it was circulating widely and was soon attributed to Hermes Trismegistus himself.

Key Interpretations Across the Centuries

Alchemical (operative)
The majority of medieval and Renaissance commentators (Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Hortulanus, Michael Maier, Isaac Newton, etc.) read it as a literal recipe for the philosophers’ stone.

•  Sun = gold / sulfur

•  Moon = silver / mercury

•  Wind = spirit / mercury again

•  Earth = body / salt
The repeated ascent and descent (lines 7–8) were taken to describe distillation and sublimation cycles in the alchemist’s flask.

Philosophical / Cosmological
Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno, and the Neoplatonists saw it as a summary of emanationist metaphysics: the One generates the many by adaptation (line 3), and the human adept can reverse the process, ascending back to unity.

 Magical / Theurgic
The Tablet was treated as the ultimate talisman. Engraving its text on an actual emerald (or green jasper) and wearing it was believed to confer protection, wisdom, and the ability to command spirits.

  Spiritual / Mystical
Modern esotericists (Golden Dawn, Fulcanelli, 20th–21th-century alchemy revival) emphasize the inner, psychological work: the “one thing” is consciousness itself; the entire process is the transformation of the soul from lead to gold.

  Isaac Newton’s private translation (ca. 1680)
Newton wrote his own English version and an extensive commentary. He was particularly obsessed with line 6 (“Its power is integrating if it be turned into earth”) and believed it referred to a secret volatile salt that could “vegetate” metals.

Why It Endures

The Tablet works like a perfect esoteric koan: short enough to memorize, cryptic enough to support endless interpretation, and structured like a spiral that keeps returning to the same central ideas (unity, correspondence, circulation, transmutation). Every generation finds in it exactly what it is looking for: a chemical formula, a metaphysical axiom, a magical incantation, or a map of enlightenment.

Even today, when almost no one believes a physical emerald tablet ever existed, the text continues to function as a living archetype. It is the Western equivalent of the Tao Te Ching or the Heart Sutra: a handful of words that refuse to stay confined to any single meaning, yet somehow keep pointing toward the same mystery.