The Emerald Tablet & The Ki
I have had several people relay they felt a connection of The Ki to the Emerald Tablet.
Being an archaeologist by training, grounded in science, I initially batted away such association. No - the Ki is people’s power responses; what they do in the face of danger, opportunity, pressure.
As far as I was aware, the Emerald Tablet was a medieval hermetic text highly regarded by alchemists (associated with the philosophers’ stone and artificial production of gold), and by occultists.
However, someone else on my feed was mentioning that Sir Issac Newton had undertaken a translation of the Emerald Tablet from Latin into English. My curiosity was piqued.
So I looked into his translation of this so-called “Emerald Tablet”. It turns out that the Emerald Tablet may have genuinely be from an ancient Greek or Syriac source, from around the 2nd Century CE.
However, it first appears in presently surviving records - within medieval Arabic sources in compilations, and thus interpreted with lens of Hermetic and occultist traditions.
HISTORY AND TRANSLATION OF THE EMERALD TABLET
The Emerald Tablet, (or Tabula Smaragdina) appears in the 9th Century Arabic text Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa (or Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature), as a translation of a work by Bélinous (wrongly attributed to Apollonius of Tyana).
“This is the book of the wise Bélinous [Apollonius of Tyana], who possesses the art of talismans: this is what Bélinous says... In the place where I lived [Tyana], there was a stone statue raised on a wooden column; on the column, these words were written: 'I am Hermes, to whom knowledge has been given...'. While I slept uneasily and restlessly, preoccupied with my sorrow, an old man whose face resembled mine appeared before me and said, 'Rise, Bélinous, and enter this underground road; it will lead you to the knowledge of the secrets of Creation...'. I entered this underground passage. I saw an old man sitting on a golden throne, holding an emerald tablet in one hand... I learned what was written in this book of the 'Secret of the Creation of Beings'... [Emerald Tablet:] True, true, certain, indisputable, and authentic! Behold, the highest comes from the lowest, and the lowest from the highest; a work of wonders by a single thing..."
It is also reproduced in Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss al-thānī (The Second Book of the Element of the Foundation) by Jabir ibn Hayyan, in his longer version of Sirr al-asrar (The Secret of Secrets), wrongly attributed to Aristotle; and in Muhammed ibn Umail al-Tamini’s (known as “Senior Zadith”) Kitāb al-māʾ al-waraqī wa-l-arḍ al-najmiyya (Book of the Silvery Water and the Starry Earth).
A wonderful illuminated image exists in a medieval manuscript by Aurora Consurgens - of an ancient sage holding the Tablet of Wisdom described, in Ibn Umayl's The Silvery Water (held in Zurich), see below:
Detail from: Aurora Consurgens also illustrates the statue of an ancient sage holding the tablet of wisdom described in Ibn Umayl's The Silvery Water, from Wikicommons. The discovery of the Emerald Tablet, Aurora Consurgens medieval manuscript, exemplar from Zürich Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Rh. 172 Parchemin, 100 ff., 20.4 x 13.9 cm, Saint Gall, XVe siècle, latin 10.5076/e-codices-zbz-Ms-Rh-0172 http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/fr/list/one/zbz/Ms-Rh-0172
Translated into English from Latin version:
EMERALD TABLET
1) Truth without lying, is certain and most true.
2) That what is inferior-below is like the superior-above, and that which is superior-above is like inferior-below - to perform the miracle of one unified thing,
3) And all things were made from meditation of one, all things were made from one by adaption.
4) Its father is Sol (Sun), and its mother is Luna (Moon),
5) The wind carried it in its womb, the earth breastfed it.
6) The father of all Telesmi (works of wonder) in the whole world is this,
6 a) Its power is integrated as if turned into the earth.
7 a) You will separate earth from fire, subtle from the coarse-large, sweetly with great intelligence.
8) It ascends from the earth into the sky, and again descends into the earth, and receives the power of the superior-above and inferior-below.
9) By this, you will have the glory of the whole world, and all darkness (obscurity) will flee from you.
10) This is the force power of all force power, strong because it overcomes every subtle thing, all solid things - it penetrates.
11) In this way the world was created.
12) From this there are wonderful adaptions, whereof the process is in this.
13) Thus the name of Hermes Trismegustus they have called me, for I have three parts of the wisdom philosophy of the whole world.
14) I completed what I said about the work of Sol (the sun).
Text of the Emerald Tablet from British Library manuscript Arundel MS 164, folio 155r. From: Wikicommons
I now understand why my students kept referring to the Emerald Tablet, and not through the medieval alchemist lens, but from the presumed antiquity origins.
They refer to my separation of the subtle responses of power; with upper/superior and the lower/inferior. I have always emphasised the Ki responses as adaptions of (to, and with) power.
I’ve been appreciative to learn about this text, its interest to Sir Issac Newton, and to know its likely ancient origins. So thank you to my students for pointing me to it.