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As above, so below

"As above, so below" is a popular modern paraphrase of the second verse of the Emerald Tablet, a short Hermetic text which first appeared in an Arabic source from the late eighth or early ninth century.[1] The paraphrase is based on one of several existing Latin translations of the Emerald Tablet, in which the second verse appears as follows:[2]

For other uses, see As above, so below (disambiguation).

The paraphrase is peculiar to this Latin version, and differs from the original Arabic, which reads "from" rather than "like to".


Following its use by prominent modern occultists such as Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891, co-founder of the Theosophical Society) and the anonymous author of the Kybalion (often taken to be William W. Atkinson, 1862–1932, a pioneer of the New Thought movement), the paraphrase started to take on a life of its own, becoming an often cited motto in New Age circles.[3]

Occultist interpretations[edit]

Helena P. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled (1877)[edit]

The occultists who were responsible for the popularization of the paraphrase generally understood it in the context of Emanuel Swedenborg's (1688–1772) doctrine of the correspondence between different planes of existence, a strongly elaborated version of the classical macrocosm–microcosm analogy. This interpretation was pioneered by Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891),[12] whose works contain some of the earliest occurrences of the phrase as an independent axiom. Generally writing from a perennialist perspective, Blavatsky associated the phrase with a number of historically unrelated thought systems such as Pythagoreanism, Kabbalah and Buddhism.[13]

In popular culture[edit]

The phrase has also been adopted as a title for various works of art, such as the 2014 found-footage horror film As Above, So Below, as well as a number of musical works listed at As above, so below (disambiguation).

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Blavatsky, Helena P. (1877). Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. Vol. 1–2. New York: J. W. Bouton.

Chapel, Nicholas E. (2013). . Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition. 3 (24).

"The Kybalion's New Clothes: An Early 20th Century Text's Dubious Association with Hermeticism"

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Deslippe, Philip (2011). The Kybalion: The Definitive Edition. New York: Tarcher/Penguin.  978-1585428748.

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(1956). "Persische weisheit in griechischem gewande?". Harvard Theological Review. 49 (2): 115–122. doi:10.1017/S0017816000028169. JSTOR 1508803. S2CID 164108095.

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(1923). "Persische Weisheit in griechischem Gewande: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Mikrokosmos-Idee". Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik. 2: 60–98, 167–177.

Götze, Albrecht

Hahm, David E. (1977). The Origins of Stoic Cosmology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.  978-0814202531.

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(1923). "The Emerald Table". Nature. 122 (2814): 525–526. Bibcode:1923Natur.112..525H. doi:10.1038/112525a0.

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(2019). "The New Age and Gnosticism: Terms of Commonality". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. 4 (2): 191–215. doi:10.1163/2451859X-12340073. S2CID 214533789.

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Hudry, Françoise (1997–1999). "Le De secretis nature du Ps. Apollonius de Tyane, traduction latine par Hugues de Santalla du Kitæb sirr al-halîqa". Chrysopoeia. 6: 1–154.

(1938). "Kosmos und Mensch in der Vorstellung frühen Griechentums". Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse. 2 (7): 121–161. OCLC 905422149.

Kranz, Walther

(1942–1943). Jâbir ibn Hayyân: Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. I. Le corpus des écrits jâbiriens. II. Jâbir et la science grecque. Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale. ISBN 9783487091150. OCLC 468740510.

Kraus, Paul

Olerud, Anders (1951). L'idée de macrocosmos et de microcosmos dans le 'Timée' de Platon: Étude de mythologie comparée. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.  680524865.

OCLC

(2013). The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226103792.

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Prophet, Erin (2018). "Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System of Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy". Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies. 3 (1): 84–111. :10.1163/2451859X-12340050.

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(2018). The Kybalion: Centenary Edition. New York: Tarcher/Penguin. ISBN 9780143131687.

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; Singer, Dorothea Waley (1928). "The Emerald Table". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 21 (3): 41–57/485–501. doi:10.1177/003591572802100361. PMC 2101974. PMID 19986273.

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Three Initiates (1908). The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece. Chicago: The Yogi Publication Society.

Van Gijsen, Annelies (2006). "Astrology I: Introduction". In Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (ed.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden: Brill. pp. 109–110.  9789004152311.

ISBN

Weisser, Ursula (1979). Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung und die Darstellung der Natur (Buch der Ursachen) von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana. Aleppo: Institute for the History of Arabic Science.  13597803.

OCLC

Weisser, Ursula (1980). Spies, Otto (ed.). . Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110866933. ISBN 978-3-11-086693-3.

Das "Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung" von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana

Zirnis, Peter (1979). The Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Unpublished PhD diss.). New York University.