Legend says that Alexander the Great found it in the tomb of Hermes: a tablet of emerald on which the secrets of creation were inscribed. Whether the story is true matters less than the teaching it contains — perhaps the most concentrated statement of spiritual wisdom ever written.
The text is brief. The meaning is inexhaustible. For centuries, alchemists, mystics, and philosophers have studied these words, finding new depths at each reading.
"True, without falsehood, certain and most true:
That which is above is like that which is below,
And that which is below is like that which is above,
To accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."
This is the first principle: correspondence. The macrocosm and microcosm mirror each other. What happens in the heavens happens on earth. What happens in the universe happens in the soul. To understand one is to understand the other.
"And as all things came from the One, by the mediation of the One, so all things were born from this One Thing, by adaptation." The entire creation is a differentiation of a single reality. Though it appears as many, it is one. Though it seems divided, it is whole. The diversity is real, but the unity is more real.
"The Sun is its father. The Moon is its mother.
The Wind carried it in its belly.
The Earth is its nurse.
Here is the father of all perfection in the whole world."
The Sun represents active force, consciousness, the masculine principle. The Moon represents receptive force, substance, the feminine principle. The Wind is spirit, breath, the medium of transmission. The Earth is matter, embodiment, the place of manifestation. All things arise from the interplay of these forces.
"Its power is complete if it is turned toward Earth. Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the gross, gently and with great ingenuity." This is the great work: to distinguish the eternal from the temporal, the essential from the accidental, the gold from the dross. Not to reject the earthly but to refine it.
"It ascends from the Earth to Heaven,
And descends again to the Earth,
And receives the power of the above and the below.
Thus you will have the glory of the whole world.
Therefore all darkness will flee from you."
The spiritual path is not an escape from matter but a circulation between matter and spirit. The soul rises to heaven and returns to earth, each time more luminous, each time carrying more of the light into the darkness. This is how the world is transformed: not by abandoning it but by illuminating it.
Teaching 25
As above, so below. The universe and the soul mirror each other. All things come from the One and return to the One. The spiritual path is not escape but circulation — ascending to receive the light, descending to bring it to earth. Thus darkness flees.