From the book
Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry
R. Swinburne Clymer · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe Emerald Tablet is the named text used for a correspondence between what is above and what is below.
- In Ancient Mystic Oriental MasonryThe formula appears in the discussion of ancient cosmology and again when outward things are related to inward ideas.
- In this editionThe source varies between Smagdarine and Smaragdine.
- A place to readM.19: … “summed up in the famous axiom of the Smagdarine Tablet of Hermes: 'That which is below” …
Meaning
The Emerald Tablet is the named text used for a correspondence between what is above and what is below. The book treats the relation as a key to understanding connected levels of reality.
Use in the book
The formula appears in the discussion of ancient cosmology and again when outward things are related to inward ideas. It gives a compact model for reading a temple, body, or celestial arrangement as expressing a larger order.
Places to read
- Mystic Masonry · Block 19… “summed up in the famous axiom of the Smagdarine Tablet of Hermes: 'That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which” …
- Mystic Masonry · Block 64“63. "This doctrine of emanations is the key to the philosophy of Plato, and that of the Gnostic sects from which the early Christians derived their mysteries. This fact is mentioned” …
In this edition
The source varies between Smagdarine and Smaragdine. Emerald Tablet is the explanatory headword; the variant forms are kept in quotations.
Reading the argument
Correspondence can guide interpretation without proving a particular genealogy of institutions. The named parallel identifies a formula and an interpretive use, rather than demonstrating the entire history the author places around it.
Related texts
Newton's transcription and translation supplies a primary parallel for the above-and-below formula. It is not a witness to Clymer's entire account of Masonic descent.4
Smagdarine Tablet
“Smagdarine Tablet” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: M.19.
Smaragdine Tablet
“Smaragdine Tablet” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: M.63.
above
“above” — 14 occurrences in 13 text blocks: Ded.1; I.10, 29; M.10, 16, 19, 57, 63, 79; F.110, 132, 158; R.29.
below
“below” — 4 occurrences in 3 text blocks: M.19, 63; F.79.
Source note
Emerald Tablet: primary comparison. Isaac Newton's manuscript transcription and translation of the Emerald Tablet, published by the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project, Indiana University. Consulted as a primary parallel for correspondence between above and below; it does not establish the claimed antiquity of a later institution. https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/norm/ALCH00017