As Above, So Below
Five words that have travelled for more than a thousand years: what they say, where they came from, and why they still matter.
The wordsWhat the phrase says
"As above, so below" is the short form of a line from an old text called the Emerald Tablet. In its Latin version the line reads quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius: "that which is below is like that which is above."
The idea is simple and enormous at the same time: the great and the small follow the same patterns. What happens in the sky has an echo on the ground; what happens in the world has an echo inside a person.
The journeyWhere it came from
- The Emerald Tablet is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "Thrice-Great Hermes", a legendary figure who joins the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth.
- The oldest versions that survive are written in Arabic, in the early Middle Ages. The tablet reached Europe in Latin translations around the 12th century.
- It became a founding text of alchemy. Even Isaac Newton made his own translation of it.
For usWhy it matters today
Every page of this site follows that one line. The telescope looks up, the particle looks down, and the same laws hold in both. The compass and the training look at the ground under your feet, the heavens and the trees look at the meaning above it.
The phrase also gave its name to a 2014 horror film set in the catacombs of Paris. If you want to watch it, choose a licensed service, never an unknown free stream: those sites are a common source of malware.
Go deeperSources
Everything on this page was written for you here. These are the places we drew from, if you want to walk further on your own: