As above, so below

For other uses, see As above, so below (disambiguation).
The Magician, from the 1909 Rider–Waite tarot deck, often thought to represent the concept of "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]

Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius, et quod inferius est sicut quod est superius.

That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above.

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]

  1. ^ In pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's Sirr al-khalīqa or The Secret of Creation; see Kraus 1942–1943, vol. II, pp. 274–275; Weisser 1980, p. 54.
  2. ^ Steele & Singer 1928, p. 42/486 (English), p. 48/492 (Latin). For other medieval translations, see Emerald Tablet.
  3. ^ On the use of the paraphrase by Blavatsky, cf. Prophet 2018, pp. 87, 91. On the identification of the author of the Kybalion as William W. Atkinson, see Deslippe 2011, pp. 18–19; Smoley 2018, pp. ix–xxv; Horowitz 2019, p. 195. On the popularity of the Kybalion in New Age circles, cf. Horowitz 2019, pp. 193–194.