Transcription
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus is as famous as it is both brief and enigmatic. Like many other infamously taciturn texts, the safer yetzera or the Book of the Law revealed to Aleister Crowley, both come to mind, though for very different reasons.
This very brevity has fueled the imagination of generations, spawning heaps of commentaries over the ages. Dozens of such commentaries on the Emerald Tablet are known, ranging from very brief, cryptic remarks only making the text darker still, to multi-volume tomes attempting to probe occult depths of every single word of the text. Few small texts like this have proven to be as fecund as these brief lines ascribed to the Thrice Great Hermes. Indeed, the text continues to inspire interest to this very day.
Perhaps one of the more interesting commentaries on the text is also, and surprisingly, rather poorly known. Sometime during the heart of his alchemical practice, Isaac Newton composed both a translation on the Emerald Tablet but also an accompanying commentary of the text, echoing his own geo-alchemical theories. Though brief, it does give us an interesting insight into Newton's own alchemical theory and practice, and perhaps an insight into the deeper meaning of this marvelous and foundational text of Hermetic philosophy.
If you're interested in alchemy, Hermetic philosophy, or the history of magic and Kabbalah, make sure to subscribe. Check out my numerous other content on topics and esotericism. And also, if you want to support my work of providing content like this that's accessible, scholarly, and freely available here on YouTube, I'd hope you consider supporting my work and the project of Esoterica on Patreon, or perhaps with a one-time donation. You'll find those links below, and I want you to know that your support of the channel and of the project of Esoterica more generally makes all this possible.
Now, let's turn to one of the greatest minds in history and his approach to Hermetic philosophy and the occult science of alchemy: Isaac Newton. His *Humorous Minerales* and the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.
[Music]
[Music]
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus has long been understood as a canonical text of Hermetic philosophy, despite not being among the classical philosophical Hermetic texts. These texts typically referred to as the *Technical Hermetica*, first developed in the Greco-Roman Egyptian context, but truly matured in the Islamic world, primarily in the 9th century, being composed and translated into Arabic, and then entered into the European context in Latin translations beginning around the 12th century. It's possible, even perhaps likely, that the Emerald Tablet predates the Arabic version in which it first appears, but the evidence remains inconclusive.
I've actually made another episode about the incredibly complex, honestly tortured history of the composition, redaction, translation, and transmission of the Emerald Tablet. You may want to check it out in the card above before diving into Newton's rather late, at least in terms of the history of alchemy, his rather late translation and commentary that I'll be talking about in this episode. But before discussing his English translation from Latin and his commentary, I thought I'd just read both aloud, both in Latin and English. So, let's do that.
First, the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, as transcribed by Sir Isaac Newton.
*Hermeti Trismegisti Superiora.*
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, as translated by Sir Isaac Newton.
*Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis Trismegisti Philosophorum Patris.*
"It is true without lying, certain and most true: That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below. To do the miracles of only one thing. And as all things have been and arose from the one by the mediation of one, so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection is the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heavens, and again it descends to the earth, and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world, and thereby all obscurity shall—" and there's a word that's illegible here and deleted—"shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations whereof the means or process is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world."
"That which I have said of the operation of the sun is completed and ended."
And here he introduces a few references: "See the French *Bibliotheque* *Theatrum* *Chemical* volume 6, page 715, and volume 1, page 362, and page 8, and page 166, and page 685, and volume 4, page 497."
The *Commentarium* or Commentary on the Emerald Tablet by Sir Isaac Newton.
"The things that follow are most true: Inferior and superior, fixed and volatile, sulfur and quicksilver have a similar nature and are one thing, like man and wife, for they differ from one another only by the degree of digestion and maturity. Sulfur is mature quicksilver, and quicksilver is immature sulfur, and on account of this affinity they unite like male and female, and they act upon each other, and through that action they are mutually transmitted into each other and procreate a more noble offspring to accomplish the miracles of this one thing. And just as all things were created from one chaos by the design of one God, so in our art all things, that is, the four elements, are born from this one thing, which is our chaos, by the divine or the artificer and the skillful adaptation of things. And this generation is similar to the human, truly from a father and mother, which are the sun and moon. And when the infant is conceived through the caution of these, he is born continuously in the belly of the wind into the hour of birth, and after birth he is nourished at the breasts of foliated earth until he grows up. The wind is the bath of the sun and the moon, and Mercurius, and the dragon, and the fire that succeeds in the third place as the governor of the work. And the earth is the north Lotona, washed and cleansed, whom the Egyptians assuredly had for the nurse of Diana and Apollo, that is, the white and red tinctures. This is a source of all perfection of the whole world. The force and efficacy of it is entire and perfect if through decoction to redness and multiplication and fermentation it be turned into fixed earth. Thus it ought first to be cleansed by separating the elements sweetly and gradually without violence, and by making the whole material ascend into heaven through sublimation, and then through a reiteration of the sublimation, making it descend into the earth. By that method it requires the penetrating force of spirit and the fixed force of body. Thus you will have the glory of the whole world, and all obscurities, and all need and grief will flee from you. For this thing, when it has through solution and coagulation ascended into heaven and descended into earth, becomes the strongest of all things, for it will constrain and coagulate every subtle thing and penetrate and tinge every solid thing. And just as the world was created from dark chaos through the bringing forth of the light and through the separation of the airy firmament and the waters from the earth, so our work brings forth the beginning out of the black chaos and its first matter through the separation of the elements and the illumination of matter, whence arrives the marvelous adaptations and arrangements in our work, the mode of which here abnarated in the creation of the world. On account of this art, Mercurius is called Thrice Greatest, having three parts of the philosophy of the whole world, since he signifies the Mercury of the Philosophers, which is composed from the three strongest substances and has body, soul, and spirit, and is mineral, vegetable, and animal, and has dominion in the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the animal kingdom."
Newton here includes a few references: "Avicenna, chapter 4, his little tracts that are actually published in the *Artis* *Arsifera* volume 1, page 268, and also the *Theatrum* *Chemical* volume 5, pages 200, 222."
To render his English translation, Newton was working with a version of the Vulgate of the Emerald Tablet found originally in the 1541 *De Alchemia* printed by Johannes Petreius in Nuremberg, although the text actually goes back to the early Middle Ages. But his more proximate source was volume six of the absolutely titanic *Theatrum Chemicum*, which he purchased in 1669, along with his first substantial alchemical laboratory equipment. This represents his transition from an interest in chemical working as a means to produce various kinds of marvels, like perpetual motion machines or lantern wicks which burn forever, to his mature period of alchemical theory and practice.
If you're wondering, yeah, I'll be doing episodes on nearly every stage of Newton's alchemical development at some point in the future, so stay tuned for those episodes. Though his translations of the Emerald Tablet and his commentary actually date to about 20 years later and were produced sometime in the 1680s or early 1690s, and represent many of his more mature positions on the alchemical process, especially how metals are produced and degenerate deep within the earth. Specifically, in his somewhat brief *Humorous Minerales*, produced sometime in the 1670s, likely between 1670 and 1674, and it's to unpacking those ideas that I want to turn to now.
It's really only by understanding Newton's alchemical work at this time that we can nearly understand his commentary on the Emerald Tablet. Both his translation of the Emerald Tablet and his commentary can be found in Keynes's Manuscript 28, which, along with Manuscript 27, represent Newton's longest sustained engagement with Hermetic texts. Specifically, though his enormous alchemical output could just as well be seen in this light as well.
This might also be the place to recall that while Newton is most famous for his contribution to optics, physics, and the development of the calculus, thus placing him, of course, as a central figure in the Enlightenment, he also wrote literal volumes, millions of words, on alchemy and arcane biblical interpretation. This was something of a dirty secret for a while, for whatever reason. But thanks to pioneering studies by Dobbs and Westfall, followed up by those of folks like Newman, we now have a much richer and accurate depiction of Newton, which serves to render his genius all the more profound, rather than tarnishing it with, I don't know, that he was an alchemist or an occultist, God forbid.
For instance, the idea that Newton was a rigid mechanist materialist, for which he was praised by some early scientists and mocked by others, like the poet and prophet William Blake, has just proven to be a wholly inadequate representation of his mature philosophy. In fact, his alchemical theory showed that his worldview was just as much an organismic worldview as it was a mechanical one. In fact, one could better imagine his project as sort of fusing those ideas together, an organic worldview and a mechanical worldview, as one whole totality. And we'll see some of those ideas in a moment.
In his alchemical treatise *Contra*, an earlier generation's view of his leaping from rational, mechanical, corpuscular philosophy of Boyle's *Skeptical Chemist* to the arcane world of alchemy and the occult, Newton would have drifted easily from his earliest work in the chemical wonders of natural magic to trying to probe the secrets of Basilius Valentinus's *Twelve Keys*. By the late 1660s, indeed, Newton was already proving to be a careful and systematic thinker, attempting to build a unified theory of physics, optics, and alchemy-chemistry already from the start. Specifically, he was interested in a set of problems about the generation of metals deep within the earth, especially as explored in his *Humorous Minerales*, found in the Dibner Collection Manuscript 1031b, probably composed between 1670 and 1674.
As you may know, for centuries, dating back all the way to Islamic alchemy, the general alchemical position held that sulfur and mercury bound within the earth were subjected to various exhalations and forces, including astrological forces. And given the ratio of these compounds and the exhalations, the various metals emerged in varying states of perfection. Thus, the task of the alchemist was to reproduce these natural conditions in an artificial earth within the hermetic egg, by art, in a laboratory, whereby metals could be produced or transmuted.
The real weak link in this theory, which was utterly reasonable given the Aristotelian theories of the day and the Islamic mercury-sulfur seed theory of the metals, was the meager understanding on the part of the alchemist about, well, precisely what went on within the earth to form the metals. How could the alchemist imitate nature, indeed imitate God, if nature hid her secrets deep within the bowels of the earth? The answer, as much as it was one, was to probe into those depths and witness the production of metal within the earth itself, to see the metals *in situ*.
But that wouldn't be done by the alchemists, per se, but by the rise in Central European mining operations, primarily in the 16th and 17th centuries. Here, discoveries made in the early history of modern mining would be systematically combined with the alchemical theories of the previous generations, especially in the thought of people like Paracelsus, Grasias Sendavogius, and others, many of whom had practical experience in just those mining operations.
For Newton, the problem at hand was, as one might imagine, both imminently theoretical and technical. It had long been held that minerals were subjected to various acids or *minstrum*, sometimes just harsh waters, which dissolved them and allowed them to seep down deep into the earth. As they traveled deeper, this theory held that they came in contact with sulfurous exhalations or gases emerging from the hellish center of the earth, you know, fire and brimstone, which fixed them into the alchemical metals: gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and tin. The purer the mineral and the gas interaction, the purer the metal produced.
Newton, here leaning on Cindergas and Soleia, held that this process was actually a very long and slow cycle by which minerals and gases interacted in a kind of perpetual circulation, whereby metals came into being and passed away as they descended into the earth and were driven back up again, over and over again, in a constant geo-alchemical cycle. But the ever careful Newton noticed a problem. He can subject a metal to attack by acid, utterly dissolve it, and subject the compound to distillation, only to find that the metal always stays back in the alembic, and the solvent is rendered into the receiver. Indeed, this occurred no matter how strong the menstruum or acid he used.
If the minerals within the earth are being rendered so utterly volatile, two questions naturally emerge: Is this even possible to achieve by art? Can we develop an acid so strong? (Alcohol, hint!) And if such volatility is indeed achieved deep within the earth, by which process could it possibly be fixed again? What is the natural process or substance which prevents the volatile mineral from being completely destroyed, thus allowing it to be fixed again as a metal at all? Indeed, if such volatility were the rule, no metals would ever be found so near the surface of the earth, much less the large veins of metals that miners do indeed discover.
To answer this riddle, Newton combines two alchemical concepts: the notion of an eternally fixed metallic seed, along with a geo-alchemical cycle which generates and decomposes it, thus producing the metals. Here, Newton imagines a constant cycle in which corrosive waters or the menstruum dissolves minerals, thus causing them to descend into the earth. This dissolved liquid seeps into the increasingly hot interior until it's vaporized, creating metallic fumes, which rise back up through the crevices and the earth. These fumes, these metallic fumes, come into contact with the newly descending vitriolic waters, in which they combine, or putrefy, or even ferment, thus producing further sulfur and mercury, some of which is fixed as metals within the earth, and some of which escapes, going on to become the life-giving salts necessary for vegetable and animal life.
Note here, for Newton, the menstruum, while very powerful, never fully dissolves the minerals. Why? Here he leans on another classic alchemical idea: that within each mineral is a kind of metallic seed or *seminar*, which can be changed but never destroyed. Specifically, Newton unites ideas as far back as the 14th-century *Summa Perfectionis*, where mercury alone is the substratum of all the metals, with sulfur being ultimately a kind of impurity. And here he also combines the alchemy of cinders, whereby one central salt—no, the Paracelsian influence here takes various modes as it passes through the geo-alchemical cycle and it's developed but never fully destroyed. These metallic seeds are *seminar*, microscopic particles whose combinations and structures are what give rise to the metals and life more generally through the geo-alchemical fermentation, becomes the subject of Newton's further alchemical investigations.
Again, it's worth pointing out that Newton's thinking is very much centered on a geo-alchemical cycle which unites the mineral, vegetable, and animal world into one organic whole. The mechanical and the organic are fully intertwined in Newton's thinking from the very beginning. His model is much more akin to a kind of metallic fermentation inside the earth than purely mechanical: "this plus this equals that." He's certainly no mere mechanist.
And that brings us to his unique interpretation of the famed Emerald Tablet. Differences in translation often reflect what the translator means to emphasize, rather than simply conveying the overall meaning of a text from one language to another. Thus, when the translator rendered the rich but otherwise normal German word *Besetzung* with the neologism *cathexis*, and the English translation of Sigmund Freud's works on psychoanalysis, the emphasis is put on trying to make Freud sound more sciency. "When in doubt, use a magical Greek word or something like that," likely in the interest of emphasizing that more scientific aspect of the project of psychoanalysis.
So, with that in mind, what do we notice in Newton's translation of the Emerald Tablet? Well, there's nothing terribly outstanding about his overall rendering. It's honestly a pretty straightforward translation of the standard Vulgate edition of the text. But in light of these alchemical theories that I've been discussing, two otherwise confusing elements of the tablet seem to come together in the mind of Newton.
Part of the difficulty of Hermetic philosophy in general is a strong and simultaneous dedication to a very strict monism—the origin of all being in the One—while affirming that even the physical world of difference and change is somehow also an extension or an emanation of this underlying fundamental unity. Now, it's easy to say "all is one" or *hen to pan*, but it's much, much harder to build a complete and coherent metaphysics, or physics for that matter, with such a central philosophical or spiritual commitment.
I suspect that Newton's translation is setting up just a sort of solution to this problem by focusing on the unity of the microcosm and the macrocosm, not so much as a harmony of correspondences (and this is typically the way that this textbook has been interpreted in history), but as a unified process by which variegated substance itself comes to be and transforms. And this makes a great deal of sense when one sets his geochemical theory of the generation and fermentation of the metals from their dissolution, fixation, and emergence as the salts necessary for life. This is a concept, by the way, that he borrows from Sendavogius's dual role of the *saul*—neither the Paracelsian influence here takes various modes as it passes through the geo-alchemical cycle and it's developed but never fully destroyed.
Thus, I think from Newton's focus on the tablet at this point in his alchemical career, we learn more about Newton's own theoretical and practical priorities than anything else. Honestly, I think this holds true for basically any interpretation of the Emerald Tablet. Interpretations of it reveal more about the interpreter and their agenda than about the tablet's actual meaning, which I suspect has been long lost due to the dual forces of history and, well, the obscurity of the text.
But Newton doesn't leave us with only a translation of the tablet. Let's turn to his brief, but I think very helpful, commentary to fill out my line of thinking here. Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of harmony, if not strict parallelism, between Newton's geo-alchemical theory and the commentary on the Emerald Tablet. Here, Newton details that quicksilver and sulfur are, in fact, the same thing, with the difference lying in their respective maturity or degree of digestion, as he has it. This is a general term for the quasi-organic fermentation process by which the metals are generated and degenerated within the earth. Further, they are, according to the commentary, mutually transmuted into one another and go on to produce that which is superior to both of them: a "noble offspring," capable of transformation to something more perfect. And this is, of course, the Philosopher's Stone, the stone capable of transmuting base metals into gold.
Here, Newton creates a three-way analogy between the creation of a child through gestation, the generation of the metals (both within the geo-alchemical process he laid out in the *Humorous Minerales* and of course, by extension, also within the alchemical laboratory), but also the very divine act of creation out of the primordial chaos by God. In this truly wonderful move, Newton shows that creation (divine creation from chaos to transmutation to procreation) is an isomorphic harmony. Thus, the substances differ at various registers of creation and procreation, yet remain fundamentally the same ontologically.
Thus, the alchemist learns from divine creation, human procreation, and specifically in this instance, the geochemical or geo-alchemical fermentation to create by art within the hermetic egg, as the alchemical act of projection. This is as much imitation as *imitatio Dei* for Newton. Alchemy is seeing a difference at the physical register, but a deeper ontological unity and process by which and through which the alchemist proceeds. Hence, the Thrice Greatness of Hermes flows from his magistry of these three registers: the body, the soul, and the spirit, along with the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal, which, when set into harmony, provide dominion, as he puts it, over those registers, and thus the ability to miraculously do what only God could once perform: transmute all of them into perfection.
Thus, Newton's brief commentary on the Emerald Tablet is the bridge between the ancient wisdom of the alchemists and his own systematic attempt to synthesize the strength of both the mechanical and the organic philosophy and scientific outlook on nature, humanity, and divinity. Of course, his alchemical investigation was only really beginning with the *Humorous Minerales* and his commentary on the Emerald Tablet, but one has to admit, this is truly an ingenious start.
As you can probably tell, this is just an introductory foray into the incredibly complex world of Newtonian alchemy. But fear not, we will have much more content on Newton and the occult dimensions of his worldview to come, including his rather curious biblical analysis. Thankfully, the absolutely groundbreaking scholarship of folks like Dobbs and Westfall has yielded some of the finest work in the history of scholarship on the history in alchemy. And William Newman's work on Newtonian alchemy has proven, without a doubt, the most important study, carefully improving upon what came before him and forensically recreating Newton's alchemy in modern labs. Breathtaking scholarship. It's also very worth pointing out and recommending Rampling's new book, *The Experimental Fire*. Though she doesn't deal so much with Newton himself, it's still a hugely important work in understanding the alchemical world that produced him.
Happily, many of Newton's manuscripts have been digitized, including the ones I've consulted for this episode. You can find links to those texts below and go read them for yourself, both in the original manuscript and in normalized and diplomatic transcriptions. I've also included a general alchemy reading list in the description below if you want some reliable scholarly texts to start your own study of alchemy. This is a topic pretty, honestly, very long close to my own heart.
Again, make sure to subscribe. Check out my other content on alchemy and consider supporting my work of making scholarly and free content on topics and esotericism freely available here on YouTube. You can do that by checking out my Patreon or thinking about a one-time donation. You can find those links below. More alchemy content to come, I promise.
I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and thanks for watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.