The Egyptian Enlightenment Series
The Emerald Tablet is an Ancient Egyptian work written by Hermes Trismegistus that is believed to represent a step-by-step instruction manual for the Alchemical process of turning ordinary metals like lead into something much more valuable, like gold.
The manual consists of fourteen cryptic statements that many have tried to decipher over the course of thousands of years.
I believe the fourteen statements of The Emerald Tablet to be a symbolic guide to a far greater treasure than the conversion of lead into gold. I believe it to contain veiled instructions for the awakening of the human soul. I believe it to be an esoteric manual for the conversion of a base and petty human being into an awakened master, the likes of which we have seen in the Jesuses and the Buddhas of our world.
In the Christian Bible, it is said that Adam fell into a deep sleep. Nowhere in that Bible does it say that he woke back up. The purpose of The Emerald Tablet, I believe, is that very awakening.
The Hermetica is another work attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.
While deep in prayer, Hermes claims to have experienced the Divine.
In The Emerald Tablet, he told (in symbolic and cryptic form) how he obtained this experience and a little about those experiences.
In The Hermetica, Hermes went into greater detail on his experiences and the understandings he acquired from them.
"Just as we were developed for this world in the womb," he summarized, "so too are we being developed for the next world within these bodies ... just as we emerged from the world of our mother's womb into this world, so too will we emerge from the world of these bodies into the next..."
The Kybalion is a more modern text. It was written in 1908 by "The Three Initiates".
Though modern, the work claims to pass along the inner teachings of Hermes ... teachings that were closely guarded over the centuries by a select chosen few.
Specifically, this work goes into detail on the seven "Laws of Life" that Hermes found to govern existence and how to use them to master your own fate.
In 1908, the "Three Initiates" claimed the time had come for this secret knowledge to be shared with the world at large, thus the publication of the work for the masses.
Explore the The Tao Te Ching book, which is part of my Zennish Enlightenment series.