FOUNTAIN PEN NEWSPAPER
THE ANCIENT FORMULA IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERMETICISM
Correspondence, Transformation, Knowledge, and the Relationship Between the Human Being and the Cosmos
Written by Fountain Pen Newspaper Author Winter Breshna.
PAGE ONE: THE HISTORICAL WORLD OF HERMETICISM
What Is Hermeticism?
Hermeticism, also called Hermetism, is a broad philosophical and religious tradition built around writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This legendary teacher combines features associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, figures connected with writing, knowledge, interpretation, and wisdom. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com]
The surviving Hermetic writings were not composed by one person at one moment. They emerged across different centuries and contain several kinds of material, including philosophy, theology, astrology, medicine, magic, and alchemy. The philosophical texts usually associated with ancient Hermetism arose within the culturally blended Greek and Egyptian world of the Roman period. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com]
The word formula must therefore be used carefully. Hermeticism does not offer one scientifically demonstrable equation capable of explaining every event. Its “ancient formula” is better understood as a philosophical pattern: the belief that reality forms an interconnected order and that human beings may come to understand themselves by studying nature, mind, and the larger cosmos.
Three ideas repeatedly stand near the centre of that pattern:
- The universe possesses an underlying unity.
- Different levels of reality may correspond with one another.
- Knowledge can transform the person who genuinely receives it.
This is not modern empirical science. It is a historical worldview in which religion, philosophy, natural observation, and spiritual practice had not yet been separated into today’s distinct fields.
The Figure of Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus, meaning “Hermes the Thrice-Great”, is the traditional voice behind the Hermetica. The figure served as a symbol of revealed wisdom rather than as a historically verified author of every work carrying his name.
Hermetic dialogues commonly present wisdom as instruction passed from a teacher to a student. Their purpose is not merely to deliver information. They seek to change the reader’s understanding of God, nature, the human mind, and the soul’s place within the ordered whole.
The writings describe knowledge as something greater than collecting facts. True knowledge, in this philosophical setting, requires a moral and spiritual reorientation. A person learns to look beyond surface appearances, recognise order within apparent disorder, and reconsider the relationship between individual consciousness and universal existence.
The Corpus Hermeticum
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of Greek treatises traditionally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Its texts were written approximately between 100 and 300 CE, although the collection in its received form was assembled later. The works commonly take the form of instructional dialogues and address subjects such as divinity, creation, the cosmos, the human soul, knowledge, and spiritual rebirth. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org]
The Hermetic writings are often divided into two broad categories. “Popular” or technical Hermetica engage with fields such as astrology, alchemy, medicine, and magic. Philosophical or “learned” Hermetica concentrate more directly upon theology, the divine mind, humanity, and the possibility of spiritual transformation. [britannica.com]
The tradition’s complexity matters. Hermeticism cannot accurately be reduced to a single quotation, a secret spell, or one modern list of principles. It is an extensive family of texts and interpretations whose meanings changed as they travelled through ancient Egypt, the medieval Islamic world, Renaissance Europe, and modern esotericism.
PAGE TWO: “AS ABOVE, SO BELOW”
The Formula of Correspondence
The best-known saying connected with Hermeticism is:
“That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above.”
The popular expression“As above, so below” is a modern shortened paraphrase of wording found in a Latin version of the Emerald Tablet. The earliest known form of that brief Hermetic text appears in an Arabic source generally placed in the ninth century, and it was translated into Latin around the twelfth century. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com]
This statement is usually called the principle of correspondence. It proposes that different levels of reality may reflect, resemble, or help explain one another. In historical interpretations, “above” and “below” might signify:
- Heaven and Earth
- The celestial and terrestrial worlds
- The universal and individual
- The macrocosm and microcosm
- The spiritual and material
- The source of creation and its visible manifestations
The ancient formula does not necessarily mean that every personal thought directly causes an external event. Nor does it scientifically prove that galaxies, human bodies, societies, and atoms operate identically. It is an analogy of relationship and order, not a licence to treat superficial similarities as evidence.
Macrocosm and Microcosm
The macrocosm is the greater world, meaning the cosmos considered as a complete and ordered whole. The microcosm is the smaller world, often represented by the human being.
Within this approach, humanity is not entirely separate from nature. The person stands within the cosmos and reflects certain aspects of its structure. To investigate the self may therefore contribute to one’s understanding of the greater world, while studying the greater world may deepen one’s understanding of the self.
The formula can be expressed symbolically:
The part bears a relationship to the whole, and the whole helps explain the part.
This concept encouraged ancient and medieval thinkers to search for patterns joining planets, natural substances, bodily processes, psychological conditions, and spiritual meanings. Britannica describes cosmic unity and the interdependence of its parts as a basic concept underlying Hermetic astrology and related occult sciences. [britannica.com]
Historically, many conclusions built from these supposed correspondences would not satisfy modern scientific standards. The value of the concept today is therefore primarily philosophical, historical, symbolic, and reflective.
The One and the Many
The Emerald Tablet also presents a vision in which many things emerge from “the One”. The language suggests that diverse forms of existence share an underlying origin. Its alchemical imagery then describes separation, refinement, ascent, descent, and recombination.
This produces another version of the ancient formula:
- Unity gives rise to multiplicity.
- Multiplicity conceals an underlying unity.
- Transformation reveals relationships hidden by appearances.
- Knowledge gathers what seems separated into a coherent whole.
The Hermetic seeker is therefore not merely accumulating isolated facts. The seeker is looking for the pattern that allows the facts to belong together.
An Important Historical Distinction
The famous seven Hermetic principles, mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender, are associated with The Kybalion, a modern work first published in 1908. They should not be presented as a verified list taken directly from the ancient Corpus Hermeticum or the medieval Emerald Tablet.
Some of those concepts resemble older philosophical themes, particularly correspondence and cosmic unity. Nevertheless, the seven-part system is a modern interpretation of Hermetic thought rather than the single original formula of ancient Hermeticism.
PAGE THREE: ALCHEMY AND THE FORMULA OF TRANSFORMATION
The Meaning of Transformation
The Emerald Tablet became foundational within the alchemical and Hermetic traditions of the medieval Islamic world and later in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Before the Scientific Revolution, alchemists interpreted it as compressed teaching concerning nature, cosmic structure, processes of change, and the philosopher’s stone. [britannica.com]
Alchemy is popularly described as an attempt to turn base metals into gold. That was part of its history, but alchemy also represented a larger quest to understand matter and transformation.
Its symbolic operations included:
- Separating substances
- Purifying material
- Dissolving and recombining
- Moving from the crude to the refined
- Uncovering a hidden essence
- Transforming what appears ordinary
These physical processes could also be interpreted as images of inner change. Lead could symbolise heaviness or ignorance. Gold could symbolise completion, wisdom, or spiritual refinement. The laboratory and the inner person became parallel theatres of transformation.
Separation and Reunion
A central alchemical idea is that development requires discernment. The useful must be distinguished from the useless, the refined from the crude, and knowledge from confusion.
The philosophical pattern may be stated as:
Separate carefully, understand clearly, and reunite wisely.
This formula can be read at several levels:
Material
A substance is divided into components, examined, purified, and recombined.
Intellectual
An argument is separated into claims, assumptions, evidence, and conclusions.
Personal
A person distinguishes values from impulses, truth from fear, and responsibility from blame.
Communal
A society identifies harmful patterns, preserves what is worthwhile, and rebuilds with greater understanding.
The formula is not simply destruction. Separation serves eventual integration. The goal is not endless division, but a more conscious wholeness.
Ascent and Descent
Hermetic and alchemical imagery frequently describes movement upward and downward. The seeker ascends from ordinary perception towards broader understanding, then descends to apply that understanding within material life.
Wisdom that never returns to ordinary existence remains incomplete. A person may contemplate unity, truth, and spiritual meaning, but those insights acquire practical value only when expressed through action, responsibility, justice, craft, or service.
The pattern therefore becomes:
- Observe the visible world.
- Rise towards understanding.
- Recognise the deeper pattern.
- Return to practical life.
- Act according to what has been understood.
This is one reason Hermetic thought has appealed to philosophers, artists, mystics, and alchemists. It treats transformation as both contemplation and work.
Knowledge as Rebirth
The philosophical Hermetica emphasise the possibility of spiritual rebirth through knowledge of the transcendent God, the cosmos, and humanity. [britannica.com]
This knowledge is often described as gnosis, meaning direct spiritual understanding rather than ordinary factual knowledge alone. The person does not merely learn a proposition. The learner’s perspective changes.
In this sense, the ancient formula is not:
“Memorise the right sentence and gain power.”
It is closer to:
“Understand the order of reality, recognise your place within it, and allow that recognition to transform how you live.”
PAGE FOUR: INTERPRETATION, LIMITS, AND MODERN MEANING
The Renaissance Rediscovery
The Corpus Hermeticum was translated into Latin during the fifteenth century by humanist scholars including Marsilio Ficino and Lodovico Lazzarelli. The translations helped make Hermetic ideas influential within Western esotericism and Renaissance intellectual culture. [en.wikipedia.org]
Renaissance readers believed the writings preserved extremely ancient wisdom. Hermeticism consequently entered conversations about theology, philosophy, astrology, natural magic, medicine, and alchemy.
The Emerald Tablet followed a somewhat different route. Its earliest known version survives in the Arabic Book of the Secret of Creation, and no reliable evidence supports the legendary claims that it originated as a physical tablet in remote antiquity. [britannica.com]
That distinction does not erase the text’s historical importance. It simply separates verifiable history from traditional legend.
Isaac Newton and the Tablet
Isaac Newton produced an English translation of the Emerald Tablet as part of his involvement with alchemical and Hermetic thought. In later periods, the text was also interpreted through esoteric spirituality and psychology, including a symbolic psychological reading by Carl Jung. [britannica.com]
Different periods therefore found different formulas inside the same brief document:
- Medieval alchemists looked for natural operations.
- Renaissance thinkers looked for cosmic and theological unity.
- Modern esoteric writers looked for universal spiritual laws.
- Psychological interpreters looked for symbols of inner integration.
The text endured partly because its compact and mysterious language allowed multiple readings.
What Hermeticism Does Not Establish
A realistic summary must preserve the boundary between historical philosophy and confirmed science.
Hermeticism does not independently establish that:
- Thoughts automatically control external events
- Every coincidence contains a hidden message
- Symbolic correspondences are physical laws
- Ancient writers possessed all modern scientific knowledge
- Analogy alone proves causation
Correspondence can stimulate observation, poetry, philosophy, and self-reflection. It cannot replace controlled evidence when making scientific, medical, legal, or financial decisions.
A Responsible Modern Reading
A grounded reader may interpret the ancient formula as an invitation to notice relationships:
- Personal conduct influences community life.
- Inner assumptions shape interpretations.
- Small habits influence larger outcomes.
- Human beings exist within, not outside, nature.
- Knowledge carries responsibility.
- Lasting transformation requires both reflection and action.
These are philosophical applications, not claims of supernatural certainty.
Winter Breshna’s Closing Reflection
The ancient formula of Hermeticism begins with correspondence, but it does not end there.
As above, so below.
As within, so without.
As knowledge deepens, conduct must change.
The visible world invites investigation. The inner world invites honesty. Transformation asks us to separate truth from illusion, wisdom from noise, and lasting value from temporary appearance.
The ancient Hermetic vision presents the universe as an interconnected order and the human being as a conscious participant within it. Its enduring question is not merely,“What secrets does the universe contain?”
Its greater question is:
“What kind of person will you become once you begin to understand your place within the whole?”
The answer is not contained in a slogan alone. It is written through attention, discipline, humility, and the difficult work of transformation.
Written by Fountain Pen Newspaper Author Winter Breshna.
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