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]