As above, so below
"As above, so below" is a motto associated with sacred geometry, Hermeticism, and the Tarot.
The phrase derives from a passage in the Emerald Tablet. The 16th-century scholar Chrysogonus Polydorus provides the following version translated from the original Arabic into Latin:
In Hermeticism, the phrase can be taken to indicate that earthly matters reflect the operation of the astral plane, particularly "by other means than mundane chains of cause and effect, such as Jungian synchronicities or correspondences."
In a secular context, the phrase can refer to the idea that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm – for example, that individual or domestic ills can result from larger societal ills.
The Message, intended as a "version of the New Testament in a contemporary idiom", uses the maxim in its translation of the Lord's Prayer from.
Additionally, a quote from the apocryphal book Ascension of Isaiah has similar phrasing:
“there I saw Sammael and his hosts, and there was great fighting therein....as above so on the earth also“
