The Emerald Tablet - origin of "The Secret"?

[Bitsy]

Hi,

While watching The Secret over and over, I keep wanting to read and learn more about the things that flash by in the beginning when she is telling how she researched the history of The Secret.

I managed to see a bit as she is looking through the magnifying glass, what looked like "The Emerald Tablet" - the thing that the man is tracing over and then burying. I did a Google search for "the Emerald Tablet" out of my curiosity.

It is "The Emerald Tablet of Hermes".

Has anyone else been interested in finding out about this tablet? It looks like it was the origin of "The Secret" (I don't mean the movie) and I have found translations of what was on the tablet, but I am not able to understand it well, and that is not helped by the fact that the translations I have read differ so much from one another. They are translated from Latin, unfortunately, not one of the languages I have learned, but I guess I could learn it if I really wanted to see for myself what it says (not that that would enable me to understand it a lot better). Maybe someone else would be able to understand the text better...?

They say no one knows the true source of this tablet or how old it is.

Here are some links to the pages I found about the Emerald Tablet of Hermes:

Emerald Tablet of Hermes

The Emerald Tablet: Time Capsule of Wisdom from Mankind's Unknown Benefactors. (this one is trying to sell a book by the same name, but it also has a picture of the original text on the tablet)

Emerald Tablet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Chris_Stretten]

The emerald tablet is a basis for many of the traditions we've had in our time. In another thread I pointed out that many of the brotherhoods and magickal systems (ritual magick) like the Golden Dawn, are similar in their goal to utilize the underlying universal laws like LoA. They simply go about it in different ways.
The Golden Dawn is a "Hermetic" order... as in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. "As above, so below" is a saying often used in the Golden Dawn teachings (and other ritual magick groups) and is one of the tenents of the Tablet: "That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing."

On a different note,
I did some frame by frame studying of the books Rhonda uses in the opening sequence of the Secret movie... they get blurred very quickly.
The book that she opens has a stanza from a poem in the cover which only is shown for a few frames and is by the poet Edgar A. Guest called "How do you tackle your work?" and it reads:

How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job you find?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way
With a confident, easy mind?
Do you stand right up to the work ahead
Or fearfully pause to view it?
Do you start to toil with a sense of dread
Or feel that you're going to do it?

You can do as much as you think you can,
But you'll never accomplish more;
If you're afraid of yourself, young man,
There's little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
It's there if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst,
If you feel that you're going to do it.

Success! It's found in the soul of you,
And not in the realm of luck!
The world will furnish the work to do,
But you must provide the pluck.
You can do whatever you think you can,
It's all in the way you view it.
It's all in the start that you make, young man:
You must feel that you're going to do it.

How do you tackle your work each day?
With confidence clear, or dread?
What to yourself do you stop and say
When a new task lies ahead?
What is the thought that is in your mind?
Is fear ever running through it?
If so, just tackle the next you find
By thinking you're going to do it.

(Thanks to Project Gutenburg for the text Poems by Edgar A. Guest)
The bold section is in the book in the film.

Another book I noticed was called "The Life Power and How to Use It" by Elizabeth Towne. I have no links to that book... but I've seen it listed online for purchase.

Cheers!
Chris