"As above, so below; as below, so above." - The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus
The human being is a small universe. The universe is a vast human being. It is the foundational axiom of Hermetic cosmology that there is a structural, living correspondence between the architecture of the cosmos and the architecture of the soul.
Whatever exists in the great world exists also in the small. The planets move in the heavens; the same planetary forces move in the body and psyche. The Tree of Life maps the cosmos from Kether to Malkuth; it equally maps the human being from crown to feet. To know the self fully is to know the universe. To know the universe truly is to know the self.
The Emerald Tablet
The Tabula Smaragdina — the Emerald Tablet — is the most compressed statement of this principle in the Western tradition. Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, it declares in its famous opening line a law of universal analogy: what is above corresponds to what is below, and what is below corresponds to what is above, for the accomplishment of the wonders of the One Thing.
This is a precise operational principle: the adept who understands the structure of the macrocosm can work upon the microcosm, and vice versa. Alchemy, astrology, and magic all rest on this foundation.
Platonic and Pythagorean Foundations
Plato's Timaeus describes the cosmos as a living being — ensouled, rational, and beautiful — fashioned by the Demiurge as an image of the eternal pattern. The human soul is made of the same ingredients as the World Soul, mixed in lesser proportion. The cosmos and the human are kin — both expressions of the same divine geometry.
The Pythagoreans extended this further: the same numerical ratios that govern the harmony of the celestial spheres govern the harmony of the human body and the intervals of music. Number is the bridge between microcosm and macrocosm.
Kabbalah: Adam Kadmon
Adam Kadmon — the Primordial Man — is the Kabbalistic expression of this doctrine at its most radical. Before the creation of the physical cosmos, the divine light arranged itself in the form of a human being. The ten Sephiroth are the limbs and organs of this cosmic body. The physical human body is a reflection of Adam Kadmon, and every Sephirah corresponds to a part of the human form:
Kether — the crown of the head
Chokmah — the right brain, the right eye
Binah — the left brain, the left eye
Chesed — the right arm
Geburah — the left arm
Tiphareth — the heart, the trunk
Netzach — the right leg
Hod — the left leg
Yesod — the generative organs
Malkuth — the feet, the body entire
The human being is literally built in the image of the divine architecture.
The Renaissance Magus
The Renaissance revival of Hermeticism placed the microcosm-macrocosm doctrine at the center of all magical and philosophical practice. Cornelius Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia systematically maps the correspondences between planets, metals, plants, animals, body parts, angels, and divine names — all founded on this single principle.
Robert Fludd's magnificent engravings in Utriusque Cosmi Historia (History of the Two Worlds) depict the microcosm and macrocosm as mirror images — the human body inscribed with celestial circles, the cosmos organized as a divine body.
"Man is called the small world, not because he is composed of the four elements, but because he possesses all the powers of the universe." — Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, III.36
Paracelsus insisted that the physician must know the macrocosm in order to heal the microcosm. Every disease has its celestial signature. Every herb corresponds to a star. The body is a cosmos in miniature, and its disorders reflect cosmic imbalances.
"Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence." — Paracelsus, Paragranum
Within the Royal Art Opus
The Work is conducted simultaneously on two scales: the inner transformation of the soul and the outer transformation of reality. They are not separate processes — they are one process, reflected in two mirrors.
The Prince is the microcosm. The Kingdom is the macrocosm. As the Prince is healed, the Wasteland is healed. As the Prince remembers, the Kingdom is restored.
The Temple is built within and without. The Stone is crafted in the soul and in the cosmos. The Tree of Life is the map of both. To walk the paths of the Tree is to traverse the cosmos and the self in one journey.
Cosmologia & Anthropologia
"Man is the lesser world, formed in the image of the greater. Whatever is in the cosmos is also in him. He contains the stars in his spirit, the elements in his body, and the angels in his soul."
- Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi, Vol. II
Cosmologia (The Macrocosm) – the "Greater World," dealing with the divine, the cosmos, the elements, angelic hierarchies, and metaphysical structure of reality.
Anthropologia (The Microcosm) – the "Lesser World," concerned with the human being as a mirror of the universe, including the soul, spirit, body, medicine, and arts.
"The spirit of man has not merely come from the stars and the elements, but there is hidden within him a spark of the light and the power of God. It is not empty talk if Moses (Genesis i.) says God created man in His own image. To be His own image created He him."
- Jacob Boehme, Aurora, Preface, 96
"The God of the Macrocosm and the God of the Microcosm act upon each other, and both are essentially one, for there is only one God and one law and one Nature, through which wisdom becomes manifest."
- Paracelsus, De Fundamento Sapientiae
Created in His Image
"Pythagoras said that the universal Creator had formed two things in His own image: The first was the cosmic system with its myriads of suns, moons, and planets; the second was man, in whose nature the entire universe existed in miniature. Long before the introduction of idolatry into religion, the early priests to facilitate their study of the natural sciences tamed the statue of man to be placed in the sanctuary of their temples, using the human figure to symbolize the Divine Power in all its intricate manifestations. Thus the priests of antiquity accepted man as their text-books, and through the study of him learned to understand the greater and more abstruse mysteries of the celestial scheme of which they were a part."
― Manly P. Hall, Melchizedek and the Mystery of Fire
Anthropologia: The Microcosm
- Humanity is created as the image of the cosmos, a little world — microcosm.
- All the divine and elemental forces are reflected within man:
- The soul corresponds to the angelic/intellectual realm
- The spirit (pneuma) mediates between soul and body
- The body mirrors the elemental and planetary energies
"This means that man is called a microcosm, not because he is composed of the four elements, as they enter into animals and even into lower beings, but because he unites in himself all the powers of the universe. For in the universe there are gods, there are the four elements, there are also irrational animals and plants. Man has all these powers, for he has the Divine Power, the thinking power, possesses the nature of the elements and the divine power of perception and faith."
- Vita Anonymi de Pithagore
Man is the image of the entire universe.
"Man is the center and miracle of the world, containing in himself the properties of all creatures, both heavenly and terrestrial. Truly, God could not have chosen a better abode than in him. Therefore, in our reflection and in our investigations related to such a great Mystery, we must conduct ourselves with the most just discretion and the greatest discernment, starting from the visible to go towards the invisible, or starting from the exterior man to penetrate his being internal, secret and mystical."
- Robert Fludd (1574-1637)