Another grail acquired for the high strangeness collection. I never thought I would actually own one of these as they are so rare, but this recently popped up in an estate auction in Australia with a collection of many obscure occult books and publications. This is a fascinating piece of mid 20th century esoterica that is still featured prominently today and many books and YouTube videos. It’s often confused with the original medieval Hermetic work “The Emerald Tablet” which is the origin of the axiom “As Above, So Below.” But this curious volume is the product of one of the more interesting figures of the 20th century occult movement.
Maurice Doreal (b. Claude Dognins, not “Doggins” as is often reported, 1902-1963) was a prominent figure in the mid 20th century American spiritualist and occultist movements. He was the founder of the Brotherhood of the White Temple, a spiritual organization that blended elements of Theosophy, New Thought, and Eastern mysticism, that ultimately turned into something of an apocalyptic cult in the 1950s, expecting an imminent atomic war from their commune in Colorado. He may have been the first person to link “flying saucers” and occult ideas.
Doreal was also known for his interest in ancient wisdom and esoteric knowledge, and claimed to have been initiated into the Great White Brotherhood, a group of enlightened beings who he believed were responsible for guiding humanity’s spiritual evolution. He wrote numerous short books, most famously *The Emerald Tablets of Thoth-The-Atlantean* (1939) which he claimed to have translated from ancient Atlantean texts hidden in Egypt.
This copy like most of his first editions is an incredibly fragile mimeographed, hand-stapled booklet, produced in the style of the early science fiction fanzines of the 1930s and 40s. While you can find plenty of later reprints of it, this original edition is incredibly rare and they are probably only a handful of copies that survive.
Several writers, including Daniel Harms and Michael Barkun have pointed out that *Emerald Tablets* borrows quite a bit from pulp fantasy and horror writers H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. In fact, most of the stories he borrowed from were published in the pulp magazine *Weird Tales* in 1929 so he might have had a subscription that year. He was active in pulp science fiction, fandom, and even wrote letters to *Amazing Stories* discussing the “Shaver Mystery.”
In particular one of the elements that he seems to have borrowed from Robert E. Howard’s stories of Kull of Atlantis is the idea of an ancient race of shapeshifting serpent-headed men that pretend to be human and infiltrate positions of power. Several researchers beginning with Barkun have suggested this is the origin of the Reptilian alien trope.
*The Emerald Tablets* returned to prominence in the late 90s, as part of the Hall of Records of Atlantis buzz surrounding the Great Sphinx, primarily due to Doreal discussing “Halls of Amenti” under the Giza plateau.
While not as influential as the bigger groups like the Theosophical Society or AMORC, Doreal’s Brotherhood of the White Temple and his numerous publications definitely had a significant impact on what would become the modern New Age movement in the 50s and 60s.
Is there a section on the methods/process of decoding it? I’m curious what pattern they started with
grundlesmith on
Very interesting, thanks for posting
BowlingShoeThief on
Is there any further discussion or analysis anywhere on the symbols on the cover? My young son wrote out a kind of decoder that has some similar symbols and that’s odd…
thalefteye on
That writing looks like old Chinese or Japanese. Or even those letter Pokémon.
Airmil82 on
Are you going to start cooking your pee?
brucetafari on
Wild! I used to explore the dirt roads around where I live and ran into this Brotherhood of the White Temple (near Sedalia, CO), per the cover. I’ve always been curious about what they’re up to.
ThiqCoq on
You got something real special right there oh man. I read Billy Carsons compendium of the emerald tablets and it honestly is changing my life applying concepts and principles to my perceptual lens. This is legitimately source knowledge. There is a section in the book where it talks about all the complex mathematical equations built in to the pyramids themselves Giza plat, Teotihuacan etc
StevenK71 on
The way of the telling of the story in the translation reminds me of 1930’s fiction and various religious scams of the era.
13 Comments
Another grail acquired for the high strangeness collection. I never thought I would actually own one of these as they are so rare, but this recently popped up in an estate auction in Australia with a collection of many obscure occult books and publications. This is a fascinating piece of mid 20th century esoterica that is still featured prominently today and many books and YouTube videos. It’s often confused with the original medieval Hermetic work “The Emerald Tablet” which is the origin of the axiom “As Above, So Below.” But this curious volume is the product of one of the more interesting figures of the 20th century occult movement.
Maurice Doreal (b. Claude Dognins, not “Doggins” as is often reported, 1902-1963) was a prominent figure in the mid 20th century American spiritualist and occultist movements. He was the founder of the Brotherhood of the White Temple, a spiritual organization that blended elements of Theosophy, New Thought, and Eastern mysticism, that ultimately turned into something of an apocalyptic cult in the 1950s, expecting an imminent atomic war from their commune in Colorado. He may have been the first person to link “flying saucers” and occult ideas.
Doreal was also known for his interest in ancient wisdom and esoteric knowledge, and claimed to have been initiated into the Great White Brotherhood, a group of enlightened beings who he believed were responsible for guiding humanity’s spiritual evolution. He wrote numerous short books, most famously *The Emerald Tablets of Thoth-The-Atlantean* (1939) which he claimed to have translated from ancient Atlantean texts hidden in Egypt.
This copy like most of his first editions is an incredibly fragile mimeographed, hand-stapled booklet, produced in the style of the early science fiction fanzines of the 1930s and 40s. While you can find plenty of later reprints of it, this original edition is incredibly rare and they are probably only a handful of copies that survive.
Several writers, including Daniel Harms and Michael Barkun have pointed out that *Emerald Tablets* borrows quite a bit from pulp fantasy and horror writers H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. In fact, most of the stories he borrowed from were published in the pulp magazine *Weird Tales* in 1929 so he might have had a subscription that year. He was active in pulp science fiction, fandom, and even wrote letters to *Amazing Stories* discussing the “Shaver Mystery.”
In particular one of the elements that he seems to have borrowed from Robert E. Howard’s stories of Kull of Atlantis is the idea of an ancient race of shapeshifting serpent-headed men that pretend to be human and infiltrate positions of power. Several researchers beginning with Barkun have suggested this is the origin of the Reptilian alien trope.
*The Emerald Tablets* returned to prominence in the late 90s, as part of the Hall of Records of Atlantis buzz surrounding the Great Sphinx, primarily due to Doreal discussing “Halls of Amenti” under the Giza plateau.
While not as influential as the bigger groups like the Theosophical Society or AMORC, Doreal’s Brotherhood of the White Temple and his numerous publications definitely had a significant impact on what would become the modern New Age movement in the 50s and 60s.
Edit: here is a digital version from archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/EmeraldTabletsOfThothTheAtlantean_201809
Is there a digital copy of this?
Ita a Diablo rune stone cross Pokémon adventure.
Wow, they never repeat symbols. Wild language
Is there a section on the methods/process of decoding it? I’m curious what pattern they started with
Very interesting, thanks for posting
Is there any further discussion or analysis anywhere on the symbols on the cover? My young son wrote out a kind of decoder that has some similar symbols and that’s odd…
That writing looks like old Chinese or Japanese. Or even those letter Pokémon.
Are you going to start cooking your pee?
Wild! I used to explore the dirt roads around where I live and ran into this Brotherhood of the White Temple (near Sedalia, CO), per the cover. I’ve always been curious about what they’re up to.
You got something real special right there oh man. I read Billy Carsons compendium of the emerald tablets and it honestly is changing my life applying concepts and principles to my perceptual lens. This is legitimately source knowledge. There is a section in the book where it talks about all the complex mathematical equations built in to the pyramids themselves Giza plat, Teotihuacan etc
The way of the telling of the story in the translation reminds me of 1930’s fiction and various religious scams of the era.
Rare as in there were only 4 copies printed?
Wasn’t this already determined to be a hoax?