Prisca Theologia

These writings have greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition and were considered to be of great importance during both the Renaissance and the Reformation. The tradition claims to be descended from an ancient theology, prisca theologia, which is a doctrine that affirms the existence of a single, true theology that threads within all religions, and that was given by God to humans in antiquity. The doctrine of a Prisca Theologia is held by, among others, Rosicrucianism.

Although Hermes Trismegistus is the stated author named in the text, its first known appearance is in a book written in Arabic between the sixth and eighth centuries and stated as the combined works taken from earlier Egyptian scrolls. The text supposedly was first translated into Latin in the twelfth century which increased its availability, helping it spread into numerous translations, interpretations and commentaries that were followed by many philosophers and alchemists of the ancient world. The layers of meaning in the Emerald Tablet have been associated with the creation of the philosopher's stone, laboratory experimentation, phase transition, the alchemical Magnum Opus, the ancient, classical element system, and the correspondence that interconnects all things between the macrocosm and microcosm.

The Hermetic literature among the Egyptians, which was primarily concerned with conjuring spirits and animating statues, inform the oldest Hellenistic writings on Greco-Babylonian astrology and on the newly developed practice of alchemy and black magic.