Jade Books in Heaven

Jade Books are described in several scriptures of the Daoist canon as existent primordially in the various divine Heavens. These Jade Books are variously said to be instrumental in creating and maintaining the divine structure of the universe, or as regulating national or personal destiny.

  1. Spirit-generating perfection-treasuring stanzas of the Cavern of Profundity
  2. Heaven-penetrating Southern Clouds Treasure Numinous Writ
  3. Numinous book of the Nine Heavens of Cavernous Moisture of the Treasure Kalpa
  4. Subtle chapter of the Bright Cavern of Golden Perfection
  5. Treasured Bright writ of the perfection-generating Primordial Spirit

Heavenly books composed of other semi-precious stones

In Sumerian lore, "(Nisaba) continually gets advice from a tablet of lapis lazuli. ... Nisaba consults a lapis tablet for advice about the 'star-chart' (mul-an) ... . The subject in our text is also consulting the star chart from a tablet made of a precious stone (giš-nu11-gal)".[4] This subject is Pú-ta ('Foundling'), the demonic scribe.[5]

In Muslim mystical lore, the archangel ʼIsrafʼil is owner of a "jewelled tablet of fate".[6] "The Tablet of Destiny was made out of an immense white pearl, and it has two leaves like those of a door. There are learned men who assert that these leaves are formed out of two red rubies".[7] (Possibly a reference to mercury produced by cinnabar.)

In Hellenistic[8] lore, there is the Emerald Tablet of Hermēs Tris-megistos (Hermēs 'Thrice-Greatest').

The Akashic records in the modern Western philosophies of Edgar Cayce are a similar concept.

Notes

  1. Raz 2004, p. 393
  2. Eichman 1999, p. 269
  3. Eichman 1999, p. 323
  4. Dijk & Geller, p. 62
  5. Dijk & Geller, p. 61
  6. R. O. Winstedt: Shaman Saiva and Sufi. Constable & Co. Ltd., London, 1925. p. 30 -- http://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/sss/sss04.htm (e)
  7. J. E. Hanauer : Folk-lore of the Holy Land : Moslem, Christian and Jewish. 1907. p. 3 http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/flhl/flhl04.htm
  8. http://www.sofiatopia.org/equiaeon/emerald.htm#1.4a

Bibliography

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