by Marcus Katz
There are three fundamental concepts underpinning the doctrine of the four worlds of Kabbalah, being the four-fold quaternary, the concept of hierarchy and the notion of the multiverse:
1. The Quaternary
The number four has a symbolic connection to the concepts of space, classification, and the physical world. It is seen in numerology as the number of order and relativity. It is the Cube or Altar upon which the Emperor (card IV of the tarot) is seated, dispensing order and form to the manifest world.
Jung saw the balanced quaternary (or Tetrad) as a fundamental pattern of thought, "... the quaternary is an archetype of almost universal occurrence. It forms the logical basis for any whole judgement. If one wishes to pass such judgement, it must have this fourfold aspect".[50] This Judgement is that made by Geburah once the first four Sephiroth are in place.
Rudy Rucker proposes the following conceptual tetrad to match the Jungian four modes, which I feel can be usefully referred to the four worlds as they exist in the psyche:
Number (Sensation) referred to Assiah.
Space (Feeling) referred to Yetzirah.
Logic (Thinking) referred to Briah.
Infinity (Intuition) referred to Atziluth.
The fifth concept, that of Information, can be seen (as the top point of the Pentagram or as the Shin descending into YHVH) as the binding or redeeming concept and may be referred to the divine presence in each of the worlds in terms of communication, complexity, and meaning.[51]
Information, in terms of coherence and organisation is resultant of the fact that "Life is an ordering, selecting, coherence-making process".[52] The physicist Schrödinger put it simply that "Life feeds on negative entropy".[53]
2. The Hierarchy
Briefly, the evidence for hierarchy as a fundamental part of the scala natura is constantly about and within us, from the hierarchy of the cells within us to the hierarchy of any organisation or the hierarchy of star systems. During a talk given at the Arcane School Conference, Mark Braham phrased it:
Hierarchization is the process through which successive levels of increasing complexity, flexibility, and co-ordination in form, function and behaviour are established, ranging from the relatively simple to the relatively complex.[54]
The higher up the hierarchy an item or individual is, the more is their co-ordinating function on a scale of complexity (such as a Queen in a beehive, a Sun in a Solar System, or a Company Director). This is important to consider in defining which world is to be considered or worked with for the Practical Kabbalist. It may be that some contemplations or workings are best effected in Assiah or with the elemental beings and others more effective by working with the Archangels or the correspondences of Briah.
3. The Multiverse
The concepts involved with the Many Worlds or Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics can be reconciled with the Kabbalistic system through the nature of the four worlds and the description Kabbalah gives through Genesis. However, the basic idea of the multiverse is not new, and exists in many other cosmologies.
EXERCISES
1. Choose any real-life situation you are involved with, and separate it out into the four worlds as follows.
Atziluth: What are the highest, most abstract, aspects of the situation? What are the principles involved if you were to dramatise the situation? Is it a situation of love, or honour, or money and pleasure? How does it relate to the evolution of our species? What spiritual impulses are there involved?
Briah: What is the situation creating that wasn't there before? What new ideas, events, feelings, objects, points-of-view, movements of people are involved? Is it a very creative situation, or one that doesn't involve much change?
Yetzirah: What forms and patterns are apparent in the situation? Does it have a regular, predictable, quality, or is it chaotic? Is it all over in a moment, or does it occur at intervals? What models could you apply to the situation; a psychological or sociological explanation, a political one, or even an old popular saying?
Assiah: What happens, shorn of all the above? What actual events and behaviour take place without making any judgements of them? So, do not note that "Roger behaves angrily", but rather, "Roger shouts and makes noises by banging his fists on the table". This observation of Assiah without the other levels is a useful skill in itself, and occurs with people who make natural counsellors or investigators. It is in a sense like watching a television film without the sound; other aspects of the events become more noticeable than would otherwise be so.
Use the steps to observe whether each of the Worlds is being suitably and consistently with those preceding it. For example, is one of the events in Assiah is "People being late", and one of the aspects of Briah is "creation of an efficient workforce", then something is obviously wrong.
We will now look at each of the Sephiroth in isolation, defining their particular qualities and roles in the engine of creation and the ladder of ascension. This may at first appear an extended discussion of disparate pieces with little application to everyday life. However, we advise readers to persevere with getting to know each of the Sephirah individually and together in pairs, triads, and columns, illustrated by the tarot images on their connecting paths. As you build up each set a little, consider how they work down the Tree in terms of a process of creation and up the Tree in terms of learning and spiritual progression. Keep coming back to each piece like a jigsaw, trying to apply it to different aspects of life and eventually you will discover how it fits together, piece at a time.
Consider a work or personal project and place it on the Tree; would you say it would correspond to a Kether stage or a Tiphareth stage, a Malkuth stage or Yesod? Consider two people as two Sephiroth and look at the tarot card that illustrates their relationship. Consider the lessons you are repeatedly learning at a particular time of your life, and assign them to a Sephirah. What paths must you master below to be free to progress, and what paths above offer you that progress? Read Crowley and other esoteric writers and see how they have used Kabbalah to underpin their writings and how they thought about each of the Sephiroth. We have also provided a reading list for your further elaboration of the Tree. It should never be a dry learning of dissociated and inapplicable facts – the Tree is a living map of creation and our living journey within that creation. It is a lifetime activity.
For example, we could take dressmaking. Kether is the point at which it is decided that one wants to live in a world with a dress as against a world without one. Forces are then set in motion to bring this about (Chockmah), resulting in a form that describes that world (Binah). This is all carried out prior to conscious knowing, although that ‘knowing’ (Da'ath) can sometimes happen. Crossing the Abyss, these factors then create a vision (Chesed) which is received in awareness (Tiphareth), but must be balanced by previous experience of one's limitations (Geburah). Tiphareth must receive the influences of all these factors and transform them into drive and energy (Netzach) in the material world.
This must be balanced by planning (Hod) until a pattern for the dress is arrived at (Yesod). This pattern, if all the other stages have been adequately achieved, will contain everything necessary to create the dress. Finally, the dress will be made (Malkuth), fulfilling Kether and creating a world with a dress. Whether this matches the vision will depend on whether discipline and experience has been applied (the balance between Chesed and Geburah) and whether the energy has been efficient will be dependent on whether planning has been applied (the balance between Netzach and Hod).
We will begin our exploration of the individual Sephiroth with a necessary concept that is the most mystical of all concepts in Kabbalah – the Ain Soph Aur.
Ain Soph Aur: A Necessary Non-Negation
Kabbalah postulates that Kether, the point from which expansion began through the Sephiroth into existence, is in itself the Malkuth of a "negative existence", a limitless "being" which contracted to a point in Kether. Kether itself is the Malkuth of the absolutely unknowable, from wh
ich all things proceed. The infinite being is viewed as having three veils drawn above Kether, which cover its essential essence and by which it is known:
AIN: Nothing, nought
AIN SVPh: Infinite (SVTh - End)
AIN SVPh AVR: Limitless Light (AVR - Light, fire)
The neverness of AIN and its negativity is due in part to the infinite nature of the light, which is indefinable and hence negative to human consciousness. This aspect of divinity is examined in such mystical treatises as The Cloud of Unknowing and The Ascent of Mount Carmel:
The divine darkness is the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell (1 Timothy 6:10), invisible indeed, because of the superabundant light.[55]
In the temple the Initiate reminds themselves of this unknowable presence by the Lamp of Dazzling Darkness, which is the ever-burning and eternal lamp of Edessa, of Jupiter Ammon, of Pallas, and the perpetual lamp found in the tomb of Christian Rosencreutz. An alternative translation of Ain Soph Aur could be "never-ending fire", and Crowley may be hinting at this when he speaks of the Lamp:
Eternal, unconfined, unextended, without cause and without effect, the Holy Lamp mysteriously burns. Without quantity or quality, unconditioned and sempiternal, is this Light.[56]
He later states that the Lamp "is before 'I am'", thus confirming that he is attributing it above Kether (whose God-name is EHIEH, "I am that I am") and therefore to the Ain Soph Aur.
In writing of AIN, Mathers notes "this word consists of three letters, which thus shadow forth the first three Sephiroth or numbers"[57]. I would like to examine this comment in more detail, as I believe it reveals much about that which cannot be spoken of except by analogy and forms the Triangle of the Unbeheld.
The three letters of Ain can be broken down as follows:
Aleph: Transcendence
Yod: Transition
Nun: Transformation
We might also consider these as illustrated by their corresponding tarot images of the Fool, Hermit and Death cards. The Ain is the negation of light in three different manners; the paradox of the Fool, the withdrawal of the Hermit, and the transformation of Death.
Aleph in Kether
The Ain, or "naught" is embodied in the sublime symbol of the Fool tarot card, the ‘nought’ card. However, it should be seen that the Fool is not a Zero in the same way that the Ain is negative rather than nothing. The negative in this case is that of the finite glyph of Kether, the point (having position but not magnitude) as created from the infinite Ain (having infinite magnitude and no position).
Kether can be represented as the God Hadit and the Ain represented by the Goddess Nuit in the Thelemic system developed by Aleister Crowley. In Magick, Chapter 0 (hence, the Ain) he states "Infinite space is called the Goddess Nuit, while the infinitely small and atomic yet omnipresent point is called Hadit".[58] This is the basis of all Cosmology, which refers to the known, the unknown, and ultimately, their interaction.
Yod in Chockmah
The first swirlings of Chockmah can be seen as the shadowing of both the Yod of AIN and the stage of AIN SVPh in the three veils. The masculine potency of this Sephirah, in its position at the top of the positive pillar, can also be seen in the glyph of Yod as representing either the hand or the seed. In the symbol of the hand we see the movement and sign of action as Kether expands forth into the explosion or big bang of Chockmah.
As the seed, Yod represents the principle of all things, potential in the Aleph of Kether, (the value of 1), but now expanding through the action represented by Chockmah and the number 10, value of Yod, being the number of Sephiroth in the full Tree of Life. It is important to note that Kabbalists state that the thirty-two paths of wisdom derive from Chockmah, which as a reflection of Ain Soph would correlate in that the paths could not emanate from the Kether stage in that Ain is naught, but would have to expand from the Ain Soph stage where the naught is progressed to the not-naught.
Also, it is stated that the "1" of Kether cannot become anything in that it is the Unity, and thus only through its own reflection (the formula of 1+1=2, rather than the mystic formula of 0=2) as the "2" of Chockmah can manifestation begin. In the light of progress up the tree (the initiatory system), then the SVPh stage of Chockmah is the "end" as the grade of Ipssissimus in Kether is "wholly free of all limitations soever" as Crowley puts it.[59]
Nun in Binah
At the creative stage represented by Binah, the Sephirah at the top of the negative Pillar of Form, we see "shadowed forth" the Nun of AIN and the final veil of AIN SVPh AVR. It is obvious that an immediate connection can be made in that the value of NVN is fifty, and from Binah are derived the "fifty gates of Understanding".
NVN is primarily the letter of transformation, and the Scorpio energy in Astrology. It thus signifies change of form, which at its highest level depends on Binah, the mother of all Form. Also in Binah we see the AVR stage of the three veils, although the AVR, or light, is perceived as the blackness of the bitter sea of Binah because its limitlessness is impossible for understanding to contain.
The value of AIN SVPH AVR by Gematria is 1586, which reduces to 1+5+8+6 = 20 = 2+0 = 2, thus resuming the formula of 0=2, which is more fully stated as 0 = n + (-n), or perhaps NOTHING = SELF + GOD (the infinitely small point of self when attempted to be perceived by consciousness, and the infinitely large presence of God when attempted to be perceived likewise).
Broken down, the AIN has the value of 511, which is of intense significance in the cult of Thelema, in that it equals 418 + 93, which are the numbers of the Great Work, and the Current that informs it.
It is also the value of A'aBVDH H-TYTh, "the worship of the snake" (that is, the Snake of Wisdom coiled up the Tree of Life). Note also that 511 reduces to 7, the number of the card to which the Graal (and hence 418) is attributed, the Chariot. As Kate Bush sings in Sat in your Lap (from the album, The Dreaming):
"I hold a CUP of WISDOM (Binah and Chockmah), but there is NOTHING within"
Which is to state, Kabbalistically, that Binah is the final shadowing forth of the three negative veils of AIN SOPH AUR.
SVPh has the value of 868, which breaks down to 22 (the number of paths on the Tree) and 2+2 = 4, which is to say that the SVPh, or "end" is in the creative process actually the beginning of the material world (4, the number of materialisation) from Chockmah, to which I have attributed SVPh. Note that again it is also the reflection of itself (2+2 = 4) in order to manifest.
AVR, the light has the value of 207, which reduces to 9, the number of Teth, the Snake of Wisdom. Thus, the Light and the Snake are brought together (as the Zorastorian verse reads, "... that fire that darts and flashes throughout the hidden depths of the Universe..") The number 418 is the value of KBVD ZYV H-NChSh, "the bright glory of the snake", and hence the Great Work completed as the Snake reaches Kether and the Light floods down it.
The word RBH, meaning ‘archer’ has the value of 207, showing the process of shooting up the Middle Pillar of the Tree in the mystical process of attaining the AVR rather than the magical one of ascending back up the Lightning Flash.
Having looked briefly at this mystical concept of Ain Soph Aur, we will now turn to Kether, the point which is created from this contraction of nothingness, and how Kether emanates into manifestation through the further nine Sephiroth in turn.
EXERCISES
1. Light a candle in a darkened room, and stand or sit back from it. Imagine that the Tree of Life is the candle itself, and the flame is Kether. Try to visualise as strongly as possible the darkness of the room "contracting" itself to create the point of light, turning inside-out your first perception that the light is radiating into the darkness. This simple meditation may assist an experiential awareness of what is essentially the highest knowable aspect of the Tree of Life.
2. You will need a tarot pack for this exercise. The Waite-Smith Tarot deck, or any modern pack based on those designs is a standard choice, or the more adventurous may select the Thoth deck by Crowley, or any of the
hundreds of variants available. It is obviously preferable that the pack was designed with the Kabbalah in mind. An Arthurian or Aztec pack might yield some surprising insights, but these will be easier to gain from a more standard design. Take the cards which have the letters of AIN attributed to them:
Aleph: FOOL
Yod: HERMIT
Nun: DEATH
What feelings and thoughts arise when contemplating these images? What do they indicate about the Kabbalistic concept of AIN?
Kether: The Crown of Coherent Light
The Doctrine of Trans-Resonance
One of the primary doctrines of Magick we refer to throughout this book is "that which is above is like unto that which is below", also stated as "the heaven is in the earth, but after an earthly manner; and that the earth is in the heaven, but after a heavenly manner," or Kabbalistically as "Malkuth is in Kether, and Kether is in Malkuth, but after another manner."
This doctrine of what we might refer to as trans-resonance is presented in Kabbalah as an intimate and ultimate identity between Malkuth and Kether, the most mundane and the most mystical of the Sephiroth. We can examine aspects of this resonance by a method known as permutation, combining the Hebrew letters of both words. If the letters of Kether (KThR) and Malkuth (MLKVTh) are merged together and matched in pairs, the resultant Hebrew words are: