The Four Worlds:

 The Four Worlds:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”

The three triads break the Tree of Life up into four worlds, these worlds are Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah. In Thelema these worlds are associated with the three grades mentioned in the Book of the Law, The Hermit, The Lover and the Man of Earth. The first grade which is The Man of Earth, is upon the attainment of Yesod and covers the whole Astral Triad up to Netzach. The Lover grade covers the Ethical Triad and The Hermit is associated with the Supernal grades.

Another interesting congruency, are the Metaphysics of Plotinus, that could be seen as an early incarnation of the Qabalah, especially the Hermetic and Christian Qabalah’s, that during the Renaissance was to a very large extent inspired by Plato’s Dialogues and Neo-Platonic philosophy and metaphysics. Plotinus had four phases of realization which he termed The One/The Good, The Divine Mind/Nous, The All Soul, The Soul and Man/The Material World. As man attains union with the one plane, he moves on to attain union with the next until the final realization is attained. For example, Man unites with Matter, which is the lower aspect of the Soul, the lower(physical) and higher(celestial) aspects of the Soul unite and become cognizant of the All-Soul. Once this is achieved the Soul unites with the All-Soul et cetera, until Henosis is finally attained by Man uniting with the One.

Each of the four Qabalistic worlds correspond with a letter of the ineffable name, this name is spelled Yod-He-Vau-He and is Hebrew for Jahova. The name is associated with the elements, and these elements are found throughout the entire Tree of Life. The elements are Fire, Water, Air and Earth, the fifth element is called Spirit and corresponds to the LVX, which is comparable to the Divine Mind of Neo-Platonism. The LVX is the light from Kether that pervades the Tree of Life and connects everything in the universe to everything else. As a result, Spirit is sometimes included in the spelling of the ineffable name, by putting the letter Shin in between the first He and Vau, thus it becomes Yod-He-Shin-Vau-He. Microcosmically speaking, Shin or Spirit is necessary for balancing out the elements of the Soul in order to unite man’s consciousness with the Spirit and on a Macrocosmic level, it unites heaven and earth. The above mentioned, in the Qabalah are called the Formulas of Tetragrammaton and Pentagrammaton. Tetragrammaton is the Formula of the Four Worlds, that we are dealing with at the moment and I will deal with Pentagrammaton in another essay.

The Four Worlds may be perceived as the light from Kether pouring into the lower worlds and finally crystalizing in the lowest world of matter, called Assiah. The highest concentration of LVX is thus found in The World of Atziluth and as it moves through the worlds, the consistency of the light becomes more diluted, until it is overcome by the corporeal world and buried in the heart of matter. The first task of any aspirant is to obtain knowledge of self, as it is through this knowledge that our true potentials are realized and an imperative for further attainment. Hadit is the Spirit in every man and woman, that has incarnated and guides us towards Truth, the Soul is created in the world of Yetzirah to accommodate Hadit’s awakening. So, that we may accomplish what is known as the Great Work. To view these worlds as outside of ourselves is a grave mistake and for that matter so is believing in a god with anger issues who created heaven and earth. To do so, takes the onus off of the aspirant, whereby the Holy Qabalah becomes nothing more than an elaborate dictionary full of esoteric sounding words with no intrinsic meaning or value. Each one of us is a magickal universe, with all the Sephirot, Paths and Worlds inherent in each of us and it is up to each one of us to follow the map that leads to realizing the nature of our beingness and for each to realize his or her own Genius, this is the premise of the Qabalah and the responsibility it places on all of us.

Atziluth:

The first world is Atziluth, it covers the Supernal Traid, the spheres of Atziluth are Kether, Chokmah and Binah and this world is called the World of Emanation. It is sometimes called the Archetypal World, however in this sense the Archetypes share no commonalities with those of Jungian psychology, another way to look at them is as the Forms(Nous). These Archetypes are inconceivable to our perception as the Supernal Triad is beyond duality or at least our understanding of duality. The light of this sphere is of such density that whatever manifests there is obscured. However, these forms serve as the conceptions of the creative world as the light is diluted into the Ethical Triad through Daath where they take on the nature of  a duality which is perceptible to all of us below the Abyss. Atziluth corresponds to the first letter of the ineffable name and the element of Fire.

Briah:

Next is Briah and corresponds to He of Tetragrammaton, its element is Water and is represented by the Ethical Triad. Briah is also called the World of Creation, the spheres of which are Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth. The World of Creation is where opposites start to form and the Archetypes of Atziluth start taking on characteristics of their own. It is from Atziluth where inspiration is conceived, and Briah is the offspring of that inspired creation of the union between Chokmah and Binah, as symbolized by Daath. Each of the Triads can be seen as a mother and father Sephira that gives birth to a child, which reflects its influence to the Sephirot below. In this case the mother and father are Chesed and Geburah, who give birth to Tiphareth and Tipahreth reflects the influence of his parents into the lower spheres of the Tree of Life. As the light has moved through Daath, it has lost its original consistency and the Archetypes of Atziluth have become perceptible. Think of it as holding a flash light in a dark room, that blinds you, as it is held too close to your eyes. But as the flash light is carried further away, more and more of the room becomes visible, until everything becomes clear to the eye sight. This is the effect that the light has, as it passes through the Four Worlds, until it reaches its conclusion in the material world.

Yetzirah:

This is the Astral Triad and is occupied by Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, Yetzirah is also called the World of Formation. This is where the inspiration received from the higher worlds is directly perceived by the intuition. Now the ideal forms of Briah have become solid ideas reflecting not only our natures but also the nature of the world around us. It is in this world that visions and dreams take place, divination too is manifested in the World of Formation. Everything that exists in our world, had to be created in the Astral Plane first and Yetzirah is the world where this happens. The World of Formation corresponds to the third letter of the ineffable name Vau and its element is Air.

Assiah:

The last world is Assiah and it is the world of matter represented on the Tree of Life by Malkuth, the sphere of the elements. This is the world where all of the influences from the above worlds have manifested into physical form and are perceptible to our senses. Imagine again the analogy of the flashlight. As the light moves further away from the eyes more of the room becomes visible, but as this happens, less of the direct light of the flash light is visible, until finally our full attention is on the room with the light no longer playing the central role in our theme. This is what has happened in Malkuth, although the light is still just as present as it was in the beginning of the creation story, it has become unnoticeable, being hidden in matter. Another name for Assiah is known as the World of Manifestation and the element associated with this world is Earth.

I truly hope you enjoyed reading this essay. Thanks for reading.

“Love is the law, love under will.”