The Kabbalah & Magic of Angels by Migene González-Wippler

Author:Migene González-Wippler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: kabbalah, magic, angels, Jewish, mysticism, angel
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2013-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

[contents]

Chapter 11

The Heavenly Hierarchy

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.

albert camus

The Zohar, the most important of the kabbalistic texts, says that “when the Concealed of the Concealed wished to reveal Himself He first made a single point: the Infinite was entirely unknown, and diffused no light before this luminous point violently broke through into vision.” The Concealed of the Concealed is the Ain Soph, and the single point is the Ain Soph Aur, or Kether.

The name of this point is “I am,” Eheieh, and it is known as the Crown, the first sphere of the Tree of Life, Kether. From Kether were emitted the other nine spheres. Together they became known as the first system of sephiroth.

These initial ten spheres were called the shining sapphires. Many kabbalists believe that the word sapphire is the basis for the word sephira, which is the singular of sephiroth. This belief is rooted in the fact that the four worlds, the intelligences or angels, and their hierarchies were established according to the vision of Ezekiel, who described God’s throne as a huge sapphire.

The area below the single point manifested as Kether, and the first Tree of Life was then filled by four worlds, or spheres, in descending order. These worlds, as we have seen, are Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiah.

The light of the ten original sephiroth formed from the Ain Soph was reflected down through each of these four worlds in increasingly diffused form. This resulted in four additional Trees, each with ten spheres and each reflecting the light of its world. Thus there were forty sephiroth, or spheres of creation, emitted by the Ain Soph, plus the original nine sephiroth and Kether, the Ain Soph Aur. Between each of these emanated spheres there is a gate. These are the fifty gates of the Trees of Life through which we all must travel to reach God.

As the four worlds unfold, the last sephira of the superior Tree of Life emanates the first sephira of the inferior one following it. Thus the tenth, or Malkuth, sphere of the world of Atziluth emanates the first, or Kether, sphere of the world of Briah. The Malkuth sphere of Briah emanates the Kether sphere of Yetzirah, and the Malkuth sphere of Yetzirah emanates the Kether sphere of Assiah.

The four Trees of Life of the four worlds and their forty spheres are expressed into the four worlds:

atziluth—the boundless world of divine names

briah—the Archangelic world of creation

yetzirah—the hierarchal world of formation

assiah—the elemental world of substance

In the world of Atziluth, the ten sephiroth are known as the Rings of the Sacred Names. These first ten spheres and their names were emitted as follows:

From Ain Soph Aur was emitted the First Crown (Kether) and the name of the first power of God, Eheieh, which means “I am.”

From the First Crown was emitted the First Wisdom (Chokmah) and the name of the second power of God, Jehovah, which means “essence of being.

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