Tree of life (Kabbalah)
The tree of life (Hebrew: עֵץ חַיִּים or אִילָן) is a diagram used in Kabbalah and other mystical traditions derived from it. It usually consists of 10 or 11 nodes symbolizing different archetypes and 22 paths connecting the nodes.
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Quotes
[edit]- The curious symbol-system known to us as the Tree of Life is an attempt to reduce to diagrammatic form every force and factor in the manifested universe and the soul of man; to correlate them one to another and reveal them spread out as on a map so that the relative positions of each unit can be seen and the relations between them traced. In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology.
- Dion Fortune: The Mystical Qabalah, ch. 3: "The Method of the Qabalah", p. 13. Samuel Weiser, Inc. (1984). ISBN 0-87728-596-9.
- The word for Crown is Keter (כֶּתֶר), and Abulafia notes that when these letters reversed, they spell karet (כָּרֵת), which means "cut off." Thus, when an individual attempts to reach the highest level of the Crown, if he is not worthy, he can end up being "cut off" spiritually. Abulafia therefore warns in the strongest terms that one who attempts to enter these mysteries must be adequately prepared, and that one not enter unless he is thoroughly familiar with all the necessary introductions.
- Aryeh Kaplan: Meditation and Kabbalah, ch. 3, "Rabbi Abraham Abulafia", p. 80. Weiser Books (1982). ISBN 0-87728-616-7.
- The Qabalah taken in its traditional and literal form—as contained in the Sepher Yetsirah, Bes Elohim, Pardis Rimonim, and Sepher haZohar—is either mostly unintelligible or, at first sight, apparent nonsense to the ordinary "logical" person. But it contains as its ground plan that most precious jewel of human thought, that geometrical arrangement of Names, Numbers, Symbols, and Ideas called "The Tree of Life". It is called most precious, because it has been found to be the most convenient system yet discovered of classifying the phenomena of the Universe and recording their relations, whereof the proof is the limitless possibilities for analytic and synthetic thought which follow the adoption of this schema.
- Israel Regardie: A Garden of Pomegranates (Second Edition), ch. 1, "Historical Survey", pp. 18–20. Llewellyn Publications (1987). ISBN 0-87542-690-5.
- All the Sephiros, as these emanations are called, below that named the Crown are given masculine and feminine attributions, and the activity between male and female Sephiros in reconciliation is a "child," so to speak; a neutral Sephirah acting in equilibrium. Thus the Tree of Life, comprising these ten emanations, develops from the highest abstraction to the most concrete material in several triads of potencies and spiritual forces. Male, female and child; positive, negative and their resultant commingling in a third reconciling factor.
- Israel Regardie: The Tree of Life, ch. 3, p. 47. Samuel Weiser (1995). ISBN 0-87728-149-1.
