The "400 Sephiroth" Options

On page 95 of Donald Michael Kraig's "Modern Magick" he states:

"Another System puts four Trees of Life on top of eachother, with each Tree representing a world (diagram on pg. 94). In this system there are 40 Sephiroth. Finally, another system says that there is a full Tree of Life within each of the forty Sephiroth for a total of 400 Sephiroth!"

My question is this: Is Kether in Assiah not the same as Malkuth in Yetzirah? Is Kether in Yetzirah not the same as Malkuth in Briah? and is Kether in Briah no the same as Malkuth in Atzilute? I'm not sure where I heard that, but if they are, would there not be 37 Sephiroth of the Four Worlds. And if there is a Tree of Life in every Sephiroth, wouldn't that make only 370??


Thanks
~Spiral

400? 370? Small numbers for the infinite in my own opinion.

To me the tree of life represents ten energies at work in varying grades of energy from the material form to the most sublime oneness, at work in ten dimensions of infinity.

Short version - there are infinite trees of life. Each sephiroth contains the other ten, and those ten each contain the other ten, and so on infinitely.

The reason only ten are visually represented, is because it can be understood that there is no need to represent an infinite number of spheres - the tree itself is after all just a 2-dimensional visual representation of the cube/hypercube of space.

When we grasp the nature of the ten spheres and 22 paths, then we can further divide each element into 32 elements, and so on, but this is not really necessary and is not possible to continue for very far with only a human brain to rely on. The farthest complexities can be grasped by human consciousness, but not the intellect itself.

There have been many attempts to make the tree of life more complex, but the strength of this symbol, as well as its usefulness is in the simplicity of it's form. When you try to figure out how to apply 400 or 370 spheres, you are going to encounter redundancy that overcomplicates the processes involved and renders the system useless. Contemplation is all good and well, and will expand the mind and bring us a greater connection to the energies the tree represents, but when it comes to ritual work, stick with 32 paths.

Other notes: Kether is Everywhere and all is in Kether, there is no need to have a kether of each world, or each sphere. Kether is the substrate immediately descended from the negative veils of meta-existence (existence of existence). Similarly, the entirety of creation is focused into Malkhut, it is the opposite of Kether in the sense that it is concrete, but the same as kether in the sense that all the variations, levels, permutations, and manifestations of all of the spheres and paths exist at the point of Malkuth.

Saying thus that Kether is in Malkhut is in Kether, is the same is saying that All is in the All, and the All is in All.

This principles reflect the holographic nature of existence in which all information is at every point in existence at once, effectively rendering all of existence as one point permuted into time/space which we experience continuously.

Hopefully that makes some degree of sense.

peace