First Order Gnosis
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Kabbalah: Learning to Read the Tree of Life · Lesson 3 of 6

Sephiroth and Four Worlds

What you will learn: Locate a name in one attributed diagram and distinguish a sefirah from a world.

Before this lesson: Continue from the preceding lesson. Read the explanation before preparing the activity below.

A comparison becomes easier when the map’s basic categories stop shifting under the reader.

Ten names, three pillars
A reading aid following “The Three Pillars” in Samael’s The Sephiroth. This grouped sketch omits paths and other diagram conventions.

Severity

  1. Binah
  2. Geburah
  3. Hod

Equilibrium

  1. Kether
  2. Tiphereth
  3. Yesod
  4. Malkuth

Mercy

  1. Chokmah
  2. Chesed
  3. Netzach

Tiphereth is in the central pillar. The Four Worlds are a different category, not four additional circles. All names remain available as text; colour and connecting lines carry no unique information.

Read the arrangement before adding correspondences

The diagram groups ten names into the three pillars listed in Samael’s chapter: severity, mercy and equilibrium. Locate Tiphereth in the central group, then identify its neighbours by name rather than inventing a personal rank for the position. The sketch omits the full network of paths and other diagram variants. Its purpose is to support navigation through one source, not declare one universal drawing.

The Four Worlds are another category

Atzilut/Atziluth, Beriah/Briah, Yetzirah and Asiyah/Assiah name emanation, creation, formation and action in the selected accounts. They are not simply four extra circles added to the ten. Both sources discuss the sefirot in relation to worlds. Treat this as religious cosmology; the diagram does not measure the universe or locate a person’s medical condition. Keep spelling variants attached to their sources.

One annotation clears two confusions

An original fictional example

Mira marks Tiphereth as a central-pillar name in the chosen Gnostic arrangement. Beneath it, Mira notes that Assiah names a world, not an eleventh circle. The annotation also names the chapter. Mira can now explain the categories without claiming to have visited a world or found a bodily organ on the chart.

Prepare one activity

Use the teaching diagram on this page or its text list. Select Tiphereth/Tiferet only for annotation. You may follow the names without seeing the graphic. The arrangement is an educational rendering of Samael’s three-pillar list, not a complete path diagram.

Annotate one place on the map

Our educational activity · One attempt is enough before reflection

  1. Locate Tiphereth in the diagram or text list. Name the source arrangement and its central pillar.
  2. Add one sentence distinguishing that sefirah from one of the Four Worlds. Use the supplied names rather than memorising every correspondence.
  3. End with the diagram’s limit: it shows this introductory arrangement and omits paths and variants. Keep the annotation as a reading aid, not a spiritual self-assessment.

Another way: Use the full text list and explain Mira’s annotation orally or mentally. Seeing colours, following lines or drawing circles is unnecessary.

A smaller beginning: Locate one name and identify whether it is a sefirah or a world.

When this is difficult

What if another diagram looks different?

First compare its author, spelling, counting convention and purpose. A different arrangement is not automatically an error or proof of a hidden rank. Study one source at a time before combining diagrams.

Pause and reflect

Our editorial reflection · Think it through or keep a private note. Nothing is submitted or scored.

  1. Which category did each selected term belong to?
  2. What does this simplified diagram intentionally leave out?
See one way to think it through

Mira distinguishes a named attribute/position from a world and keeps the source visible. That basic reading skill is the result. It does not certify metaphysical knowledge or access to the realities the source describes.

Take with you: A labelled map helps only when its categories and omissions are clear.

An unanswered question is a useful result. You can revisit this topic; you do not need a perfect answer to continue.

Your next step

Distinguish the trees named in Genesis from later symbolic identifications.

Next: Genesis and the two trees

Review: Jewish Kabbalah and Gnostic reinterpretation · Course overview · All courses and companions

To revisit the practical work, find this course’s exercises in Practice. Preparation and reflection stay with each lesson.

Sources and context for this lesson

Optional references. The cases and activities are our editorial contribution; they are not assignments issued by the cited organisations.

The Sephiroth

The Sephiroth

Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah, chapter 55; Glorian English edition.

Passage and limits: The Four Worlds, Three Pillars and selected Ten Sephiroth passages; opening wider sphere claims also inspected. Our diagram follows the ten-name, three-pillar arrangement in this chapter. Its atomic, anatomical and Christic claims are attributed doctrine, not established physics.

The Four Worlds

The Four Worlds

Rabbi Nissan Dovid Dubov, Chabad.org.

Passage and limits: Builder analogy and the four named worlds. Explains a religious cosmology, not measured layers of the physical universe.

The Sefirot

The Sefirot

Rabbi Nissan Dovid Dubov, Chabad.org.

Passage and limits: Opening names, attributes, human-analogy caution and the paragraph on counting Keter or Daat. One Chassidic explanation, not a universal Jewish syllabus or an empirical anatomy source.