Unsong Introduction Thread (Sorta)

[Matthew_Schroeder]

I'm with Ultima, there's no reason to give a possibly.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

I find that more to be a cute joke. Notice how the eleventh author's note was called "postscript 1" to keep the structure of there only being 10 author's notes:

It's not a cute joke, there's 10 author's notes to match the structure of the tree of life and spell out the Shem HaMephorash because every sufficiently good description of God is a notarikon for his most holy name tbh

 

[Ultima_Reality]

None of these are talking about the higher worlds being simpler. I also ctrl+f'd through my set of notes and found nothing of note. When searching the pages on the site for all instances of "simple" using a search engine, I also found nothing.

To my recollection, higher worlds are described as a sequence of metaphors. There isn't a mention of simplicity = transcendent. In fact, "these worlds are more simple" is only used when talking about parallel seeds that have no reason to be transcendent.

You're missing the context of the cosmology and of the interlude where divine simplicity is mentioned. The higher worlds are structured based on their simplicity because God is the primordial state at the root of all existence which contains all characteristics and attributes as nothing but potentialities within himself, and thus, he is the simplest possible thing, since everything is contained within a singularity without distinction that he represents.

And thus, by retracting some of those attributes and thereby forming something else, he is creating more complex forms of existence that retain a form of independence from him and instantiate concrete forms of his attributes and characteristics (Each of which are represented by one of the Sephirot). Hence why he and Absolute Nothingness are just 1 and 0, while the lesser worlds are more elaborate combinations of those two, and this process of creating more and more complex structures is represented by the Four Worlds of the Tree of Life, each of which represents a degree of separation from God (With Atziluth, the topmost level, being the state where nothing has any independent existence from Him, and Assiah, the lowest level, being the most complex world of all that exists as the culmination of this entire process)

That's why Adam Kadmon is described as being just a seed containing nothing but the blueprint of the universe, still to be organized in concrete forms and patterns, and why Scott describes it as being "a tiny universe" in the Tosefta. He isn't talking about literal size, obviously, but moreso about how a more fundamental and less structurally complex universe makes it impossible for independent life to be created.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't really get what you're saying here, it's really confused me, it feels like you're conflating random bits of the cosmology that aren't actually linked to each other textually. So I'll try to break down what I see in your post and maybe you can notice where I'm going wrong.

You're missing the context of the cosmology and of the interlude where divine simplicity is mentioned. The higher worlds are structured based on their simplicity because God is the primordial state at the root of all existence which contains all characteristics and attributes as nothing but potentialities within himself, and thus, he is the simplest possible thing, since everything is contained within a singularity without distinction that he represents.

The interlude doesn't make reference to the higher worlds. That interlude, and the concept of divine simplicity in general, is part of a dialogue. "God created the Universe, but who created God?" "God doesn't need a creator, as he's he simplest thing, while the Universe needs a creator due to how complex it is."

The higher worlds are never said to be structured based on their simplicity, so I have no clue where you're pulling the second half of this paragraph from.

And thus, by retracting some of those attributes and thereby forming something else, he is creating more complex forms of existence that retain a form of independence from him and instantiate concrete forms of his attributes and characteristics (Each of which are represented by one of the Sephirot).

Why are you identifying this with the Sephirot? By retracting himself he's forming the various different seeds, of varying complexity. This is a process that happens across seeds, not within this world represented by the Sephirot.

Hence why he and Absolute Nothingness are just 1 and 0, while the lesser worlds are more complex combinations of those two

All seeds in God's garden are complex combinations of the two. Saying that the lesser worlds in this one seed are more complex combinations of the two doesn't mean simplicity = transcendence.

and this process of creating more and more complex structures is represented by the Four Worlds of the Tree of Life, each of which represents a degree of separation from God (With Atziluth, the topmost level, being the state where nothing has any independent existence from Him, and Assiah, the lowest level, being the most complex world of all that exists as the culmination of this entire process)

What? The more and more complex structures are a progression from the center to the edge of God's garden, they're never related to the Four Worlds of the Tree of Life. There is not a statement that lower worlds within the seed are more complex.

That's why Adam Kadmon is described as being just but a seed containing nothing but the blueprint of the universe, still to be organized in concrete forms and patterns, and why Scott describes it as being "a tiny universe" in the Tosefta. He isn't talking about literal size, obviously, but moreso about how a more fundamental and less structurally complex universe makes it impossible for independent life to be created.

The seed is the blueprint, the seed has to be unique, the seed in comparison to other seeds is more or less complex, but I don't see why this means that the higher worlds within that seed are more complex than the lower ones.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

The interlude doesn't make reference to the higher worlds. That interlude, and the concept of divine simplicity in general, is part of a dialogue. "God created the Universe, but who created God?" "God doesn't need a creator, as he's he simplest thing, while the Universe needs a creator due to how complex it is."

The higher worlds are never said to be structured based on their simplicity, so I have no clue where you're pulling the second half of this paragraph from.

Because the higher worlds themselves are structured based on how far apart from God they are, with Atziluth being at the top, where nothing is truly separate or independent from him, and Assiah being at the bottom, inhabiting an empty space created by the contraction of divine light, where independent life can exist. And that's what makes lower ones more complex to begin with: They are more and more elaborate combinations of 0s and 1s, and as you go further up, those combinations become more simple until you reach the simplest possible state, where only 1 and 0 exist.

Ana even describes the universe in which they live as "1s and 0s arranged in a long string" and explicitly mentions how the number of bits on a system is a measure of its complexity. So, with God being the simplest possible state of being, represented only by one digit, it would naturally follow that the universe which he created by arranging several of those digits together is more complex.

Why are you identifying this with the Sephirot?

Because Uriel explicitly states as much:

“THE MOST BASIC DIVISION IN THE MYSTICAL BODY OF GOD IS THE TEN SEPHIROT. SEPHIRAH IS A HEBREW WORD RELATED TO THE ENGLISH “SAPPHIRE”, BECAUSE THE SAGES IMAGINED THEM AS SAPPHIRE-LIKE JEWELS ARRANGED IN A STRING. THE TEN SEPHIROT ARE A SERIES OF STAGES OR LEVELS OR JEWELS THROUGH WHICH DIVINE POWER FLOWS IN ITS MOVEMENT FROM GOD TO THE FINITE WORLD. EACH ONE CORRESPONDS TO A SPECIFIC DIVINE ATTRIBUTE. THE FIRST REPRESENTS THE WILL OF GOD. THE SECOND REPRESENTS THE WISDOM OF GOD. AND SO ON.”

By retracting himself he's forming the various different seeds, of varying complexity. This is a process that happens across seeds, not within this world represented by the Sephirot.

What? The more and more complex structures are a progression from the center to the edge of God's garden, they're never related to the Four Worlds of the Tree of Life. There is not a statement that lower

I don't see why you're assuming this. That whole Interlude only talks about the creation of a single universe, that being the one in which the series takes place. The characters themselves didn't even know that God's garden of universes existed at the time, and neither did anyone else, given how finding the answer to the problem of evil (Which ultimately involves the existence of those other universes, as per Metatron's explanations) to begin with is a main plot-point in Ana's character arc. They describe a similar process, yes, but nowhere is it ever suggested they are talking about the same thing.

 

[Agnaa]

Because the higher worlds themselves are structured based on how far apart from God they are, with Atziluth being at the top, where nothing is truly separate or independent from him, and Assiah being at the bottom, inhabiting an empty space created by the contraction of divine light, where independent life can exist. And that's what makes lower ones more complex to begin with: They are more and more elaborate combinations of 0s and 1s, and as you go further up, those combinations become more simple until you reach the simplest possible state, where only 1 and 0 exist.

Ana even describes the universe in which they live as "1s and 0s arranged in a long string" and explicitly mentions how the number of bits on a system is a measure of its complexity. So, with God being the simplest possible state of being, represented only by one digit, it would naturally follow that the universe which he created by arranging several of those digits together is more complex.

What? No? The highest world is the seed, Adam Kadmon, which we know cannot just be "God" because the seeds have to be different things to have independent existences. Chapter 71 even says that God gave Adam Kadmon the choice to attain independent existence from God, so that it could attain independent being, but in the process would taste of evil.

And on top of that, the worlds aren't described as being structured based on how far apart from God they are. They're described as being metaphors for the last. The lowest world isn't some Godless wasteland, in fact, it's ordinarily directly sustained by God himself.

I agree with you that the universes are more complex than God; my contention is that the seed is as well, and that the worlds are never described in terms of increasing/decreasing simplicity.

Because Uriel explicitly states as much:

The way you were describing it made it sound like God was retracting more and more from each Sephirot. Uriel's statement that each Sephirot corresponds to/represents a specific divine attribute is way more agreeable to me, and doesn't sound like it supports or detracts from your argument.

I don't see why you're assuming this. That whole Interlude only talks about the creation of a single universe, that being the one in which the series takes place. The characters themselves didn't even know that God's garden of universes existed at the time, and neither did anyone else, given how finding the answer to the problem of evil (Which ultimately involves the existence of those other universes, as per Metatron's explanations) to begin with is a main plot-point in Ana's character arc. They describe a similar process, yes, but nowhere is it ever suggested they are talking about the same thing.

There's two points to go at this from.

That interlude makes no mention of higher worlds. It is not talking about the cosmology as a gradual increase in complexity as it gets closer to the universe. That interlude, and the concept of Divine Simplicity in the first place, is answering the question of "Why does the universe need a creator but God doesn't?" to which the provided answer is "Because the universe is complex and God is the most simple thing." You have no reason to take this to mean that higher worlds are more simple. When they talk about things departing from God they're just talking about objects in the universe, they're not talking about a gradual descent of worlds, they're talking about how various objects lack certain attributes of God.

Secondly, why am I "assuming" that God retracts himself more from certain seeds than others? Why am I saying that the progression of complexity is increasing throughout God's garden despite that not being mentioned in that interlude? Because that's exactly how it's explained in Chapter 71:

“I DID. I CREATED MYRIADS OF SUCH UNIVERSES. WHEN I HAD EXHAUSTED ALL POSSIBLE UNIVERSES WITH ONE FLAW, I MOVED ON TO UNIVERSES WITH TWO FLAWS, THEN UNIVERSES WITH THREE FLAWS, THEN SO ON, AN ENTIRE GARDEN OF FLAWED UNIVERSES GROWING ALONGSIDE ONE ANOTHER.”


“Including mine.”


“YOUR WORLD IS AT THE FARTHEST EDGES OF MY GARDEN,” God admitted, “FAR FROM THE BRIGHT CENTER WHERE EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AND SIMPLE. THERE IS A WORLD MADE OF NOTHING BUT BLISS, WITH A GIANT ALEPH IN THE CENTER. THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD MADE OF NOTHING BUT BLISS WITH A GIANT BET IN THE CENTER. AND SO ON, BUT MAKE A MILLION MILLION WORLDS LIKE THOSE, AND YOU START NEEDING TO BECOME MORE CREATIVE. YOU NEED MORE AND MORE STRATAGEMS TO SEPARATE WORLDS FROM ONE ANOTHER. WORLDS WHERE INCREDIBLY BIZARRE THINGS HAPPEN AS A MATTER OF COURSE. WORLDS WHERE RANDOM COMBINATIONS OF SYLLABLES INVOKE DIVINE POWERS. AND THE MORE SUCH THINGS I ADD, THE MORE CHANCE THAT THEY TEND TOWARD EVIL. YOUR WORLD IS VERY FAR FROM THE CENTER INDEED. IT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF A VAST WASTE, WHERE NOTHING ELSE GROWS. ALL OF THE WORLDS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PLANTED THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOMINATIONS OF WICKEDNESS. BUT BY COINCIDENCE PILED UPON COINCIDENCE, YOURS WAS NOT. YOURS WILL GROW INTO A THING OF BEAUTY THAT WILL GLORIFY MY HOLY NAME.”

The more simple universes, the one where God had to retract himself the least, are at the center of the garden. And ones like the main one of the story is very far from the center.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

I don't get your point about the Garden. The Garden contains universes that are perfect and transcendental and which have no concept of space, time, or change and by which all definitions would be 1-A.

God's withdraw would still include his Garden because the whole point about the theory of God's Withdraw in the Kabbalah is that to do anything God must necessarily go through Withdraw. The God in the Garden - While likely more God-himself than even Metatron - is not God's full unbridled essence because its very presence would destroy all of existence.

 

[Antvasima]

@DontTalkDT

I would appreciate your input here.

 

[Antvasima]

If DontTalk does not reply, do we have sufficient agreement to upgrade the Atzmus to tier 0 now?

 

[Antvasima]

@AKM sama

Your input would also be appreciated here.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Aaron's official in-character tumblr also reinforces the idea that God only interacts with creation through several degrees of separation and emanation:

"I want to reject, with every fibre of my being, the call to “have a personal relationship with God”. As well have a personal relationship with a fusion bomb, or the heart of the sun, or the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy! You can hug an h-bomb, once, then there’s nothing left of you.

I do not have “a personal relationship with God”. God sends forth emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations of emanations, and when one brushes vaguely against the fringe of my consciousness, I tremble. Not vainly did Paul preach: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”.

Imagine a remote worker, getting an email marked “IMPORTANT” from his boss on a different continent. The causal chain goes: boss to boss’s mind to boss’s hand to keyboard to computer to Internet to worker’s computer to worker’s monitor to stream of photons to worker’s eye to worker’s mind to worker. And still the worker fears to open the email. How much more grateful should we be for the distance between ourselves and the Boss of Bosses!

I, Aaron Smith-Teller, have a purely professional relationship with God, and that’s the way I like it."

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I am personally inclined to agree with Ultima at this point.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't get your point about the Garden. The Garden contains universes that are perfect and transcendental and which have no concept of space, time, or change and by which all definitions would be 1-A.

God's withdraw would still include his Garden because the whole point about the theory of God's Withdraw in the Kabbalah is that to do anything God must necessarily go through Withdraw. The God in the Garden - While likely more God-himself than even Metatron - is not God's full unbridled essence because its very presence would destroy all of existence.

My point is what I said earlier: To my recollection, higher worlds are described as a sequence of metaphors. There isn't a mention of simplicity = transcendent. In fact, "these worlds are more simple" is only used when talking about parallel seeds that have no reason to be transcendent.

Those unchanging perfect universes are 1-A, but they're not transcendent over the ones with a single flaw, which aren't transcendent over ones with two flaws. They all exist parallel in a garden. There isn't a part of Unsong which says that simplicity is transcendence, and in fact, the parts which talk about simplicity go against any implication of that.

Aaron's official in-character tumblr also reinforces the idea that God only interacts with creation through several degrees of separation and emanation:

I mean yeah, I agree, obviously. That's stated tons of times in the text. That doesn't prove that the higher worlds are simpler, or that simplicity = transcendence, just that God is too powerful to interact with creation directly.

If DontTalk does not reply, do we have sufficient agreement to upgrade the Atzmus to tier 0 now?

From the earlier votes, 7 people agreed with tier 0 Atzmus, and 9 people didn't.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

What? No? The highest world is the seed, Adam Kadmon, which we know cannot just be "God" because the seeds have to be different things to have independent existences. Chapter 71 even says that God gave Adam Kadmon the choice to attain independent existence from God, so that it could attain independent being, but in the process would taste of evil.

Atziluth is itself the level where the Adam Kadmon is revealed, though, hence why Uriel states to Sohu that Theoretical Kabbalah, which corresponds to this level (Just like Celestial Kabbalah corresponds to Briah, Applied Kabbalah to Yetzirah, and Worldly Kabbalah to Assiah) involves the direct manipulation of Adam Kadmon itself.

Moreover, I never really said that Adam Kadmon was God itself, but that it is a level where everything exists as a subset of God that has no independent being from him, and Adam "choosing to attain independent existence" is a metaphor for the process involving the Sephirot that led to the physical world's formation (Which I'll elaborate on the response below, I guess, so, feel free to skip this paragraph): That's how it is in actual Lurianic Kabbalah, even, which the author evidently considers to have a 1:1 correspondence to what the characters talk about.

And on top of that, the worlds aren't described as being structured based on how far apart from God they are. They're described as being metaphors for the last. The lowest world isn't some Godless wasteland, in fact, it's ordinarily directly sustained by God himself.

That's a bit of a non-sequitur, since the lowest world being the furthest away from God doesn't necessarily imply that it is devoid of God altogether, just that the things in it have enough illusion of independence to not be consumed into his light, while the upper realms are planes where the distinction between "God" and "Self" become increasingly blurry and the basic laws allowing for the formation of lesser planes become visible. Them being simpler than the planes below are should already be self-evident based on what each of them represent, even. For reference:

Assiah = The material world, containing spacetime, language, and material existence that exists apart from God, rather than being subsumed into his light

Yetzirah = The world of dreams, possibilities and archetypes that are not yet instantiated in the world below, and which are beyond language and unable to be properly explained.

Briah = The formative world comprised of nothing but energy and the laws through which this energy is shaped. This plane doesn't even have archetypes yet, but just wellsprings of creative force that could potentially become archetypes.

Atziluth = Primordial world of divine light, where everything exists as nothing but an emanation of God with no independent existence from him (Think of how rays of sunlight are just extensions of the sun itself) and the divine light lies unclothed and with no vessels.

I agree with you that the universes are more complex than God; my contention is that the seed is as well, and that the worlds are never described in terms of increasing/decreasing simplicity.

That does sound like something we could use to reach a middle ground, then, considering you seem to agree that "simplicity" is how the text describes God's transcendence over the world. Furthermore, reading back into our earlier posts, I think a point you are missing from this is that the Atzmus is not described as being simpler than God and the Absolute Nothingness: We're told that it doesn't really count as the simplest possible thing, because it doesn't exist even in relation to them in the first place, and thus can't really be spoken of or described. Again, that's just how the Atzmus is defined in Lurianic Kabbalah, too: It's the unmanifest aspect of the divine which is beyond thought and description, and thus can't even be referred to, or worshipped, while the Ein Sof is the actual, proper "God" that mediates between it and the Adam Kadmon, and the Adam Kadmon in turn mediates between the Ein Sof and the rest of the world.

You have no reason to take this to mean that higher worlds are more simple. When they talk about things departing from God they're just talking about objects in the universe, they're not talking about a gradual descent of worlds, they're talking about how various objects lack certain attributes of God.

The gradual descent of worlds is how God contracts his light and creates any given object to begin with, and there is no real distinction between one and the other here. We're told this again and again throughout the whole novel: The universe first begins as unformed divine light, containing the potential for anything to exist, and this divine light is then weeded out into increasingly more concrete states of being through the Ten Sephirot, which are divided in the Four Worlds, until God's infinity becomes finite.

That's why I mentioned how the Ten Sephirot represent specific divine attributes, by the way. The point of the world's creation in the Kabbalistic interpretation is that God is too utterly incomprehensible and unknowable to have any direct relationship with creation, hence why He emanates the Adam Kadmon to serve as a mediator, which then instantiates reduced and comprehensible forms of his being into the universe.

 

[Agnaa]

That does sound like something we could use to reach a middle ground, then, considering you seem to agree that "simplicity" is how the text describes God's transcendence over the world.

I don't think that's the source/reason for his transcendence. I think that's the reason for Him being a separate entity His creations. Not as a matter of stronger, or more real, but of identity. This thing isn't that thing, God is simple, and reality is a complex mix of God and Divine Nothingness.

The gradual descent of worlds is how God contracts his light and creates any given object to begin with, and there is no real distinction between one and the other here. We're told this again and again throughout the whole novel: The universe first begins as unformed divine light, containing the potential for anything to exist, and this divine light is then weeded out into increasingly more concrete states of being through the Ten Sephirot, which are divided in the Four Worlds, until God's infinity becomes finite.

I think I may have been drawing a distinction between the Sephirot (the vessels through which God's light flows) and the Worlds. Could you explain to me why they could be treated as interchangeable?

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I think I may have been drawing a distinction between the Sephirot (the vessels through which God's light flows) and the Worlds. Could you explain to me why they could be treated as interchangeable?

Basically, the Four Worlds in the Kabbalah are just another way through which the form of the Adam Kadmon and of the Tree of Life is divided and studied, and each one of them corresponds to a group of Sephirot, and of the paths which connect the Sephirot:

“IN KABBALAH,” Uriel continued “WE RECOGNIZE CERTAIN DIVISIONS OF ADAM KADMON AS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT. A FOURFOLD DIVISION, WHICH WE INTERPRET AS FOUR WORLDS. A TENFOLD DIVISION, WHICH WE INTERPRET AS TEN SEPHIROT. A TWENTY-TWO-FOLD DIVISION, WHICH WE INTERPRET AS TWENTY-TWO PATHS BETWEEN SEPHIROT. AND A SEVENTY-TWO-FOLD DIVISION, WHICH WE INTERPRET AS THE SEVENTY-TWO-FOLD EXPLICIT NAME OF GOD. BY UNDERSTANDING ALL OF THESE DIVISIONS, WE LEARN THE STRUCTURE OF ADAM KADMON AND THEREFORE THE ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE. ONCE THE ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE ARE UNDERSTOOD, THEY CAN BE CHANGED. IT IS AS EASY AS SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL.”

“I have determined the basic structure of the world. The way God becomes finite. The machinery that transmutes divinity into finitude is based on a series of ten sapphires. They are not exactly located within space-time, but you can think of them as sort of coextensive with the outside of the crystal sphere surrounding the world.”

Gabriel noticed that, as usual, the only time Uriel got any emotion in his voice, the only time he would even make eye contact, was when he was talking about something totally irrelevant and uninteresting.

“This is the Tree of Life. It converts pure structure into material reality through a series of four levels. There is a bottleneck in the last one which connects the sapphire called Yesod to the one called Malkuth. By filtering this bottleneck, I can control the flow of the divine light of higher spheres from entering the physical world.”

So, for example, Assiah, the physical world, corresponds to the sphere of Malkuth (The last of the ten sephirot), which is also another way to refer to the physical universe, and so these two are basically treated as interchangeable names for the same plane of reality throughout the book:

A man. A plan. A canal.

But what about Panama? Well, imagine the map of the mystical body of God overlaid upon a map of the Western Hemisphere – because we’re kabbalists and this is by no means the weirdest thing that we do. What sort of correspondences do we find?

None at all, because we’ve forgotten the lesson Uriel taught Sohu all those years ago; we see God face to face, so our left is His right and vice versa. So overlay the mystical body of God on the Western Hemisphere and flip it around the vertical axis. Now what?

Keter, sephirah corresponding to the ineffable crown of God, lands at the North Pole, the uninhabitable crown of the world. Malkuth, the sephirah corresponding to the feet of God, lands in Patagonia, whose name means “land of big feet” (don’t ask me, ask early Spanish explorers). The center of Malkuth, corresponding to the world of Assiah, sits on the Argentine city of Ushuaia – in Hebrew the two words would be identical. Just below Malkuth lies the realm of the Devil; just below Patagonia lies Cape Horn.

The Lord of Demons shook his head, then reappeared in the flying kayak. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not here to torture you. A waste, without Uriel around to watch. We’ll just stay here and watch the eclipse together. In Assiah. The physical world. It’ll be fun. Just small talk. You and me, mano a diablo. The two of us so rarely get any time alone together.”

That was the plan, anyway. The first pot worked as intended. The second and third also worked as intended. The fourth was just a little too weak, couldn’t handle the sheer nuclear blast of divinity, and exploded. That meant the full power of the third pot flowed down into the fifth pot, so the fifth also exploded, and so on all the way down to the last pot, which was at least as much “the bottom of the fountain” as a pot in itself and so didn’t explode. It just cracked open a little bit.

That last cracked pot was the material world, the universe we live in. It’s filled with the shards of the six broken sephirot above it, not to mention chunks of itself pried loose in the blast.

The alarms went silent. North American airspace went black. The lights went out. THARMAS went quiet, then released an arc of electrical energy which briefly lit the otherwise pitch-black room before dying back down. Sohu gave a horrible primal scream.

“THEY KILLED URIEL!” she screamed. “THEY KILLED URIEL! THEY BROKE MALKUTH! EVERYTHING IS…” She gave a horrible noise, like she was being pulled apart.

Likewise, Atziluth is the highest of the four worlds, the unknowable heavens that are separated from the rest of the Tree of Life by the "false sephirah" of Da'at. It's comprised by the three heavenly sephirot that represent the highest facets of God, Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, while the other seven are the "worldly sephirot" that make up the comprehensible world. This is also why Uriel shines with "the seven colors of the rainbow and the three colors which you only see in Heaven" when he draws power from the Tree.

So we enact them in order. Various adventures, activating each aspect of God in turn. We start in my Kingdom. We go to San Francisco, the Foundation, where Heaven meets Earth. We shine with Glory. We win a Victory. We cross through Tiferet via the Canal. We cross Chesed by committing an act of great kindness, then Gevurah with an act of great harshness. We pass Da’at and its dark night, its collapse of everything earthly and recognizable. Now here we are. Binah, understanding. And Chokhmah, Wisdom. Which you have just displayed. Leaving us at the end of our road.

The same ritual the Comet King describes must be enacted by Ana and her companions. Ana starts in UNSONG headquarters (the Kingdom), the goes to San Francisco. They shine with Glory (the overloaded Symphony), then win a victory (over the Drug Lord) and cross the Canal. They commit an act of great kindness (putting the dying Ellis on the spaceship), then an act of great harshness (kicking Azore off the ship). The destruction of Uriel’s machine and the collapse of the natural order represents passage through Da’at, from the comprehensible world to the ineffable heavens. By discovering the Captain’s true identity, Ana displays Understanding and Wisdom, completing the ritual and reaching Kether, the Crown of God.

The kabbalists have their own trinity: the Supernal Triad of the first three sephirot. Kether is the transcendent heavenly aspect of God. Binah is a perfectly receptive vessel sometimes likened to the uterus. And Chokmah is likened to lightning – the bolt that originates in Kether and strikes Binah, impregnating it with divine essence.

These three trinities all correspond nicely to one another. They all have a human aspect: the Son, the Sangha, Binah, looking for answers but seeing the majesty of God’s plan only imperfectly. They all have an ineffable divine component: the Father, the Buddha, Kether, abiding in the secret order of the universe and seeing its full glory. And they all have a force that connects the other two: the Holy Spirit, the Dharma, Chokhmah, the potential for uniting the human and divine.

Ordinary mortals. The divine order. A connection between them.

A man. A plan. A canal.

So, summing it up:

Atziluth = Kether, Chokmah and Binah

Briah = Chesed, Geburah and Tiphereth

Yetzirah = Hod, Netzatch and Yesod

Assiah = Malkuth

 

[Agnaa]

Yeah okay that's fair then. I think with the sephirot corresponding to a known hierarchy of transcendence, and also being related to increasing complexity of information, I think it's fair to put Atzmus at 0 for lacking any information entirely.

I think that resolves the thread!

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Neat, then.

@Antvasima

DontTalk doesn't seem very interested in giving his input here, and since Agnaa was the only one actively arguing against my proposals, I take it that I have the go-ahead to apply this, then?

 

[Antvasima]

I think so, yes. You can go ahead.

It was interesting to read your explanations about Kabbalistic (?) theology.

 

[HalilAssassino]

Can i ask a few questions please? Now that the thread is finished,

• How strong will the high 1a keys the unsong characters take? how much will they be above the baseline high 1 a?

And

• How strong will the 0 key they get? how much will they be above the baseline 0?

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

It was interesting to read your explanations about Kabbalistic (?) theology.

Maybe you could give reading the book a try. It's an interesting political comedy? I think you'd like Uriel and Sohu a lot.

 

[Antvasima]

It sounds interesting at least, but I have other transcendental philosophy books that I would like to read and regrettably don't have time for.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Ultima and I are talking about profiles but it might take a while. We should do God first and then move from there.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is probably fine.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

We started working on the profiles.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you. Should I close this thread?

 

[HalilAssassino]

Can i ask a few questions please? Now that the thread is finished,

• How strong will the high 1a keys the unsong characters take? how much will they be above the baseline high 1 a?

And

• How strong will the 0 key

Before the thread is closed could my questions be answered by a knowledgeable person please?

 

[Agnaa]

Both would be baseline.

 

[HalilAssassino]

Both would be baseline.

Thank you

 

[Antvasima]

I will close this thread then.