The World of Yetzirah

The World of Yetzirah, "World of Formation" contains ten sefirot which are still further removed from Deity, and thus of a less refined nature than those of the World of Beriah.  Yet they are still non-material.  This is the abode of the angels, who are wrapped in luminous garments.  The myriads of angels are divided into ten ranks, according to the ten sefirot, and each angel is set over a different part of the universe, and derives his name from the element or heavenly body he guards [C.D.Ginsburg, S.A.Cook, Kabbalah, p.621].

This region is interpreted in the Zohar as the world of the lower heavens, consisting of the seven plantery firmaments [Paul Krzok, "The Cosmological Structure of the Zohar", p.32 The Hermetic Journal, no.20, Summer 1983)].  The pseudepigraphical Massekhet Atzilut (early 14th Century), places the Archangel Metatron and the angels centred around him are sometimes placed in the world of Yetzirah rather than Beriahas later became the case [Scholem, Kabbalah, pp.118-9].
 
 

Kabbalistic Paradigm				standardised Universes
"Yetzirah" as heavenly sphres	Yetzirah as spiritual reality	Yetzirah as psychic or astral reality	Yetzirah as etheric or emotional reality
Zohar in part	e.g. Lurianic Kabbalah in part; e.g. Hayyim Vital	e.g. some Hermetic occultsim	e.g. aleph.org
	Yetzirah			Lower Noeric
		Yetzirah		Psychic
Yetzirah			Yetzirah	Etheric

Yetzirah in Lurianic Kabbalah
 
 

Yetzirah - at Aleph.org -  a very short description - interprets Yetzirah as the etheric or the emotional reality

more links to be added...
 
 

Kabbalistic worlds

 

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