You might be surprised to hear that the most spiritual part of astrology isn’t the birth chart. No, it’s not election charts either. What is it then? The planets? Aspects? Or wait, the fact that aspects rely on planets means they are less fundamental. Is that right?
Let’s clear the clutter.
The World of Higher Oneness
The world exists on the fourth of four spiritual dimensions. At the very highest level, the reality of complete unity is so true and so profound that it’s hard to differentiate between yourself, anyone else, angels, and the greatest Endless.
It’s difficult to speak about this realm, even in metaphor. Any description should eventually merge into a unity of oneness, an experience that makes little sense to our mind, but perfect sense to the highest parts of our soul.
The World of Outlines
Below that, we have the world of blueprints. The highest level is a world that can bring great inspiration, and as we move down the worlds, we get more and more practical.
A good comparison is when we go from idea, to outline, to visualization, to implementation.
The second world is akin to the blueprint, the outline.
If we think of the metaphor of building a house, this would be the stage right after you’ve come up with the dream home idea. This is when you sit down and write down what that will look like.
This second world is the world of blueprints. There is a lower degree of unity here, and a greater amount of differentiation and individuality.
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If you were an angel in the highest worlds, you might lose track of your name. You might even lose track of who is who. You might see another angel and seriously consider the question, is that me? You may even begin to hear the thoughts of other angels as your consciousness merges together and apart simultaneously. This, of course, is all metaphor.
Everything here is metaphor. I’m far from an expert, so it’s best that we address these concepts from a literary rather than a literal perspective.
But let’s continue.
World one (and there are even more unified worlds above the first, but we’ll keep it simple.) was a place of overwhelming unity. It is also the source of the purest spirituality and inspiration. It is a world of pure spirit. All of these are besides the lowest, but we’ll get there. World two is a spiritual world where differences begin to appear.
Do we want that? Yes, though particularly in the sense of diversity within and for the sake of unity. It’s complicated, but it’ll come together, though likely only after a lot of deep study.
The World of Formation
World three, the specificity begins to form.
The world of formation, also called the world of creating, is where most of the angels reside.
This is the world where a level of creation can begin.
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Here we begin to move from inspiration (one) to outline (two) to forming (three) the pieces together. This is the step right before we enter reality, which is world four.
This is the bridge from the blueprint, the plan, to implementation in “reality.”
Let’s talk about that reality now.
The World of Action
In Jewish Kabbalah, the world of action, the fourth world, is divided into two parts.
The higher part is the spiritual portion of the world of action. It is the most spiritual part of the lowest world. Below that is our world, this earth.
The Higher part of the World of Action
Interestingly the higher part of the world of action includes the heavens, that is, space and the physical heavenly bodies in it. The great medieval sage Rambam, known in western scholarly circles as Maimonides, says something surprising about the planets.
He said that each planet has a consciousness. A sort of essence within it. This is surprising because Rambam was a scientist philosopher. He was a rationalist, and he was not especially happy about astrology.
Image from Chabad.org
But from here, we learn that one of the greatest Jewish sages of the medieval period acknowledged there was something spiritual going on, at the very least in the world of astronomy.
Sefer Yetzirah – Detailed Spiritual Information
Image from Moznaim.com
The ancient spiritual Jewish text, Sefer Yetzirah, explains that each of these conscious forces that reside within the planets are angels. It even names each one.
I’ll take a moment to make a personal comment. I am astounded by the specificity in the Jewish mystical tradition. They don’t just say, there are higher divine realms. There are 4 (and really, even more). And they each have names and unique properties. The planets don’t just have consciousnesses, it is a form of angelic consciousness, and here are their exact names.
This sort of specificity, in my mind, points towards a source of truth. It’s not a definitive proof, but it certainly is an indicator. If someone know what he or she was talking about, we would expect them to know the details too.
Often, when we discover spiritual ideas, the language is vague and lacks specifics. It feels inspiring in the moment, but then within days or hours, it fades from mind. How can we know it’s true?
The higher level of the world of action is the place where astrology takes place. What does that mean? I’ll explore that topic in the next article, where we will explore this wisdom from the writings of a Jewish astrologer named Yaakov Kronenberg.
Thanks for reading,
Until next time,
DT
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