154 fl The Secret Life of Natureof the sciences to mistress thereof. In a detailed study of these aspects
of the kabbalah--compiled into a large manuscript entitled The Image of
God in Matter-Phillips qualifies the Tree of Life as "an object of awe-
some mathematical power and beauty, containing the mathematics of a
theory recently proposed by physicists to unify the forces of nature."
The same Tree of Life is described by theosophist Ann Williams-
Heller, in her Kabba1ah:Your Path to Freedom, as representing not a reli-
gion but a revealed truth at the core of all world religions and universal
thought.
In the ancient hieroglyph the sephiroth are depicted as spheres
oddly arranged in three columns to symbolize the "ten divine qualities
or objective modes of the manifesting Cosmic Logos." Horizontally
the spheres are separated into four layers, representing four "worlds"
or four stages of the logoic involution into matter-through spirit,
mind, heart, and body-each related to fire, air, water, and earth, each
achieved through a different level of consciousness and differently
manifested qualities.
As all life is conceived as coming from above and being sustained
from above, the Tree is depicted as inverted, its branches unfolding
downward as its roots reach upward into the unknown, "the never-
changing yet ever-becoming absolute undifferentiated consciousness,
cause of all causes."
The first of these four worlds, that of "origination," is represented
by only one sephirah, topmost of the ten, or Kether, known as the
Crown, symbol of the manifesting Cosmic Logos, the one-in-all, rep-
resenting ultimate unity. In this rarefied atmosphere the Logos con-
ceives and ideates plans for creation. In the second world, of "creation,"
the next two sephiroth, Chokrnah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understand-
ing), are awakened into the archetypal forces proceeding from the
male-female polarity of Shiva and Shakti, will and power. In the third
world, of "formation," the sephiroth of Mercy, Justice, Beauty, Vic-
tory, and Glory come together with Foundation to create vibrant life
through sexuality. The Angels of Foundation, or Yesod, says William G.
Gray in his The Ladder oflights, are directly concerned with principles
of fertility and fecundating behind the life forms on this planet. They
are active agents of germination and gestation not only for plant and