Forgive any
errors in this node - I've just began reading about the
Kaballah, and it's a
deep subject. You can't rely on
Neon Genesis Evangelion for a good
overview of this
subject,
kiddies.
Speaking of Evangelion, you can see a picture of the Sephiroth in the opening credits of said anime, and on the ceiling of Gendou Ikari's office. (It's entirely possible that the Kaballah and the Sephiroth have much more to do with the series; I've only viewed the first 10 episodes.)
Now, more substantial noise. The Sephiroth is laid out in a tree; hence, the easier English name, the Tree of Life. It describes the 'descent of divinity into the human realm'; sort of a trickle-down theory of divine grace. It starts at the head, the Kether (or crown) and reaches the Malkuth (the Earthly Kingdom). Here's the whole list of the sefirot (or sephira) :
These
separate virtues aren't all really
separate,
supposedly; it's a
package deal.
Divinity generated from the
ineffable will flow
downward through the
tree,
energizing each
sefirot like so many
LEDs.
Divine grace joins
wisdom joins
understanding joins
mercy joins... And this
analogy extends
one step further;
divinity flows down to us
groundlings, not up from us. Those
LEDs, they are
diodes, and the
Tree of Life is a
one-way street. Trying to
force power up the tree will
lessen each
sefirot.
It won't care if you just became a Zen Master last night, your
understanding won't
translate to others until they are so
blessed. It's not unlike
enlightenment.
Each sefirot has two relationships. The first is a duality. Kether to Malkuth, Chokmah to Yesod, they are not opposites, but rather complementing halves. It's related to a male-female relationship. And then there's the standard religious trifecta. The number three pops up in many religions (the Holy Trinity, Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu, etc.) and the mystic Kaballah is no exception. Here, the Sephiroth is divided into three groups twice over...
The
branches are
mini-trees; as each
sefirot has
divinity flow through them from
Kether to Malkuth, it also
flows down directly from
Binah to
Geburah to
Hod. And
divinity flowing
up from
Hod will both
negatively
affect Netsach and
Geburah. At this point, I'm not
sure what the
triangles are for.
Now this is all well and good, but what does it all mean? That is deliberately left as an exercise to the reader. In keeping with the mysticism of the Kaballah, they give you the tools, but don't say how to use them; supposedly, your intuition shall lead the way. Practically, this boils down to the following rule of thumb : if you think the Sephiroth may apply to a given situation, then it does.
There's one more sefirot, inside of the tree but not connected to any of the others. It's called Da'ath, or knowledge, and it's totally separate from the Sephiroth; at times, it's considered to be Binah and Chokmah blended together.