Warning. This video might mess you up. I'm serious. Really. We're about to explain the nature of the demonic hellscape that is the Tree of Death countered to the Tree of Life. However, the process of making this video was a nightmare. So many things went wrong. Just as often people feel that horror movie sets are cursed, we experienced it personally. Even our most skeptical team members noticed that things got weird around this video. And so we're extending the warning to you. If you watch this video, weird things might happen in your life.  And then do it again when you're done. You can pause the video now if you need to. Okay, all ready? Here we go. You've been warned. It's been a while since we've jumped into Kabbalah. Let's jump in again, shall we? When exploring this ancient philosophy and map of the layers of existence, there's one major thing we need to cover, and it's really important. Previously, we explored the Ten Sephirot, the emanations of the Tree of Life, which describe the divinity in every level of creation. However, in the spirit of completeness and understanding, we must cover the reversal of such a system, the Clephote, otherwise known as the Tree of Death. For the majority of traditional Kabbalistic history, many of the mystical Jewish sects prohibited the Clephote study as it was set in opposition to the natural practical Kabbalah that allowed the practice of white magic. While the danger in interacting with the Dark Tree and mixing impure magic ensured that it remained a minor and restricted practice in Jewish history. In more recent years, however, with the advent of the Hermetic Kabbalah, the Dark Realms, known often as the Sitra Ara, has begun to be explored and interpreted in context. Much like the Sephirot, the Clephote have numerous interpretations of what they are and how they work. A simple explanation of the Tree of Death is that it's a dark anti-structure or reflection of the Tree of Life, consisting of the shadow side of creation. Where the Ten Sephirot embody divine light and unity, the Ten Clepha embrace all of the conceptions, energies and forces that were left out of divine order. The word Clepha translates as shell, husk or peel usually, describing that these may be the forces that block access to the higher worlds unless we attain personal mastery and ascend through them. In the Hermetic traditions, the Tree of Death is often drawn as a reversed Tree of Life underneath the primary tree, like so. Loads of ways of interpreting it though, especially its origin. Following people like Von Rosenroth and some members of the Golden Dawn, the creation of the Dark Tree was a result of the Sephirah, Guevara. As we covered last time, Guevara is the fifth Sephirot and is found within the pillar of severity. It embodies the strength and judgment of the divine, representing the power and resolve required to carry out cosmic law. In some schools of Clephotic ideology, Guevara is seen as the most volatile of the Sephirot. In this interpretation, during the act of creation as divine light came down through the worlds, Guevara began to break away from the Tree of Life and was forced back into balance by the other realms on the tree. In this narrative, shards or fragments of Guevara's volatile nature were lost into the void beyond the tree and never rejoined it. These fragments rejected the notion of unity and instead created their own realms. You may notice similarities in this story to the fall of Lucifer or the Demiurge, bringing us a more intricate narrative to explore this whole duality-consciousness thing. Another alternative explanation is proposed in the Lurianic Kabbalah and is generally the more accepted theory in the mainstream teachings. Luria believed that the Clephote are metaphorical shells surrounding the realms on the Tree of Life. In his views, these shells were the source of evil in our world, but were seen more as obstacles to overcome to experience the beauty of each Sephirot truly as they could only outwardly embody God's light. They were said to protect the holiness of each realm, however, and help contain it into a structured form, giving the Sephirot a sense of structure. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the creation of the Clepha were said to be a result of something known as the Zimzum. In simple terms, this basically describes that God began the process of creation by using his infinite light to create space in which finite and independent realms could exist. This was a big shift from the worldview of medieval Kabbalah which often believed that creation resulted from God expanding its light into the universe. So in this new paradigm of thought, God began to fill each Sephirot with divine light, but it was so powerful that the spheres began to break open and flow over, causing all of the spheres from Binah down to Yesod to be shattered. The shards and husks of the broken tree cascaded into lower densities and created the Clepha. In some interpretations, human beings too are seen as sparks of light and are stuck inside Malchut, the lowest Sephirot, until we work our way back up to rejoin divine order. Through love and repentance, we can return to unity. Supposedly, when all the sparks are freed from the Clepha, the messianic era will begin and a new paradigm of love will be ushered in. Where exactly the Tree of Death is, is another interesting debate. As described before, some believe they are wrappings around the Sephirot and others see it as a dark reflection mirroring the Tree of Life underneath the tree. Following Lurianic thought, the shards of the Clepha are located actually inside of Malchut itself and represent our own physical journey to the higher realms.  As it's taught in Kabbalah, once your consciousness connects to a Clepha, its energies will flow into your life whether you want it to or not. And due to their volatile and extreme nature, they can potentially wreak havoc in your life if you aren't ready to assimilate the energy. One of our writers has known people whose lives have been destroyed and turned chaotic by these energies with people having lost jobs, broken up with partners and having drastic personality changes as a result. However, while this is one potent paradigm of thinking, we also must entertain the possibility that angels and demons are all around us anyways. As even modern science describes, there are many dimensions overlaid on top of us and in that case, it's really only about what frequency we're a match to. You might be familiar with the concept of shadow work, facing our own inner darkness in order to connect with the light. This is the essential nature and pattern of moving through the Clephote, a husk around an emanation of God in order to embody higher levels of divinity within us. As we explored in our episode on biology of belief, our paradigm of thinking will affect our experience directly. While the energies of darkness are intense and at times destructive, we should remember that destruction and chaos paves the way for rebirth and new growth, which is a vital part of creation. Even Jesus was said to have descended to hell, where he enlightened and liberated many souls there during his three days between his crucifixion and resurrection. And so you'll see, even as we explore these further in this very episode, many of the expressions of this tree we actually see in our society today, in that in order to embody light as a species, we have to face our own inner darkness. For us, our experience of the Clephote began while creating patched row. Personally, I felt it was necessary to understand these realms because they seem to be deeply relative to understanding tarot reversals, drawing the cards upside down in a spread, and doing so helped to solidify the reversal meaning, helping you to understand how to transmute these darker forces in life. So if you want to learn more about that specifically, we have a special video about how to utilize the tarot for life transformation, and you can find a link to that in the comments below. The realms of the Clephote are slightly different to the Sephirote, in that in most descriptions, there are numerous worlds of hell. Sheol, the Abyss, Zoharotachat, where Gehenna is located, Be'er shachat the Pit of Corruption, Shaare Maveth the Gates of Death, and Nashia, otherwise known as Limbo, where the Sephirote are ruled by archangels and populated with various types of angelic entities and orders that correspond to the nature of each sphere, the Clephote are believed to be inhabited by demons and other forms of negative entities thought to have been banished from the Tree of Life during the cleansing process. Each sphere, however, does match up and has a correspondence on each tree. As we touched on earlier in the series, Hebrew doesn't write its vowels, so sometimes there are different transliterations and owing to different traditions, the rulers of each Clepha are sometimes different, including the pronunciation of everything. Generally speaking, though, the system goes something like this. The first realm is Nehemoth, or sometimes Nama in her guise as the initiator. It means Whispers and is ruled by Nama, sister of Lilith. It contains all the energies that excite the mind and cause strange desires and corresponds to Malchut and worldly pleasures. Moving down, we go next to Gamaliel, the obscene one, which translates to pollution. Corresponding to Yesod, the Sephirote where boundless forms become matter, this Clepha rules over the misshapen and polluted images that produce misshapen results. On a more practical level, it relates to dreams and nightmares, specifically ones that linger and are never put into action.  We then come to Samael, the poison of God. Corresponding with Hode, Samael represents the barren desolation of a failed creation. The energies of this realm invoke insanity, doubt and disbelief in unity and are ruled by the peacock king, Adramalek. Opposite Samael is the realm of Arab Zarak, meaning something like Ravens of the Burning One. This realm corresponds to Netsak, where Netsak embodies openness and natural love. Zarak contains the dark feminine aspect of Venus that confronts you with perverse sexuality and warfare. The demons of this realm are the ravens of death who reject even their own being. Depending on tradition, it is either ruled by Baal Haddad or Tubal Kain, both warrior elites. Coming to the center, we have Tajirion, the realm of disputes. Related to grief and loss, this realm corresponds to Tifaret, where the Saphirot is a place of beauty and glory and the Christ-heart of all things.  Where Tifaret houses the luminous sun, Tajirion is illuminated by the black sun and is ruled by Belfagor, the demon of the dead whose energy embodies loneliness and loss. Moving upwards, we come to Golachab, the true realm of fire. This klifa corresponds to Gevara, so you just know this one is going to be full of nice and pretty things. Where Gevara embodies righteous strength and justice, Golachab is composed of things that burn to do destruction, enforce their will upon others through strength and domination. It is ruled by Asmodeus which is one of the most destructive realms described by Kabbalah. Opposite to Golachab, we find Gamchikov, sometimes known as Gagshibla, the devourer and smiter. Corresponding with Hesed, where ideas are brought into being from Bina and Hokma in a place filled with creations of truth, love and peace, Gamchikov is the realm of devouring which seeks to waste the substance and thought of creation. Destruction and overthrowing are often present here and are ruled by Astaroth. Sataryel resides in the first supernal triangle and is identified as concealment. Where Bina is a Saphira of revealing and formation, embodying the womb of creation for the Divine Feminine. Sataryel conceals the nature of the perfect whole and is arguably the sphere responsible for dualistic energies. The energies of this sphere bring concepts where truth is obscured and veiled in night. This realm is often described as looking like a dark labyrinth that the practitioner can easily get lost in. It is often said to be ruled by Lucifuge Rofacale, the dark twin of Lucifer. Opposite Sataryel is the realm of Gagiel, sometimes known as Haggedel, the hinderer and confusion of God. Corresponding to Hokma, this cleafa is wisdom taken to an then falsified. Its energies embody lying and material hedonism in opposition to those of reality and wisdom. Theoretically, if Hokma is not balanced by the force of Bina, it remains a proud, unrestricted energy too stubborn to be bound by the matrix of the mother, unwilling to take any sense of form. In which case, Haggedel can be thought of as the force that hinders the natural evolution of Divine energy flowing down into the creation through pride and egotism and maintains itself in the world of illusions and lies. It is a realm ruled by Beelzebub and Adam Belial, the lord of decay and the lord of lies. Reaching the crown of the cleaf we find Taumiel, the twin god. Taumiel represents duality whereas Keter represents unity. It is the division of that which is perfect only in unity. Some traditions argue that the entities of this sphere tried to invoke the energies of Aleph before being banished and now reject unity. It stands as the gateway to the wider universe beyond it and is ruled by the two kings, Moloch and Satan. And so, you can see the whole exploration of the Tree of Death, while many people may recoil in fear and disgust seems to be a very important conversation to be had. Today in society, the principles we are seeing the cleafoats stand are ever present in society.  It's something that must be addressed and thus it seems to be necessary to understand the demons that we are seeking to banish. Much like the Tree of Life, there is also an intricate system of pathways that describes the flow of energy between them. The sphere of Daat is also present on the cleafoat and fulfills the same role as on the Tree of Life. An abyss or void and serves to connect the two trees. While the traditional gates to the dark tree lies inside of Daat, deep within the abyss there are also ways to access its energies within Malkut. But that's something for our magic series coming down the road. Really, there's so much more to cover, but this should give you a basic introduction to the other side of the Tree of Life and serve to help you understand where everything exists in balance and correspondence with each other. And so with that, please keep learning and growing, and we'll all come to a fuller understanding together.