Four Worlds

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Four Worlds." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/categories/four-worlds.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Four Worlds. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/categories/four-worlds

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-four-worlds,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Four Worlds},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/categories/four-worlds},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The four worlds of Kabbalah, Atziluth (emanation), Beriah (creation), Yetzirah (formation) and Assiah (action), are the descending levels through which the divine light is held to pass into the material world. Each contains a complete Tree of Life, and each is assigned a letter of the Tetragrammaton, a colour scale and a class of angelic beings. The scheme is set out in medieval and later Kabbalistic literature and is central to Golden Dawn practice.

Facts

Origins

Whose Classification This Isthe subject's own account

The elemental, tarot-suit and colour-scale attributions given to the four worlds are the Golden Dawn's (1888-1900), not medieval Kabbalah. 2Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888-1900)

Whose Classification This Is

The four worlds are a Kabbalistic scheme of emanation set out in medieval and later Jewish sources: Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiah. The Hebrew names are the whole of the scheme, and it is unrelated to the four worlds of several Indigenous North American cosmologies. 1Jewish Kabbalah

Contested Use

Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

A reader arriving from a different tradition should note that these four worlds are Kabbalistic and Hebrew. The phrase four worlds also names cosmological schemes in several Indigenous North American traditions, which have no connection with this one. 1

Overview

Size of the Traditional Set

Four worlds 1

Structure

Four descending worlds - Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah, Assiah - each said to contain a complete Tree of Life, so that the ten sephiroth repeat at every level, and each correlated with a letter of the Tetragrammaton. 1

Learn More

The Four Worlds of Emanation

The four worlds of Kabbalah, Atziluth (emanation), Beriah (creation), Yetzirah (formation) and Assiah (action), are the descending levels through which the divine light passes on its way into the material world. Atziluth is the world of pure divinity, Beriah of the archangels and the throne, Yetzirah of the angels and formation, and Assiah of action and the physical.

Each world is said to contain a complete Tree of Life, so that the ten sephiroth are repeated at every level, and the worlds are correlated with the letters of the divine name and with the parts of the soul.

A ladder of reality

The four worlds give Kabbalah a graded model of reality, from the most subtle and divine to the most dense and material, down which creation descends and up which the soul and the mystic may ascend. The Golden Dawn used the four worlds, with their Trees and colour scales, as a key part of its system of correspondences.

The atlas gives each world its rank, its inhabitants, and its correspondences. The sephiroth repeated in each world, and the parts of the soul correlated with them, are treated in their own categories under Kabbalah & the Tree of Life.

Cross-Tradition Connections