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The World of Asiyah is the final or created reality, and includes not only matter but also the lower psyche and the negative forces or "husks" of creation, called klippot. In other words, it includes both physical and occult realities, both being equally considered part of this "lower" World, both equally separate from the Source. An interesting reference to the lower psychic worlds of Asiah is to be found in Luria's disciple's Hayim Vital's account of the angels of the world of Asiah, the world of Making (not, as is often translated, of Action): |
"Since this is the lowest of the universes, its angels have only a little good, and are mostly evil. ...(T)his is a level where good and evil are closely intertwined. This does not bring any enlightenment, since it is impossible to perceive good alone, and one's perception is therefore a combination of good and evil, truth and falsehood."
[Quoted in Kaplan, Meditatation and Kabbalah, p.40]
Sri Aurobindo says almost exactly the same thing concerning what he calls the "Intermediate zone". In a more positive light though, Asiyah is also conceived as the spiritual archetype of the world of the senses [Scholem, Main Currents in Jewish Mysticism, p.272]; the equivalent to the etheric plane of Theosophy and Anthroposophy.
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page uploaded 12 November 1998