
The journey of the soul is central to the Mystical Qabalah. The Tree of Life provides a
Symbolic Cosmology path for spiritual ascent, often called the Path of the Serpent or the
journey of self-initiation. The aspirant begins at Malkuth, the Sephirah representing the physical, material world, and seeks to climb the Tree, integrating the energy and consciousness of each successive Sephirah. This is a process of inner alchemy—balancing the forces of mercy and severity within oneself, attaining higher wisdom, and ultimately achieving a state of cosmic consciousness or union with the divine (known as Union with God or crossing the Abyss). This is the ultimate goal of the Qabalistic mystic: to know the universe by
knowing the self, and to know the self by understanding its divine architecture.