Detail from "Silent Sound"

"The first 'sephira' above malkuth, the world of matter, or lowest plane upon that tree of life which is formed by the ten emanations of the godhead, is, they say, 'yesod,' the 'archetypal universe.' In this are contained the realities, patterns, or ideas, whose shadows constitute the world of appearance in which we dwell. The path of the ascending soul upon the tree of life leads him first from malkuth to yesod: i.e., human consciousness in the course of its transcendence passes from the normal illusions of men to a deeper perception of its environment, symbolized by the archetypal plane, or world of Platonic ideas."