Alan Bain’s Thirty Two Paths of Wisdom

In the Kabbalah, the Thirty Two Paths of Wisdom are usually understood to be the ten sephiroth and the 22 paths between them on the Tree of Life diagram. However, there are different interpretations, and this article outlines the scheme developed by Alan Bain in his book The Keys to Kabbalah.

The Thirty Two Paths

The Sepher Yetzirah, one of the primary texts of the Kabbalah, opens with a reference to “Thirty two miraculous paths of Wisdom” which by implication are the ten sephiroth and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, although there is no direct reference in the rest of the text.

There is however an appendix found on some manuscripts of the Sepher Yetzirah, which explicitly describes the thirty two paths as a series of different types of ‘intelligences’ – for example, the Tenth Path is called the Resplendent Intelligence. This appendix is later than the Sepher Yetzirah itself [1].

The Extended Tree

The extended tree (also called Jacob’s ladder) is an interlocking form of the Tree of Life where trees in the four worlds are shown as overlapping, so that for example the tree in the world of formation, Yetzirah, has its base in the sephira Tiphereth in the material world of Assiah. The extended tree was first publicly presented in Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi’s books published in the early 1970s.

Showing how the tree in each of the four worlds overlap to make the extended tree.

Alan Bain’s Arrangement of the Thirty Two Paths

Alan links the first three paths of wisdom to the veils of negative existence: Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur. The remaining 29 paths are linked to the sephiroth on the extended tree in the order of the descending lightning flash, as illustrated in the diagram below:

Example

To take an example: the 16^th path, which is described as “The Triumphant and Eternal Intelligence. The delight of glory. The paradise of pleasure prepared for the just,” corresponds to the sephira which is at once:

Malkuth of Atziluth (the base of the divine world)

Tiphareth of Briah (the heart of the creative world), and

Kether of Yetzirah (the crown of the world of formation).

The full list is given below [3].

Greater Sephiroth

In addition to this arrangement of the 32 paths, Alan also treated the sephiroth on the central pillar as centres of ‘greater sephiroth’. These are shown as circles on the extended tree diagram above. So for example, the 16^th path is at the centre of the greater sephira of Geburah, which also incorporates paths 13, 14, 15, 17 18 and 19.

The full list of greater sephiroth is given below [2].

---

Notes:

[1] The Thirty Two Paths of Wisdom probably dates from the Gaonic period (7th-10th centuries), later than the Sepher Yetzirah itself (which is perhaps 200 C.E.). In the Western tradition, it seems to originate as an appendix to a Hebrew version of the Sepher Yetzirah by Joannes Stephanus Rittangelius in 1642. William  Wynn Wescott’s translation is here: http://hermetic.com/texts/yetzirah.html, but Alan Bain used A E Waite’s translation given in his book The Holy Kabbalah.

[2] The full list of the Greater Sephiroth is as follows:

Path	Greater Sephira
4	Kether
7	‘Hokma
10	Binah
13	‘Hesed
16	Geburah
19	Tiphareth
22	Netzatch
25	Hod
28	Yesod
31	Malkuth

[3] The full list of the 32 paths is as follows:

Path	Intelligence	Location
1	Admirable Intelligence	Ain
2	Illuminating Intelligence	Ain Soph
3	Sanctifying Intelligence	Ain Soph Aur
4	Arresting or Receiving Intelligence	Kether in Atziluth
5	Radical Intelligence	‘Hokma in Atziluth
6	Mediating Intelligence	Binah in Atziluth
7	Hidden Intelligence	Daath in Atziluth
8	Perfect and Absolute Intelligence	‘Hesed in Atziluth
9	Purified Intelligence	Geburah in Atziluth
10	Resplendent Intelligence	Tiphareth in Atziluth, Kether in Briah
11	Fiery Intelligence	Netzach in Atziluth, ‘Hokma in Briah
12	Intelligence  of Light	Hod in Atziluth, Binah in Briah
13	Inductive Intelligence	Yesod in Atziluth, Daath in Briah
14	Instituting Intelligence	‘Hesed in Briah
15	Constituting Intelligence	Geburah in Briah
16	Triumphant and Eternal Intelligence	Malkuth in Atziluth,  Tiphareth in Briah, Kether in Yetzirah
17	Disposing Intelligence	Netzach in Briah, ‘Hokma in Yetzirah
18	Intelligence of the House of Influence	Hod in Briah, Binah in Yetzirah
19	Secret Intelligence	Yesod in Briah, Daath Yetzirah
20	Intelligence of Will	‘Hesed in Yetzirah
21	Rewarding Intelligence	Geburah in Yetzirah
22	Faithful Intelligence	Malkuth in Briah, Tiphareth in Yetzirah, Kether in Assiah
23	Stable Intelligence	Netzatch in Yetzirah, ‘Hokma in Assiah
24	Imaginative Intelligence	Hod in Yetzirah, Geburah in Assiah
25	Intelligence  of Temptation or Trial	Yesod in Yetzirah, Daath in Assiah
26	Renewing Intelligence	‘Hesed in Assiah
27	Natural Intelligence	Geburah in Assiah
28	Active Intelligence	Malkuth in Yetzirah, Tiphareth in Assiah
29	Corporeal Intelligence	Netzach in Assiah
30	Collective Intelligence	Hod in Assiah
31	Perpetual Intelligence	Yesod in Assiah
32	Assisting Intelligence	Malkuth in Assiah