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Qabalah seems to work fine when operating under these assumptions, but for my own part I tend to interpret the system differently: rather than viewing it hierarchically as a structure with a top and bottom, I see it as a map or circuit-diagram that connects two remote points (Ultimate God and the world of Matter) by the shortest possible route. The energy can flow either way, and the structure itself has no preference. Generally, we tend to think of the moon as being above the earth and the sun as being above that (or, in Qabalah, of Yesod being above Malkuth, with Tiphareth above them both), but, in actuality, there is no "up" or "down" in space, nor, I believe, in the structure of the Otz Chum. If Kether is seen as special for being the ultimate source and godhead of the process that is the Universe, then Malkuth at the opposite end is also Seen as special for being the ultimate manifestation of that initial divine explosion. Neither is higher or more important than the other.

Another thing worth remembering is that the Tree of Life arrangement is seen both as a conceptual map of the entire existence and as a map of the individual human soul, the latter being a microcosm of the former. In that sense, every individual has the entirety of the Tree within themselves and the potential to experience it, even though the vast majority may never stir themselves to do so (Inertia being the vice of Malkuth). This is an important point and one which seems to match with some of my own more extreme impressions during these episodes: the most peculiar entities that I believe myself to have encountered, including presences which appeared to be genuine Gods, have seemed to me to be at once utterly alien or Other, and at the same time have seemed to be a part of myself Now, the rationalist view of all magical encounters is probably that all apparent entities are in fact externalised projections of parts of the self. I have no big argument with that, except that I'd hold the converse to be true as well: we are at the same time extemalised projections of them. In one sense, the simplest viewpoint might be to accept that all manifestations, ourselves included, are simply different stages of the unfolding of one multi-dimensional being into form.

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