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[Alexandr Korol]

and there too are three worlds. Here they are, the nine worlds, in essence, three each. Do you understand? And the most important — the central, from there it goes, that is, from this center God still manifests into the dimensions to the left and to the right. Do you understand? From this middle world.

“In the Quran it is called Sidrat al-Muntaha, the lotus of the utmost limit. This immense tree above the seventh heaven is the highest boundary for those who ascend from the earth and for the one who descends from Allah. In Kabbalah the world tree is also spoken of: ‘Manifold and gathering — this is the high tree, the greatest of all. From what place did it come forth, from what level did it arise? Again the source indicates to us from Mekabtzel, for it is the highest level, hidden, which no one has seen. Everything is in it, it gathers within itself all the highest light, and everything proceeds from it.’ In this passage it is meant that the tree is the highest level of knowledge for the beings of our world. With it is connected the final correction — gmar tikkun, the complete correction of all properties in the final state of the universe. The world tree, connecting the Upper and Lower world, is present in the cosmological myths of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago.”

Also in Slavic tradition: “the world tree, the tree of life, in Slavic mythology the world axis and the symbol of the universe as a whole. The crown of the world tree reaches the heavens, the roots, at which flows the sacred spring, — this is the underworld. The trunk and branches organize the earthly space. The world tree embodies not only spatial but also temporal coordinates, as is testified by the motifs of koliadki, where the world tree turns into a road during the main calendrical New Year festival. In a Russian riddle: ‘There stands an oak, on the oak twelve branches, on each branch four nests...’ — it speaks of the year, twelve months, four weeks, and so on. In incantations the world tree is placed at the center of the world, on an island in the midst of the ocean, the Navel of the Sea, where upon a stone-altar stands a steel oak or a sacred tree — yew, birch (in particular, inverted with roots upward), apple, sycamore and others. Upon the world tree of life in the apocrypha rests the Lord himself when he enters paradise. In the Slavic ‘Book of Enoch’ in the incantations dwell Jesus Christ and the Holy Mother of God, Archangel Michael, Prophet Elijah, George,