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Suhrawardi - Book of Oriental Theosophy - The double barzakh
Identifier
002803
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Shihabudin Yahya Suhrawardi – Book of Oriental Theosophy; comment by Qutbuddin Shirazi [translated by Henry Corbin and Nancy Pearson
The double barzakh constitutes the third universe; ……….. It is divided into the world of the Celestial spheres with the astral bodies they enclose, and the world of the Elements with their compounds.
The Fourth Universe is the world of the active Imagination; this is an immense world, infinite, whose creatures are in a term for term correspondence with those enclosed by the sensory world………….
It is to this last world that the sages of old referred when they say that there exists a world having dimensions and extent other than the material sensible world. Infinite are its marvels, countless its cities…….
This world corresponds to the sensory world; its imaginative celestial spheres are in perpetual movement; its elements and their compounds receive from Hurqalya the influx and at the same time the illuminations of the intelligible worlds. It is there that the various kinds of autonomous archetypal Images are infinitely realised, forming a hierarchy of degrees varying according to their relative subtlety or density. The individuals peopling each degree are infinite, although the degrees themselves are finite in number