The Orrery of Worlds and the Tree of Life: The Kabbalistic Concepts behind DC’s Multiverse
“A spectacular story that is sure to become a classic,” boasted the cover of THE FLASH #123 (cover dated September 1961). This single issue, created by Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, and Julius Schwartz, planted the seed that grew into one of DC Comics’ most famous narrative tools: the multiverse. In it, Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash, met his progenitor: Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. The story revealed that Allen and Garrick lived on two separate worlds, separated only by the wavelength of their vibrations. Later, these two worlds were named Earth One and Earth Two, which admittedly must have stung for the inhabitants of the latter.
Nowadays, DC has an Omniverse, filled with multiverses, each filled with universes. The fractal structure of the DC fictional worlds has changed constantly, in events known as “Crises”. The most complete description, however, came in 2014, when, as part of the limited series THE MULTIVERSITY, Grant Morrison and a slew of artists too long to list created “THE MULTIVERSITY GUIDEBOOK.” The most enduring element of this 80-page special was a two-page diagram: a map of the multiverse, incorporating elements from various stories such as SANDMAN, JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, various alternate universe tales, and, of course, that 1961 tale FLASH OF TWO WORLDS.
In this piece, designed by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes, we see a series of worlds, represented as spheres arranged in a specific design. There’s also a hierarchy at play here — taking the concept of each world vibrating at a different frequency further, we see that the Orrery of Worlds — the multiverse as we know it, with the main DC Universe at the centre — are actually at the bottom rung. The highest wavelength, the lowest energy. As we move ‘upwards’ to higher energies, from red to violet, we see worlds move from the corporeal and tangible to the esoteric and abstract, until we reach the Source Wall, beyond which lies the infinite and the Unknowable. “Ein Sof”, as Kabbalists would describe it.
In many senses, this cartographic curio is a modernised, explicitly fictional homage to the Tree of Life, a well-known diagram (or diagrams, more accurately, as various iterations exist) central to many mystical traditions. Most famously connected with the mystical tradition of Kabbalah, the Tree of Life is a network of spheres with specific relationships to one another. Each node is connected to specific other nodes, and each connection and placement is deliberate and filled with nuance and meaning. Each sphere, as in the multiversal map, represents a “world”, though that word doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing here. Kabbalists refer to these worlds as “sefirot”, emanations of Ein Sof, the Infinite, and as we move down the tree we move from the divine to the physical. It has been used in various traditions to explain the structure and history of the universe, as well as the human psyche. We also see the concept of ‘tzimtzum’ at play, the idea of Ein Sof contracting to create the first world, and within the first world contracting to create the second, and so on, as we see the Orrery of Worlds embedded within the Sphere of the Gods, embedded within the Monitor Sphere, all located within that infinite void.
It’s clear, then, that the structure of this given structure of the DC Multiverse has plenty of inspiration from Kabbalistic tradition, as discussed in the context of FINAL CRISIS previously. We see an unknowable, infinite entity at the top (either The Source, The Monitor, or Ein Sof), and as we descend, we pass by divine worlds such as Heaven until we reach the terrestrial worlds of humanity.
Of course, there’s more to it than that. Just as the virtuous Superman of Earth 0 has the sinful Ultraman of Earth 3, just as light has darkness, the sefirot have the klippot. These husks, as per the literal translation, are polar opposites of the sefirot. The evil, the impure emanations, and far from being separated from the sefirot, they are described as shells which cover and obscure the holy sefirot. Just as a peel on a fruit, they cover these worlds, providing concealment and, depending on interpretation, even some protection. As we know from the discussion on Morrison’s previous multiversal work, FINAL CRISIS, there is a symmetry here too in the DC Multiverse.
In FINAL CRISIS, we are introduced to the Orrery of Worlds, an inverted pyramid of alternate Earths which make up the DC Multiverse. As the name suggests, however, this set-up is not completely natural: the monitor-race have caged it and, initially unknowingly, feed off of it. The Monitor’s offspring, sired from its feeling of impurity after Its first contact with the terrestrial worlds, have caged these worlds. “There are no dualities, only symmetries”, states Captain Adam, and here we see another one: just as we see the positive concepts of Kabbalah reflected in the DC Multiverse, we also see the negative and impure.
A key thing to note, however, is that the multiverse as presented by Morrison in MULTIVERSITY and in FINAL CRISIS is not one created ex nihilo — at least not intentionally. Like crystals that nucleate and grow within solution, the worlds of the Orrery are said to have grown in the bleed, and the infinite mind, here The Monitor, is not necessarily pleased by this development.
Perhaps, then, The Monitor is not best described as a representation of Ein Sof, but of Ayin — nothingness. As Kabbalist Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi put it:
“AYIN means No-Thing. AYIN is beyond Existence, separate from any-thing. AYIN is Absolute Nothing. AYIN is not above or below. Neither is AYIN still or in motion. There is nowhere where AYIN is, for AYIN is not. AYIN is soundless, but neither is it silence. Nor is AYIN a void — and yet out of the zero of AYIN’S no-thingness comes the one of EIN SOF.”
Of course, Morrison themself has explained their presentation of The Monitor in an interview with IGN, and while it doesn’t use the Kabbalist terms, the ideas line up:
“What happens if the page is a bit pissed off at the story that’s drawn on it? So I thought of the page as God. The idea being that the Overvoid — as we called it in FINAL CRISIS — of the white page as a space is sort of God.”
It’s therefore clear that the conception of the DC Multiverse as described by Grant Morrison and their collaborators reflects the Kabbalist concepts of tzimtzum, Ein Sof, ayin, sefirot, klippot, and the Tree of Life. Deciding to what degree this is deliberate, accidental, or coincidental is beyond the scope of this piece — Grant Morrison, if you read this, I’d love to chat about it!
After the 2017–2018 story DARK NIGHTS: METAL and its sequel DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL, we’ve since seen the concept of the multiverse expanded. Now there is a “Dark Multiverse”, referred to as “the other side of the map” in a revelation so silly it arguably crossed over into ingenious. Another symmetry of impurity, then. And of course, as MULTIVERSITY itself suggested, DEATH METAL confirmed it: there are multiple multiverses, all living in an “Omniverse”. Described as the “Infinite Frontier”, the stage is set for a variety of new stories to tell in this set-up — until the next Crisis, of course.
