Kabbalah is Key?

[soft shoal]

I don't know if people have really looked into it in reference to the game but there's many examples of kabbalah similarities.

Like how there are 11 orbs of true knowledge, and in kabbalah there are 11 sephiroth that represent the universe, and the path divine energy takes from the Ein Sof to the physical world.

Kabbalah and alchemy have parallels as well with the philisophers stone being represented by the Rebis an androgynous fusion of man and woman similar to Adam Kadmon.

And in kabbalah numbers are important.

[azure oxide]

10 sefirot. Da'ath is the state of union of the 10, and not included as one of the set in ... I would go so far to say most informed perspectives. Besides which, your count is not correct. 12 Orbs.

[soft shoal]

The greater orb?

[azure oxide]

Yeah. Twelve a world.

I grant that it is fully arguable if it should be counted, but had to bring it up.

...If it is kaballistic, even if we iscount chest orbs, we also have to account for why corrupt orbs are present in numbers twice as high as true.

I can think of only one argument; Thaumiel.

But it is an odd interpretation of thaumiel to multiply the orbs.

Please don't misunderstand me bringnig this up as lack of support, I fuckin love Kaballah motifs and the whole conceptual structure of Kaballah and Qliphot. They're so freaking cool. I love it when works incorporate them, agree that alchemists would probably have been conversant statistically speaking more than a random sample of erudite people in antique europe. It would be awesome to see it in Noita. I had an idea that the Orb locations might have been sephirotic, but the map doesn't support it, but I like the idea so much I actively look for it too.

Just playing sceptic because someone has to for things like this where there's a puzzle with a definite answer vs an ergodic void you can paint interpretations onto.

[soft shoal]

There are 22 paths through the sephirotic tree as for the orbs, correct me if im wrong but aren't three of the orbs not in pedestals, the one under the lake, atop the pyramid, and under the altar. Though the 11 orbs to the ten sefiroth is still an issue, not counting the chest orb of course.

[azure oxide]

Good catch re pathcount!!! Never thought of that.

Summing it up so far.

Corrupt Orb Count = Pathcount of ToL
True Orbs - 11 or 12 count depending.
3 Orbs got moved.

Taking a look at moved orbs...

No. Neither structure matches the layout of the Tree of Life in either of the two usual models of layout.

...ignoring that for a moment.

If we want to keep pushing the interpretation, we may also need to find some correspondences, somewhere, to Ein, Ein Soph, and Ein Soph Aur. Those, for anyone reading, are the three "layers" that the kaballah is embedded in. Very roughly. Similarly roughly: Ein is nothingness; Ein Soph is infinity (the infinite nature of god) in that nothingness. Ein Soph Aur is the infinite light (of god, which is itself also god) that is then filtered and shaped through the kaballah's sefirot to produce (ultimately) the Kingdom (malkuth, the tenth Sefirot) that implements the materia world, and also, the Qliphoth, which seen from a semitic take, are (roughly) things like human beings that simultaneously are god and are not god (in that people are people who in themselves are not the godhead RPing personhood to themselves, but actual people (who are also the godhead RPing to itself in a technical sense, but not a meaningful one for any sort of model.).

[boreal charm]

I mean the Tria Prima is a very close to the Idea of Ein, Ein Soph, and Ein Soph Aur. Salt represents the body, mercury represents the mind according to yungian philosophy, but in classical christian alchemy, it represents the bridge between body and soul, or between man and creator, pretty much divinity, and sulfur is representation of the soul. Now the thing is is there is a definite connection between the two, because back in the olden days Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa wrote an influencial book called De Occulta Philosophia, which tried merging the Kabbalah and Hermeticism, and was considered pretty successful at doing so, considering how far that branch of Hermeticism spread.

[stray axle]

Agrippa did not invent the hermetic qabalah as much as he popularized it, and a lot has been discovered since then. if the qabalah is a key I assure you it will probably be that of the golden dawn or BOTA, etc.. It is the perfect system.

IE hermetic qabalah, that of the rosicrucians, who were the alchemists.

[stray axle]

Obvious answer is that the corrupted orbs are going to have something to do with the kelipoth right?

So one thing to keep in mind is that even tho the tree of life itself is divided into 22 paths and ten sephiroth plus the three veils of negative existence, most magickal orders treat this as a (mostly( linear progression meaning you can be assigned a degree that is attributed to a path or a sphere. But, that isn't always the case. The most known example is in the golden dawn or thelemic ordo A.'.A.'. of the "exempt adept" which basically constitutes skipping certain things through demonstrable inherent knowledge. I'm not sure if that could constitute being something apart but it's worth mentioning. Also the enochian Aethyrs. They can be plotted on the tree of life, how I am not able to tell you. You have the serpent, and its scales, and you have the sword, and you have the lightning flash.

Sorry for throwing it all into the pot but I want us to know what it means.