The third plane of the Tree of Life on the Right Pillar (the Pillar of Mercy) corresponds to Sephirah Chesed, the Sphere of Jupiter. Its place on this pillar aligns it with the active, expansive, and constructive forces that build form from the pure energy above. In Hebrew, Chesed (חֶסֶד) means ‘loving-kindness’ or ‘mercy’, naming the fundamental quality that flows down this vertical axis.

Position on the Tree of Life

As the third plane from the top and the first on the Right Pillar after the supernal triad, Chesed marks the initial descent of force into structured form. It sits directly below Chokmah on the same pillar, balancing the severity of Geburah (third plane, Left Pillar) and mediating between the transcendent wisdom above and the beauty of Tiphereth below. The Right Pillar is masculine, assertive, and enduring; the 3nd Plane at this step therefore embodies the sustaining power of mercy that upholds creation.

Astrological and planetary correspondence

The principal planetary attribution for this plane is Jupiter, whose astrological nature—expansion, benevolence, authority, and increase—perfectly matches the Chesedic character. In 777, Jupiter rules the fourth Sephirah and all that stands in this cell. The planetary square of Jupiter (4x4) reinforces the number four that governs this step: the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, the four worlds, the four suits of the Tarot, and the stability of the cube.

Historical context

The identification of the third plane with the Right Pillar and Chesed appears explicitly in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s veiled formulations of the Tree of Life. Mathers’s diagram of the ten Sephiroth in their three pillars places Chesed squarely on the Right Pillar, leveling it numerically against Binah on the Left Pillar and Tiphereth on the Middle Pillar. In the Zoharic tradition, the Right Pillar is called kav ha-chesed (the line of mercy), and it is through this channel that the divine abundance (shefa) flows into the lower worlds. Crowley’s Liber 777 systematizes these correspondences table by table, so that at row XII.*, step 4, the entry reads “3nd Plane, Right Pillar” as a fixed coordinate for practical magical reference.

In the table

In the table, this cell names the Tree of Life coordinate for Chesed: the third plane counting downward, positioned on the Right Pillar. Its sibling cells—the second plane on the Right Pillar (Chokmah), the fifth plane on the Right Pillar (Netzach), and the third plane on the Left Pillar (Geburah)—define the full pillar-and-plane grid. Thus “3nd Plane, Right Pillar” is not a description of Chesed but its exact location in the glyph, serving the cataloguer and the magician as a fixed spatial reference for all the correspondences gathered under the fourth Sephirah.