>>1184702
Basically the well known version religions has closeness to God being a binary. You are either with God or not and everyone more or less has the same level of connection.

Kabbalah, but also Gnostism, Neoplatoism, and Hermetism have a hierarchy. Each step in the hierarchy focuses on different sacred wisdom/Gnosis and puts you on a different plane. Mastery of one plane allows you to move up to the next. So both people can both be with God but one will be on a much higher spiritual rank. If you reach the end you might become an angel, an aeon, or completely merge with God.

>>1184702
Like, the tree of life in the indo-European tradition? In India it's the lotus, in semetic religions it's the tree of knowledge, in Germanic religions it's yggdrasil (Charlemagne physically destroyed the saxon one). I think it might stem from the fact that humans used to give birth in hollow baobab trees where they evolved. They got pretty much all they needed from that one tree.

>>1185027
The Tree of Life as depicted in the Kabbalah.

Religion as a whole is just one big meme.

>>1185146
>Humankind as a whole is just one big meme.

>>1184702

Kircher Tree, drawn by a Jesuit, Read Sephir Yetzirah, S. Bahir, nothing like this is ever described. The connecting paths are arranged differently than the Zohar, which only has one path from Malkut to Yesud.

In Mesopotamian myth it is associated with the Ram in the Thicket motif of sacrificial cults that would later become the Yahwist traditions of Jerusalem and the Zerubbabel temple, but it isn't anything like Judaism other than some taboos and circumcision.

Polar shamanic cultures have a tree of 3 levels, Norse myth Yggdrissal, Rhine Valley culture the Irminsiul and the like have something similar.

Indo-Iranian cosmologies have a tree at the top of the World Mountain.

Gilgamesh gets a flower of Immortality from the bottom of the sea.