Sitra Achra (סטרא אחרא): The Other Side.
Mirroring and opposing divine creation but populated by empty husks.
Sitra Achra is fuelled by human transgression, illustrated by Adam’s primordial sin. The realm of impurity and evil in kabbalistic cosmology, opposing the side of holiness.
Sitra Achra, the realm of impurity and evil opposing divine holiness, emerges in the Zohar (c.1100 CE) as a fundamental principle of kabbalistic cosmology. The Zohar establishes the concept’s essential ontology, describing the Other Side as possessing an internal masculine-feminine polarity—Samael and his consort Lilith—that mirrors the structure of the sefirot while remaining fundamentally opposed to holiness.
In the Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah, and Hermetic Qabalah, the qlippoth (Hebrew: קְלִיפּוֹת, romanized: qəlippōṯ, lit. “peels”, “shells”, or “husks”, sg. קְלִפָּה qəlippā; originally, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: קְלִיפִּין, romanized: qəlippin) are the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the opposites of the sefirot. The realm of evil is called Sitra Achra (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: סִטְרָא אַחְרָא, romanized: siṭrā ʾaḥrā, lit. ‘the Other Side‘) in Kabbalistic texts.