What's the difference between the subtle planes and the summoning worlds?

Back in the day Ramos-Tavener wrote essays on the history of summoning, unfinished revised summoning rules, and the nature of the subtle planes. I've been consulting these for my own revisions to summoning for a more authentic Enochian system. In this post I'd like to touch on the subtle planes and the summoning worlds.

The US version was based on the first edition of the original French game. Subsequent editions of the French dramatically revised the cosmology (a brief recap of the 2e cosmology may be found here, but it doesn't account for 3e revisions). One thing that hasn't changed, however, is that the subtle planes and the summoning worlds remain distinct places. The subtle planes are the realms of human dreams and nightmares, Akashas and Anti-Lands, linked respectively to Solar-Ka and Black Moon-Ka. The summoning worlds are the source of the various creatures summoned by Kabbalah (the original French name for Summoning). Both can be visited by the PCs long before they reach Agartha, but there are different rules for doing so. Visiting the summoning worlds and being mentored by elemental sovereigns is a standard part of progression in Kabbalah. Third Circle Sorcery is the creation of an Elemental Realm within the astral, while Third Circle Anamorphosis is the creation of a Black Moon Realm, both adjacent to but somehow distinct from the subtle planes.

What makes this distinction weird is that the subtle planes, while contained within sheaths of Solar-Ka or Black Moon-Ka, are usually composed of Elemental Ka. It's possible to perform elemental magic there, and it's noted that in many cases it's difficult to distinguish an inhabitant of the Subtle Planes from an Elemental Creature (or "Dragon Effect" in the French). Indeed, Black Moon entities are born from deep within the Anti-Lands from where they pass into other planes and the mundane world. Why couldn't elemental summons be drawn from there too? Why are there these completely separate summoning worlds?

Ramos-Tavener didn't have the revised French lore to work from, but at the end of his essay he concluded that the subtle planes and the summoning worlds should be one and the same. Which I think is a helpful way to cut down on unnecessary conceptual space and better explain oddities in the cosmology. In a prior post I posted my ideas on revising the vague cosmology. However, I wrote that before I really started diving into the third edition, which gave me new food for thought. In a future post I'm going to revise my conception of the cosmology to reflect my new learning. But first I need to write a post explaining the third edition cosmology for comparison...

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