Dominions of the Hierarchies
The Dominions of the Hierarchies from the Angels up to the Thrones are the planetary spheres in ascending order, if the geocentric Ptolemaic system is taken as a basis. They overlap with the Dominions of the Archangels, which are also assigned to the planetary spheres. The highest hierarchies, the Cherubim and Seraphim, have the whole zodiac as their field of activity. Man, as the tenth hierarchy, has the Earth as his domain during his earthly life. In the life between death and a new birth he wanders through all the planetary spheres up to the zodiac, first ascending, then descending again.
In detail, the following assignment results, which is based on the occult order of the planets, which is based on the sidereal periods and not on the spatial distances of the celestial bodies, which in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages could not be determined with sufficient accuracy and could only be deduced indirectly. Later, Nicolaus Copernicus, the new founder of the heliocentric world view, also pointed out this problem in his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
The following occult sequence results from the planetary rhythms: Moon (27.3 days) - Mercury (88 days) - Venus (224.7 days) - Sun (365.25 days = 1 year) - Mars (687 days) - Jupiter (4332.6 days = approx. 12 years) - Saturn (10759.2 days = approx. 30 years). If one translates this purely temporal order into a spatial scheme for illustration purposes, Mercury and Venus appear to be reversed in their spatial order compared to the arrangement given in today's astronomy, but that Mercury in the occult sense nevertheless corresponds exactly to the planet that is also called Mercury today, and the same then naturally applies to Venus. Otherwise, due to the loops of the planetary orbits observed from the geocentric point of view, one would have to speak of a Mercury pentagram and a Venus hexagram, which, however, does not correspond to the facts. That the occult order is very well justified from a spiritual point of view is shown by the effects of the planetary rhythms in the human being and in nature. This temporal-rhythmic order is also reflected in the dominions of the hierarchies. The spatial distances of the planets play no role in this.
„Herewith the present physical system is drawn, only a point of time is chosen where, when the Earth, Mercury and Venus are on one side of the Sun, the other planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are on the other. That is what is drawn here, nothing more. Here is Earth, Mercury, Venus, and on the other side of the Sun Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. So it is only a change of perspective. This system is quite conceivable, but only if this constellation is there. It was actually there at a time when above Saturn were the twins. It was then possible to observe clairvoyantly and particularly well the dominion of the spiritual hierarchies. It became apparent that the sphere of the angels was all around the earth as far as the moon. Really, if one does not take the physical system as a basis, but this peculiar constellation, then around the earth is the circle of the angels up to the moon, then further up to Mercury the circle of the archangels, then up to Venus the circle of the spirits of personality, up to the sun first the circle of the powers or exusiai or spirits of form; then comes the circle, as I characterised it yesterday, of the virtutes or powers, then the circle of the dominions and then that of the thrones (see drawing p. 103).“ (Lit.:GA 110, p. 102)
Literature
- Rudolf Steiner: Geistige Hierarchien und ihre Widerspiegelung in der physischen Welt, GA 110 (1991), ISBN 3-7274-1100-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, V, GA 346 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-3460-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
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