Overview of the spiritual hierarchies

From Anthroposophy

As an general positioning and introduction to the study of the spiritual hierarchies, please read the section on the topic page Cosmic fractal.

Below follows a copy (shortened extract):

The Cosmic fractal is a term to describe the evolutionary dynamic of continuous development of spiritual hierarchies in a coordinated interplay in which nothing is static, all spiritual entities are evolving and developing, and the whole takes place along a certain plan and with certain laws or patterns which characterize the whole, and through which we can gain an appreciation, understanding, insight into creation and the true nature of the cosmos.

With our contemporary Waking consciousness, Man perceives with his senses an emanation of a physical reality, which is but an illusionary view of the macroscopic manifestation of a 'cosmic fractal' underneath which is generating this reality. This is sometimes also referred to by the term 'maya'.

It is not that the 'cosmic fractal' is 'rendering' this illusionary view, rather it is Man's sensory perception and limited consciousness that causes him only to see part of the whole, and not the 'full story' of the spiritual realities, the way these can be perceived by the various stages of clairvoyance. Our waking consciousness is like a 'bandpass' filter limiting our view of the whole.

The buildup or make up of it all consists of spiritual hierarchies in various stages of development, with different structures across the various Planes or worlds of consciousness.

Rhythm in Man and nature is a display of the structures underlying (see oa 25920, Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods, ..) and shows how Man as a microcosmos is an integral part of the macrocosmos, embedded in this complex whole of Cosmic breathing.

The deeper one studies the qualities and dynamics of the substance of reality in the language of spiritual science, the closer it brings Man to the spiritual hierarchies.

This is how Man can get to know them, not individually, but as the concerted interplay - like the manifold instruments that are individually lost but still make up the global sound effect on the soul in a performance of a complex classical symphony.

From the above follows that to study the spiritual hierarchies is extremely complicated with our current faculty of intellectual thinking, because we can not split one hiearchy from another and thereby get to know it, before we move to the next. Actually the whole of the cosmic fractal needs to be considered together, because all hierarchies are so intertwined and part of eachother, and they all work together simultaneously .. that we can only get to know them indirectly by their role and contribution in the whole.

A way to illustrate that is to listen to music sample Music#FMC-MS0001, and listen to this first as a whole, and then as a sum of interplay of voices.

Rudolf Steiner thus describes the characteristics of each hierarchy as appearing in the multitude of aspects described in spiritual science. However one cannot just group all these and then use them as a sort of definition or study book, because the descriptions only make sense in context and as part of the greater whole that is described.

Aspects

Inspirational quotes

1923-05-02-GA224

(see also Schema FMC00.305 and Cosmic fractal)

.. reality is living activity, inwardly full and rich; and in this activity the spiritual beings of the cosmos, in realm's of body, soul, and spirit, are revealed. In the end one comes always to spiritual beings.

To beings one must come at last in all understanding of the world. For spiritual beings alone are real.

Anything comes into existence only through the cooperation of beings — presenting then an unreal appearance to unclear vision. Just as in the unreal grey cloud the gnats are the real, particular beings — everywhere in the world it is particular beings that are at work, and the rest is illusion, arising from the co-existence of beings.

Illustrations


Schema FMC00.273 provides an overview of terminology used in various teachings for the spiritual hierarchies.

FMC00.273.jpg

Schema FMC00.305 gives a very simple 'four level view' for studying anything we know in the world or cosmos. Starting at the highest level of experiential observation, we can study the structural components of a kingdom of nature, be it Man, Plant, Animal or Mineral. These bodily principles and subsystems are the result of the wise collaborative weaving of the spiritual hierarchies throughout the evolutionary process, using the available building materials or substance available at each stage. See also Cosmic fractal.

FMC00.305.jpg

Schema FMC00.274 sketches a functional view on how we can imagine the work of the first and second spiritual hierarchy in what we call the cosmos or the world of the stars and planetary systems.

FMC00.274.jpg

Schema FMC00.472 illustrates the relationship of Man to the third hierarchy of angels, archangels and archai, and the Spirits of Form. The concept diagram provides links to various processes on other topic pages through the Schema references given.

See oa: Man's bodily principles, Development of the I, Jehovah, Group souls of humanity, Monad, Three meetings, Structure of Man between death and a new birth, Man's transformation and spiritualization

FMC00.472.jpg

Schema FMC00.483 illustrates the relationship of the SoF to mankind in the development over the planetary stages of evolution, as explained in 1908-02-29-GA102, and extrapolates this to the third hierarchy below the SoF. In yellow is the bodily principle that is 'shining' or 'radiating down' as the principle below (in grey) gets sacrificed and let go (spiritualized). Below, the human being and humanity 'shines', can be seen, in the physical world: mankind lives and acts in the physical. Similary, the archangels live in the astral world, in Man those are the astral body and spirit-self (or manas) - as explained in 1910-06-09-GA121 and 1923-04-06-GA224. This is essential to imagine concepts such as folk soul or archangel Michael.

In this representation, the bodily principles for each hierarchy are 'counted' as relating to the seven principles of the human being, hence the grey above represent higher principles beyond Man in this solar system evolution. Shown below are also the Conditions of Consciousness (CoC).

For Man , the three higher principles of Man's higher triad are not shown, because they are the developmental goals for the three next planetary stages of evolution. Nevertheless we are working these already in the Earth stage of evolution, developing spirit-self or manas in the current Postatlantean epoch, and life-spirit or buddhi in the next.

Compare also with Schema FMC00.472 and FMC00.473 and variants. As with every schema, click once to download, twice to maximize.

Lecture coverage and references

Coverage overview in Rudolf Steiner's GA

Rudolf Steiner goes furthers than all the above, and then ever before in the open teachings on spiritual science. He explicitlys cover the spiritual hierarchies in depth, one could say in two main sections.

  • First the period 1908-1912, with four main cycles (42 lectures) (and a few flanker cycles), see below:
    • 1908-GA102 - The Influence of Spiritual Beings on Man
    • 1909-GA110 - The Spiritual Hierarchies - Their Reflection in the Physical World
    • 1910-06-GA121 - The Mission of Folk-Souls
    • 1912-04-GA136 - The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature

as well as 1908-08-GA105 - Universe, Earth and Man.

  • Secondly the period 1921-24, and especially the years 1922-23, where Rudolf Steiner integrates the hierarchies into the extensive coverage of the threefold being and the processing of karma. This time the coverage of the hierarchies are more woven into lecture cycles, and with individual lectures; rather than through specific 'named cycles' to cover the hierarchies (as in the period 1908-12). This second section of lectures is complemenytary and no less rich in depth and breath of contents.
    • Examples are
      • 1921-GA207 and GA208 - Cosmosophy Vol 1 and 2
      • 1923-11-GA231 - Supersensible Man

Building on the 1908 and 1909 cycles, especially the 1912 lecture course stands out as not just unique but also bewildering in terms of insights and images sketched for contemplation and imagination.

Reference extracts

1923-05-02-GA224

see Cosmic fractal#1923-05-02-GA224

Daskalos in Symbol of Life, Ch. 12

see p 493, and p 317, below SWCC

describes Authorities (SoF), Principalities (archai) and Thrones, and gives descriptions of the archangelic orders of

  • Yiu-Ra-Els (Uriels) - lord of balancing the forces in creation of the other archangels [hierarchies]
  • Ra-pfa-Els (Raphaels) - lord of etheric vitality (energy, electricity and magnetism, and the cosmic rays)
  • Makha-Els or Maha-Els (Michaels) as lords of the elements of life: of light and of warmth/fire.
  • Kha-vir-Els (Gabriels) as lords of elements of water [air] and all liquids

as well as:

  • Se-Ra-pfa (Seraphim) [six pointed star]
  • Khe-Ra-pfa (Cherubim) as lords of cosmic consciousness, formless intelligences [five pointed star] ... both working in the etheric doubles of the bodily principles of human beings

and:

  • Sham-a-Els as lords of the element of gross matter [editor: re Luciferic / Ahrimanic]
1981 - Stanley Messenger

Introductory text by Stanley Messenger (1917- 2013), adapted from text of spoken lecture, transcribed and edited by Marcus Tristan Heathcock, see full source text on archive of 'isleofavalon.co.uk'

The original text was shortened (SWCC) and worked because it thus provides an excellent introduction and perspective to study the spiritual hierarchies.

Note the paragraph with mention of egyptian symbols paragraph was not taken over, as checked against Daskalos' Symbol of Life book it was not correct.

Extracts also on:

Let's start by turning inward and forming the picture of the threefoldness of the Trinity.

[In history pictures through the ages various pictures exist] .. of a threefold countenance.

  • The one, which usually is drawn on the left, is like a profile which looks backwards and upwards and inwards, towards the source of being.
  • And opposite that, the other profile, facing outwards and downwards and to the right, is the profile of that being who turns outwards into Creation – away from God and towards the Creation.
  • And between them is the face that which looks towards us and communicates with us.

Now, as we first form the picture outwardly, it’s divided, but, in reality, it is one. When, out of ‘non-being’, ‘being’ comes, then balance, or reconciliation, comes into being at the same time. We have to use the word ‘time’, but in that existence there is no time. There’s no sequence in that sense – Non-being to Being to Balance – these are simultaneous. And this experience of the Trinity, in consciousness, this is new.

... The whole mystery of the Trinity lies in the fact that when Being was born out of Non-being simultaneously, that which reconciled the paradox of this, to our minds, impossible situation, had also to exist. That which was brought into being was, at the same time, brought into balance.

Therefore the Son, between the Father-God, the Mother-God. We have existence by the Father, we have love by the Mother, so we return, reconciled, to God through the Son in freedom.

We have being through the Father, we create through the Son, and so we, inevitably, also awaken to the healing of understanding through the light of the Spirit.

This comes into being with the Father and the Son – just as Father/Mother/Son so Father/Spirit/Son.

So we have existence, we have love and, out of that, we have freedom to return.

We have being, we have, through the Son, creation, so we have awakening through the light of the Spirit.

[parenthesis]

Now, let’s take this into a meditation in which we see how, through the Father, we are conscious, how, through the Son, we are aware and how, through the Spirit, we are able to grasp and hold and understand – ‘begreifen’ in German – to grasp – is the same as ‘begriff’, which is a concept. So we understand by the same process as we seize. Let me give you what comes into the 'Act of Consecration of Man' in the Christian Community:

"Conscious of our humanity we feel the Divine Father. He is in all that we are, our substance is His substance, our being is His being. He moves through us in all our existing.

Aware of the Christ in our humanity we feel the Divine Son. He wields through the world as Spirit-Word. He creates in all that we create, our existing is His creating, our life is His creating life. He creates through us in all the soul’s creating.

Grasping the Spirit, through our humanity, we feel the Healing-God. May He shine through the world as Spirit light. May He shine in all that we behold. May our knowing exist in His life, shining with Spirit. May he graciously receive it into His life. May He fill the Spirit with all the ways of our human soul."

Can you see how, even in the grammar of this, we have an understanding of the nature of the Trinity? ‘Is’ comes through all the first part of that; ‘moves’ comes all through the second, and then we go out of the existing mood, the positive mood, into, even grammatically, into subjunctive – ‘may’, ‘May He’. This comes right into our language, the way in which existence, movement, and then possibility move into the language in that way. Even in our language the Trinity is there.

[end parenthesis]

Now, out of that, let us have a look at these nine spiritual hierarchies of Dionysus. As we said yesterday, non-being into being, the first beings who emerged out of non-being could only turn back towards the Creator and worship.

[First Hierarchy - H1]

This is the call of the Seraphim. These are the first of the created beings. These do not take part in the outward Creation; they are there, turning inward, to acknowledge the fact of the Creation.

And then, outwardly turning, are the Thrones. The Thrones are those who realise that the existence and essence of Creation is sacrifice. They give their own substance that existence may happen. That there should be existence at all out of non-existence is itself the substance of sacrifice.

So the love of the Seraphim is countered and balanced by the sacrifice of the Thrones.

And, as I said talking about the Trinity, inherently in that whole situation there has to be reconciliation. And there are the Cherubim. The Cherubim who sing the song of reconciliation. The harmony. ....

Now this first hierarchy – Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones – I’ve written here: Love – Harmony – Will – Substance – and I referred .. to the constant cry or theme of the poet Boethius: "Substance is Love, Love is Substance"? ... And between Love and Substance is born Harmony. But this first Creation, ... , this is in darkness and warmth. The Earth is without form and void – there is no life. This is the incarnation of the planet that Rudolf Steiner referred to as ‘Old Saturn’. It was nothing but the eggs of warmth in darkness which were the seeds for all future existence and creation. And its keynote is strength. This is the realm of the power of God.

[Second Hierarchy - H2]

And now we come, out of that, to the ‘Second Creation’ – and this is the Creation, the second in Genesis, where we come into the realm of Light.

"The Spirit of God moved on the face of the Waters".

And a whole new hierarchy emerged into being in the Light.

And the highest of them, just as the highest of the first three, turned inwards, so the highest of them once more turned inwards and made the tribute of the Light to those who had sacrificed their own substance that Creation might happen. And these were the Spirits of Wisdom (SoW). Wisdom is the tribute of Light to what is sacrificed in the dark. Wisdom is the non-visibility of Light.

And what opposes that, what comes out of that? Form. Form is Light made visible. And these, the Spirits of Form, are known in the Bible as the Elohim. Now this is very mysterious about the Elohim, and I shall say it but I’m not going to say that I understand it! The Elohim were seven in number, and because of the need to bring down into Form, in an indirect way first to prepare Mankind, one of the Elohim separated off from the realm of the Sun, where the seven Elohim were, and came into the Moon sphere and operated independently and, in a way, almost back into a kind of Darkness, the reflected Light of the Moon. This was Jehovah, who brought down the essence of the Light in this reflected way first.

And behind him remained the six – the six in the Sun, which is why the Christ-star had six points. Christ was not the Elohim but, as a Sun being, He manifested through these six beings, the six Elohim, and we see the wonderful six-pointed star, radiating out the Light of the Christ through the being of the Elohim from the Sun. And now, in our time, these six come, they approached the Earth, they incarnated on the Earth, they are now present in the etheric envelope of the Earth. So the seven are re-united for us in our time and throughout the future the Elohim are re-united.

So, we have Wisdom then, experienced, coming out of the sunrise paying tribute to the sacrifice and the substance of the Thrones and coming out into Form in the land of the sunset. The fact that we talk about Oriental wisdom is not the only reason why we feel that wisdom belongs to the East and Form belongs to the West. This is something inherent in the nature of Wisdom and Form. The East really is the ‘being’ of Wisdom; the West is the ‘being’ of Form. So we can say: ‘Fired out of the East and, in the West, taking shape’ – that’s the characteristic of the ‘Second Hierarchy’. Now its harmony we see in movement. Movement links Wisdom with Form, and the image is of the lemniscate (∞) – crossing over in the middle. A perpetual transformation between Wisdom and Form which takes place in movement. And this crossing is of the essence, this crossing where, out of Wisdom into Form, out of Form back into Wisdom – each time that crossing happens there is a Death process, and a restoration to life. So that life is seen as being inevitably involved in death. And Rudolf Steiner says, "In Christ, death becomes life."

This is not resurrection in the sense of the Holy Spirit, this is the death/life transformation that is perpetual and constant, and it is centred in the middle hierarchy of all the nine – the Spirits of Movement (SoM). It’s the realm of our rhythms – it’s where we breathe, it’s where our heartbeats are, the whole rhythm of the cosmos too, not only of ourselves, is there in this movement. And this is the central of all the hierarchies – it’s the one where we can come most into the consciousness of the present moment. Always, in dualism, we are caught back into the past, or we are caught up into the future.

...

So we have, in the First Hierarchy: ‘From the heights to the depths; as above, so below. Let there be formed in the heights that which, in the depths, has substance’.

In the Second Creation, we have this East/West dynamic: ‘Let there be fired from out of the East that which, in the West, takes shape’.

[Third Hierarchy - H3]

Now we come into the realm of the Third Creation. Now we’ve had that the Earth is without form and void. Then we come into the Second Creation to the realm where the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters and there was Light.

And now we come into the Third realm. ‘God breathed upon Man and he became a living soul’. This is the Third Realm – the bringing of soul into this realm. And now the three faces are really fully separated from one another – we can hardly look at the Third Hierarchy as one; they are still one, but, for us, they become much more separated. We are now into the realm, not of consciousness, not of awareness, but now of grasp, of grasping the spirit through our humanity. And we have the three beings of the lowest hierarchy – the Archai. Now these are the time spirits, and they stand in the same relationship to the Spirits of Form, as the Wisdom-Spirits do to the Thrones. They stand on the same ground. The Thrones look out with their sacrifice and SoW look inwards with their wisdom, and now we have the SoF looking outwards into the realm of light-filled form, and we have the Archai who, in order to implement that, become the Spirits of Time. Time is born with the archai. The successive ages, the transformations from one spiritual age to the next, each of those is in the charge of one of these Archai beings – and ‘Archon’ is the singular in the Greek. An Archon – the Time-Spirit.

...

And so, turning inwards in the Third Creation, are the Archai, relating back to the formlessness, creating the spirits of the age.

And outwards, opposite to them, is the Spirit of Individuation, of coming down into the single being for the first time. The Angels are those beings who, with us, share with us the full individuality of single beings – so they become the messengers and representatives of the whole of the Nine for us. They are the ones who are the nearest – each of us has our Guardian Angel; that guardian angel is inseparably linked to our own higher being. They are messengers and guardians.

And, once more, as with the other two hierarchies, coming into being inevitably through this opposition of the two, the reconcilers – the Archangels, the 'Spirits of Association' I like to call them. Every realm where human beings come together and share their experience – nations, groups like this, societies, folk-souls – all these beings are Archangels. They are the ones who turn towards us and link us with this inward/outward process

Historical coverage - various sources

Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite (ca 5th century) is the first main written source of teachings with 'De Coelesti Hierarchia' or 'The Celestial Hierarchy'   

  • First sphere: 1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Thrones;
  • Second sphere: 4. Authorities, 5. Lordships, 6. Powers;
  • Third sphere: 7. Principalities, 8. Archangels, 9. Angels.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) writes in 'Summa Theologica':

5. There are three angelic hierarchies. Each hierarchy hasthree orders. All the heavenly spirits of all hierarchies andorders are called angels. Thus the term angel is common and generic. The same name, usually with a capital letter, is the proper and collective name for the lowest order of the lowest hierarchy of heavenly spirits. We must therefore distinguish angel, which means any heavenly spirit from highest tolowest, from Angel which means a member of the lowest order of all.

6. The following hierarchies and orders exist among the angels:

(a) The highest hierarchy includes the orders of (indescending order of rank) Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones.

(b) The middle hierarchy includes (in descending order of rank) the ordersof Dominations, Virtues, Powers.

(c) The lowest hierarchy includes (in descending order of rank) Principalities, Archangels, Angels.

This classification is commonly, but not unanimously, accepted by learned doctors.

7. After the end of this bodily world, the angelic orderswill continue to exist, but their offices will not be altogether the same as they now are, for they will then no longer need to help human beings to save their souls.

8. By the gifts of grace, human beings can merit glory in a degree that makes them equal to the angels in each of the orders. Therefore, human beings who get to heaven are taken into the angelic orders. But these human beings remain human beings; they are not turned into angels.

Other sources and their terminology

The various sources illustrate the different terminology used, see also Schema FMC00.273 above for a condensed version

Clement of Rome in 'Apostolic Constitutions' (1st century):

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Aeons, 4. Hosts, 5. Powers, 6. Authorities, 7. Principalities, 8. Thrones, 9. Archangels, 10. Angels, 11. Dominions.

St. Ambrose in 'Apologia Prophet David' (4th century):

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Dominations, 4. Thrones, 5. Principalities, 6. Potentates (or Powers), 7. Virtues, 8. Angels, 9. Archangels.

St. Jerome (4th century):

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Powers, 4. Dominions (Dominations), 5. Thrones, 6. Archangels, 7. Angels.

St. Gregory the Great in 'Homilia' (6th century)

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Thrones, 4. Dominations, 5. Principalities, 6. Powers, 7. Virtues, 8. Archangels, 9. Angels.

St. Isidore of Seville in 'Etymologiae' (7th century):

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Powers, 4. Principalities, 5. Virtues, 6. Dominations, 7. Thrones, 8. Archangels, 9. Angels.

John of Damascus in 'De Fide Orthodoxa' (8th century):

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Thrones, 4. Dominions, 5. Powers, 6. Authorities (Virtues), 7. Rulers (Principalities), 8. Archangels, 9. Angels

St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) in 'Scivias':

1. Seraphim, Cherubim;

2. Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers and Virtues;

3. Archangels and Angels.

Dante Alighieri (1308–1321) in 'The Divine Comedy'

1. Seraphim, 2. Cherubim, 3. Thrones, 4. Dominations, 5. Virtues, 6. Powers, 7. Principalities, 8. Archangels, 9. Angels.

Discussion

Note 1 - Literature on spiritual hierarchies

How to 'study' or develop insight or a comprehension into the nature and workings of the spiritual hiearchies?

Because of what is explained in the introduction higher on this page, there are not so many books on the spiritual hierarchies and even those will not allow one to get an overall satisfactory insight into this subject matter.

The spiritual hierarchies appear in spiritual literature such as Dionysius the Areopagite, are mentioned by Thomas of Aquina and Dante Alighieri, but other than listing they are not really described and explained in a thorough and complete way, because it is beyond our current degree of human consciousness to do so exhaustively.

Various approaches have been used: through the categories of Aristotle (qualitatively), cosmologically as in theosophy with the logoi etc (intellectually), and to a limited extend experientially. In the experiential realm one finds mostly coverage of the elementals of nature (oa see Schema FMC00.144) and the evocation of the spirits of the planetary spheres (oa see Franz Bardon's second book PME).

This site proposes to study spiritual science comprehensively, as the Body of Knowledge of universal eternal wisdom that it is, and through this develop one's appreciation for the workings of the various hierarchies that appear in the descriptions and explanations on microcosm and macrocosm. This is a basis that can only be integrated through imaginative insight, where the multitude of perspectives can blend.

This approach is depicted by the schemas Schema FMC00.305, Schema FMC00.336 and Schema FMC00.101 on Overview Free Man Creator.

Notes:

  • Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven worked on a book on the spiritual hierarchies, but never came to finish or publish any of his writings on the theme, only draft notes exist.

Related pages

References and further reading

  • Ewald Grether: 'Geistige Hierarchien' - Der Mensch und die übersinnliche Welt in der Darstellung grosser Seher des Abendlandes. Dionysius Areopagita, Dante Alighieri, Rudolf Steiner (1962)
  • Adam Bittleston: 'Our spiritual companions : from angels and archangels to cherubim and seraphim' (1980)
  • Roy Wilkinson: 'The hosts of heaven : an elementary study of the spiritual hierarchies' (1981)
  • Hans-Werner Schroeder: 'Mensch und Engel. Die Wirklichkeit der Hierarchien' (1982, in NL 1983 as 'Hemelse Hierarchien rangorde en verscheidenheid', in FR as 'L'homme et les anges')
  • Willem Frederik Veltman: 'Over de hemelse hierarchieën' (Wat de astronauten niet zien, God en Goden, De geestelijke leiding van de mensheid)
  • J.G. Sutherland: 'Symbolen der Hiërarchieën' (article in NL in De Christengemeenschap, nr 17, 6, p 179-196)
  • Athys Floride: 'Der Weg zu den Hierarchien. Das Ziel der Entwicklung als vierte Hierachie' (1996)

.

For more see also: Third Hierarchy#References and further reading

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