Planetary Spirit

Planetary Spirit is a Theosophical concept that refers to entities that have transcended the human kingdom. There is a hierarchy of them, from the highest to the lowest. In the mahatma letters it is said:

There can be no Planetary Spirit that was not once material or what you call human. When our great Buddha — the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and the codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth, he became a Planetary Spirit; i.e. — his spirit could at one and the same time rove the interstellar spaces in full consciousness. . .

However, the term is sometimes used in a less technical way, probably referring to the dual Monad atma-buddhi before becoming a human being.

In a more specific sense, Planetary Spirit refers to the Ruler of a planet:

Planetary Spirits. Primarily the rulers or governors of the planets. As our earth has its hierarchy of terrestrial planetary spirits, from the highest to the lowest plane, so has every other heavenly body. In Occultism, however, the term “Planetary Spirit” is generally applied only to the seven highest hierarchies corresponding to the Christian archangels. These have all passed through a stage of evolution corresponding to the humanity of earth on other worlds, in long past cycles. Our earth, being as yet only in its fourth round, is far too young to have produced high planetary spirits. The highest planetary spirit ruling over any globe is in reality the “Personal God” of that planet and far more truly its “over-ruling providence” than the self-contradictory Infinite Personal Deity of modern Churchianity.

Builders

The builders or "creative spirits" are planetary spirits that "fashion" the planets:

The “Builders,” the “Sons of Manvantaric Dawn,” are the real creators of the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with our Planetary System, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called the “Watchers” of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven planets, and esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our chain also.

In Stanza I.6 of The Secret Doctrine the creative spirits are mentioned as the "Seven Sublime Lords":

The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhyan-Chohans, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is the same hierarchy of Archangels to which St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and others belong, in the Christian theogony. Only while St. Michael, for instance, is allowed in dogmatic Latin theology to watch over all the promontories and gulfs, in the Esoteric System, the Dhyanis watch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root-races of our planetary chain. They are, moreover, said to send their Bhodisatvas, the human correspondents of the Dhyani-Buddhas (of whom vide infra) during every Round and Race.

Master K.H. wrote about their role at the beginning of a new Round:

At the beginning of each Round, when humanity reappears under quite different conditions than those afforded for the birth of each new race and its sub-races, a "Planetary" has to mix with these primitive men, and to refresh their memories, and reveal to them the truths they knew during the preceding Round. Hence the confused traditions about Jehovahs, Ormazds, Osirises, Brahms, and the tutti quanti. But that happens only for the benefit of the first Race. It is the duty of the latter to choose the fit recipients among its sons, who are "set apart" to use a Biblical phrase — as the vessels to contain the whole stock of knowledge, to be divided among the future races and generations until the close of that Round.

At the close of the evolution on this Globe there will be a Planetary which will act on the next Round:

The last seventh Race will have its Buddha as every one of its predecessors had; but, its adepts will be far higher than any of the present race, for among them will abide the future Planetary, the Dhyan Chohan whose duty it will be to instruct or "refresh the memory" of the first race of the fifth Round men after this planet's future obscuration.

Online resources

Articles

• Planetary Spirits at Theosopedia