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. . .[1]
However, the term is sometimes used in a less technical way, probably referring to the dual Monad atma-buddhi before becoming a human being.[2]
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.[3]
Seven Builders
The seven creative spirits or builders are planetary spirits. In Stanza I.6 of The Secret Doctrine they 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.[4]
Notes
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 18 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 62.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 67 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 180.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 6.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 42.
Further reading
- Planetary Spirits at Theosopedia