The Sun Archive
A Resource for Spiritual Discovery & Inquiry
The Spiritual Hierarchies: Our Divine Guides
Death Angel by Nineeta Sombart
Michael by Nineeta Sombart
In light of Anthroposophy, there are 9 grades of higher beings who oversee the evolution of the world and humanity. These ranks consist of divine and opposing streams of activity. There are many sources, both insightful and fanciful, on angels and higher beings including speculation upon names of certain individuals who occupy an important part in the cosmos and plan for human evolution. Some of these have been accumulated by way of the works founded by genuine spiritual initiates through the sacred texts that have survived, including the Bible and the Kabbala, which were created through the unique cultures in which they found expression over time.
The construct of the hierarchy was initially documented in Greek by way of an early Christian monk, theologian, and mystic named Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite of whom very little is known who lived in the 5th and the centuries AD. Since he wrote in Greek, and his writings appear to be the language and prose of Plato and the Greek sages, he is referred to by modern theology as a "Neoplatonic" theologian.
Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite influenced later theologians and church fathers including St. Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologica." The substance of his surviving works are contained in a manuscript which is published in many languages titled "Celestial Hierarchy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Dionysius_the_Areopagite).
In the modern era, Dr. Rudolf Steiner lectured and wrote widely on the nature and roles of these higher beings in detail. Dr. Steiner retained the vernacular that Dionysius utilized in his works and greatly expanded upon it through his vision of the cosmos through the eyes of objectivity; the names describe an activity.
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"When a subject such as our present one (Author's Note: Dr. Steiner is referring to the Gospels in this lecture) is discussed from the standpoint of spiritual science, this is not done by basing the facts upon some document or other exposition come into being in the course of human development, and by then illuminating the facts in question on the authority of such a document. That is not the way of spiritual science.
On the contrary, entirely independent of all documents, spiritual science investigates what has occurred in human evolution; and only then — after the spiritual scientist has completed his research by means independent of any documents, and knows how to describe what he has found — only then is the document in question examined with a view of discovering whether it agrees with what had first been disclosed without reference to any tradition whatever." -Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John in Relation to the Other Three Gospels, GA 112, 2. Living Spiritual History, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA112/English/AP1948/19090625p02.html
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In light of Anthroposophy, and initiation wisdom, the planets and stars of the universe and the influences that they bring are not the result of an explosive accident that is rooted in materialistic processes alone. The universe, earth, and humanity were created, sustained, and guided by higher intelligences - who do not incarnate in the physical world - and relationships of higher beings commonly referred to as angels, archangels, archai, etc.
Universal processes set in motion and overseen by higher beings were set in motion eons ago and govern the structure and cadence of the universe, earth, and humanity today. Material processes at work in the world and the human being are perfect reflections of divine wisdom and the outer expression of the spirit that manifests in the cosmos through higher beings. Life is not possible without the oversight and influence of higher beings. The earth and the human being are perfect reflections of the universe that were discussed at length by Dr. Steiner in various lectures and works. Where one is a microcosm - in the earth and human being - the other is the macrocosm, cosmos, or the universe.
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The relationships of the higher beings who stand above humanity are vast and their relationships are oftentimes complex, a fact that Dr. Steiner repeatedly emphasized. The object of Anthroposophy, or anyone who seeks, is not to rely on ambiguity but to discover the nuances of how things operate and why from a scientific perspective. Thus, the lectures by Dr. Rudolf Steiner on the Spiritual Hierarchies require a deeper study but the high level aspects are relatively straightforward to understand.
It is important to consider that a study of the roles of higher beings and how they relate to humanity is viewed, in light of Anthroposophy, based on how human beings, and the world, has evolved over time. As a result, Dr. Steiner often qualified statements with activities and events that occurred in prior epochs of human evolution that have directly led to how life exists today.
The terms "Old Sun", "Old Saturn" and "Old Moon" refer to prior periods of evolution where the world and humanity were formed. Today we are in the center - the exact midpoint - of human evolution referred to as "Earth." Dr. Steiner presented the activities of these at different stages of humanity's evolution in many different ways to offer an aspiring student, each of whom are unique, with more and more information and different perspectives.
In light of Anthroposophy, the universe is governed and influenced by 9 grades, or ranks, of spiritual beings. Each level in the hierarchy consists of normal and abnormal streams of activity. The abnormal streams work in opposition to divine forces to bring transformation and change.
Dr. Steiner's lectures and works refer to certain vital aspects of the universe and the human being. The human being, in light of Anthroposophy, is a unified form that consists of 4 aspects, "bodies", or "sheaths" that, during our waking consciousness, appear as a whole. The human being consists of a physical, etheric (energy and psychic body), astral (feeling body), and an "I" or ego, and a "higher I" which does not incarnate but bequeaths a "picture" of the higher self from incarnation to the next.
These aspects consist of purified and untransformed or lower qualities. Higher qualities are always referred as the "spirit." Destiny in the world is a living principle as are the facts that each living being has different spiritual and physical aspects. We are the result of choices, karma, and the conditions of the age in which we live. The entire construct of human destiny, and the world, is influenced and overseen by the divine guides who exist in the universe through 3 "triads" or hierarchies. The three hierarchies are:​
The 1st Hierarchy
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This is the highest triad of higher beings in the universe and closest to the "Godhead" or Father of the universe.
"To call forth an idea of the First Hierarchy (Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones) we must try to create pictures in which the Spiritual — i.e. that which can be beheld only in the Supersensible — reveals its working, in forms that come to manifestation in the world of sense. Spiritual being, portrayed in sense-perceptible imagery: such must be the content of our thoughts about the First Hierarchy." -Steiner, Rudolf, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a05.html;mark=235,51,61#WN_mark
The 2nd Hierarchy
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"To call forth an idea of the Second Hierarchy (Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai) we must try to create pictures in which the Spiritual reveals itself — not in sense-perceptible forms — but in a purely spiritual way. Spiritual being, portrayed not in sense-perceptible but in purely spiritual imagery: such must be the content of our thoughts about the Second Hierarchy." -Steiner, Rudolf, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a05.html;mark=235,51,61#WN_mark
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The 3rd Hierarchy
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The third triad of higher beings are closest to humanity.
"To call forth an idea of the Third Hierarchy (Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi) we must try to create pictures in which the Spiritual reveals itself not in sense-perceptible forms, nor yet in a purely spiritual way, but in the way in which Thinking, Feeling and Willing come to expression in the human soul. Spiritual being, portrayed in the imagery of a life of soul: such must be the content of our thoughts about the Third Hierarchy." -Steiner, Rudolf, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_a05.html;mark=235,51,61#WN_mark
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Below is a high-level diagram of the spiritual hierarchies and the influences as documented in Dr. Rudolf Steiner's published works.
The Hierarchy of Love and Freedom
Per the Insights of Dr. Rudolf Steiner & Anthroposophy
The Third Triad
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This group of higher/divine beings are closest to humanity and oversee our destiny, and karma, from one lifetime to the next.
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1. The Angels
(1) "Angels are those who, as messengers of super-sensible realms, stand nearest to man as he is on earth; they constantly influence what may be called the fate of individuals on our physical plane." -Rudolf Steiner, Excursis, Lecture IV, January 16, 1911 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19110116p01.html
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(2) "Men are not the only beings we know of, we also know of beings that are superior to present-day earth man. We know of the sons of life or the angels, and we know that they went through their human stage on ancient Moon. We know of the spirits of fire or the archangels, that went through their human stage on the old Sun condition of the earth, and we also know of the primeval forces, who went through their human stage on ancient Saturn. These beings are in advance of man in their cosmic evolution. If we were to study them today we would find that they are beings of a much more spiritual nature than man. Therefore they live in higher-worlds.
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Their situation is totally different from man's. In spiritual matters they conform absolutely to the cosmic rhythm. An angel would not think in such a disordered way as man, for the simple reason that his thought process is regulated by the cosmic powers which guide him. It is right out of the question for a being like an angel not to think in harmony with the great spiritual processes of the cosmos. The laws of logic for the angels are written in the universal harmony. They need no textbooks.
Man needs textbooks because he has brought his inner thought processes into disorder. He no longer knows how to take guidance from the great script of the stars. Angels know the course of the cosmos, and the course of their thought corresponds with the ordered rhythm." -Rudolf Steiner, The Being of Man and His Future Evolution, Rhythms in the Being of Man , Lecture 5, January 12, 1909.
(3) "...the Angeloi — the Beings immediately above man — it is they who lead man through the gate of death. They lead him on and on, so that in a sense he has his Angelos beside him from death to a new birth. Then they lead him again into a new life on Earth. It is the mission of the Angeloi to lead the individual human being through his repeated lives on Earth." -Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Movement Newsletter, VOL. V. Nos. 14 and 15, 8th/15th April, 1928 . https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/RelMan_index.html;mark=163,30,35#WN_mark
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(4) "The wisest can learn most from a child. And when someone who is himself able to look into the spiritual worlds has a child before him, with the stream that rises up into the spiritual world, it is as if — forgive the homely expression — he has in the child something like a telephone-line into the spiritual worlds. The spiritual world speaks through the child, but men are not aware of it. The wisest can learn most from a child. It is not the child that is speaking, but the angel is speaking out of the child." - The “Son of God" and "The Son of Man", Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in, Munich, 11th February 1
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(5) "If you want to look for an Angel, you must keep in mind that his physical part is something like a mirrored reflection of his spiritual principles, which are to be found only in the spiritual world. In flowing and running water, in mists dissolving into water, also in the winds and the lightning flashing through the air, in all these, you have to look for the physical body of Angelic beings. The difficulty for man consists in his fixed idea that a physical body must necessarily have a definite outline. It is difficult for a man to say to himself: I see fog rising, I see a stream of water dissolving into spray, I stand in the blowing wind, I see lightning dart from the clouds, and I know that all these are revelations of Angels; behind this physical body, which is by no means so limited as the human one I have to recognise the spirit.
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Man has to develop all his principles enclosed within him; because of this he cannot realise that a physical body can be so liquid and evanescent that it does not even have to be enclosed or outlined with precision. You must realise that eighty Angels may be associated with and have the most solid part of their physical body in some one sheet of water.
The physical body of an Angel need not be understood as having any boundary; one piece of water may belong to it here, and far away another piece. In short, all that surrounds us as the water, fire, and air of the earth, we have to imagine as containing the bodies of the Hierarchy which stands next above man. One has to look clairvoyantly into the astral world in order to perceive the Angel's Ego and his Manas that gazes down on us from the higher world." -Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies, GA 110, Lecture VII
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(6) "...And the Angeloi — the Beings immediately above man — it is they who lead man through the gate of death. They lead him on and on, so that in a sense he has his Angelos beside him from death to a new birth. Then they lead him again into a new life on Earth. It is the mission of the Angeloi to lead the individual human being through his repeated lives on Earth." -Rudolf Steiner, The Relation of Man to the Hierarchies, GA 172, 26 November 1916, Dornach. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA172/English/Singles/19161126p01.html
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-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Angel" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=angel&mode=context
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2. The Archangels, Fire Spirits, Folk-Souls
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(7) "...we have those Beings whom we call Archangels. Their mission is to bring about harmony among men on Earth. Hence in a certain sense they are the guides and leaders of the Folks and Nations. ...Not until we come to the Archangels do we stand face to face with Beings who regulate the relationships among men." -Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Movement Newsletter, VOL. V. Nos. 14 and 15, 8th/15th April, 1928 . https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/RelMan_index.html;mark=163,30,35#WN_mark
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(8) "... Within language lives the Genius of language. Language is not dependent for its evolution on the decision of man. In language lives the Genius of language. And the Genius of Language belongs to the hierarchy of the Archangels. When man speaks — when, that is, an atmosphere is prepared around the Earth within which can live man's utterances articulated into speech, then that atmosphere of speech and language is the element of the Archangels.
Hence are the Archangels the Spirits of the different peoples — the Folk Spirits as we call them. ...The evolution of language on Earth has thus a deep and intimate connection with the evolution of the Archangels. We can go so far as to say that in the evolution of speech and language we are beholding the evolution of the Archangels themselves. " -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade The Recovery of the Living Source of Speech, Dornach, 13th April, 1923. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19230413p01.html
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(9) "...philosophical thought since the time of ancient Greece, and when we consider how this has evolved from philosopher to philosopher we say to ourselves: there are active within not earthly laws, but Sun laws! The laws which at that time held sway between the Spirits of Wisdom and the Archangels come to light again on earth in the philosophical search for wisdom."
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(10) "We thank these spiritual Beings — that is, we place ourselves in a right relation with these Beings — when we say: For my thinking, I thank the Angels; for language, I thank the Archangels." -Rudolf Steiner, The Waking of the Human Soul and the Forming of Destiny April 28, 1923 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19230428p01.html;mark=182,49,58#WN_mark
-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Archangel" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=archangel&mode=context
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3. The Archai: Spirits of Personality, Primal Beginnings, Principalities
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(11) "One quality alone brings the Ego, during sleep, into right connection with the Archai, namely true human love, universal and unselfish love for human beings, sincere interest in every fellow man with whom life brings us into contact. I do not mean sympathy or antipathy, which are merely the outcome of something we are not willing to overcome. True and genuine love for human beings during the waking state leads us, during sleep, to the bosom of the Archai.
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And there, while the Ego is resting in the bosom of these Beings, karma or destiny is shaped. A verdict is passed: ‘I am satisfied with what I have performed with my arms and legs.’ And out of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction is born a power that not only plays a part in the period immediately following death, but continues on to the next earthly life — the power to shape destiny aright, so that true balance and adjustment are brought about in all those things which in one earthly life we have experienced in the Ego during sleep, in communion with the Archai." -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade, The Forming of Destiny in Sleeping and Waking, https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/FrmDes_index.html;mark=385,37,43#WN_mark
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(12) "In the Bible the words ‘In the Beginning’ often occur. They refer to the Primal Beginnings or Archai. ‘In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ This means: The God of the Beginnings, who stands at this stage, created heaven and earth. It was one of the Archai belonging to the Third Rank of the Hierarchies." -Rudolf Steiner, Bn 93a, GA 93a, Lecture XIII, Berlin, 8th October 1905. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19051008p01.html;mark=106,25,31#WN_mark
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(13) "...the Spirits of Personality, primeval beginnings, primeval forces, or Archai. These are still loftier Beings, who have a still higher task in the continuity of human existence. Fundamentally speaking, they regulate the earthly relations of whole human generations on earth, and they live in such a way that, on the waves of time, from epoch to epoch, they transform themselves at certain definite periods, they assume other spiritual bodies.
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Here again, you all know something of that which for the lovers of the abstract, is merely an idea, but which is a reality for those who can look into actual spiritual existence; it is that which is given a truly ugly name — the spirit of the time. You have here to do with that which represents the meaning and the mission of an epoch of humanity; picture to yourselves that we could describe the meaning and the mission of, for instance, the first thousands of years immediately after the Atlantean catastrophe (Admin Note: about 8000BC).
This ‘Spirit of the Age’ comprises something which reaches beyond single nations, beyond single races. Such a spirit is not limited to this or that nation, it goes beyond the limits of nations. That which one really calls a ‘Zeit geist’ or Spirit of an epoch is the spiritual body of the Archai or the Primeval Beginnings or Spirits of Personality. It is to these Spirits of Personality that one has to ascribe the fact that within certain epochs, certain definite personalities appear on our earth.
You understand, do you not, that earthly tasks have to be solved by earthly personalities; in a definite epoch, some epoch-making personality has had to appear. A strange muddle would come into the evolution of the earth if it were all left to chance, and Luther or Charlemagne were placed within any epoch, no matter which. This must be thought out first, the connection with the whole evolution of humanity over the whole earth, has to be thought out; the right soul has to appear in harmony with the meaning of the whole earth's development. This is regulated by the Spirits of Personality, the Archai or primeval origins." Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies and Their Reflection in the Physical World, Lecture 6, April 15, 1909 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19090415p01.html;mark=52,62,68#WN_mark
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(14) "...We know that the Archai or Spirits of Personality are also the Time-Spirits. We to-day are living in a different spiritual context than the old Greeks or Romans. We are under a different Time-Spirit. Such a Spirit of the Time is a sublime Being." -Rudolf Steiner, The Relation of Man to the Hierarchies, GA 172, 26 November 1916, Dornach. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA172/English/Singles/19161126p01.html
-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Archai" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=Archai&mode=context
​The Second Triad
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​​​4. The Powers, The Exusiai, Spirits of Form
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(15) "These Spirits of Form, known in the Bible as the Elohim, are the Beings from whom the human form actually stems; it is the form in which the human ‘I’ has its natural habitation and asserts itself during the first months and years of life." -Rudolf Steiner, Life between Death and a New Birth in Relation to Cosmic Facts, Lecture 6, https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/BetReb_index.html
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(16) "The whole cosmos participates in the forming of the head and the influences of the cosmos penetrate into the mother’s body. Those who do not see these forces...well, also a farmer does not see the forces that are active in a magnet, but this does not prove the non-existence of these forces. What exists in the human head, has been worked out, as it were, in connection with all that the human being has received from the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Movement and the Thrones, with what he bears along within his Ego, carrying it over into the time between death and a new birth, as a mighty spherical form. What is thus elaborated is gigantic; it is a sphere and within this sphere everything is worked out." -Rudolf Steiner, The Weaving and Living Activity of the Human Etheric Bodies, Munich, 20th of March, 1916 , https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/FrmDes_index.html;mark=385,37,43#WN_mark
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-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Spirits of Form" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19160320p01.html;mark=480,9,24#WN_mark
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5. The Dynamis, Spirits of Motion, Virtues, Mights
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(17) "...using the same methods through which the individualized Logos that weaves within man is revealed — seeking the ultimate reality, behind what is fundamentally only appearance — one finds all those hierarchical beings called in the anthroposophical writings Dynamis, who are above the Exusiai." -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade, THE COSMIC WORD AND INDIVIDUAL MAN, A Lecture given at Stuttgart on May 2, 1923 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/CosWrd_index.html;mark=440,36,43#WN_mark
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(18) "And now, within this physical body dwells an etheric body. The day will come when your physical body will be received by the Earth for its destruction. Then will your etheric body dissolve in the wide expanse of the Cosmos. The far spaces of the Cosmos can indeed dissolve, but they again cannot build your etheric body. Only the divine spiritual Beings can build it up — the Beings of the hierarchy of Dynamis, Exusiai and Kyriotetes. To them you owe your etheric body." -Rudolf Steiner, World History in Light of Anthroposophy, Lecture VIII, https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19231231d01.html;mark=280,34,41#WN_mark
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(19) "Out of this world is taken that which determines our destiny by virtue of our inner constitution — our individual etheric humanity. Now we come to a third element deeply conditioning our destiny, namely our sympathies and antipathies. And, after all, it is through these sympathies and antipathies that many other things are brought into our life, belonging to our destiny in a far wider sense than the sympathies and antipathies themselves.
One man is carried into far distances by his sympathies and antipathies. He lives in this or that part of the world because his sympathies have taken him there, and in that distant land, the detailed events of his destiny will now unfold. Yes, these sympathies and antipathies are deeply involved in all our human destiny. They have their life in the world in which not now the Third but the Second Hierarchy are living: the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes.
In the animal kingdom lives the earthly image of the sublime, majestic formations of this Hierarchy. And what these Beings implant in us, when we commune with them between death and a new birth, lives in the innate sympathies and antipathies which we bring with us from the spiritual world into the physical." -Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume 1, Lecture 2 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19240217p01.html;mark=349,50,57#WN_mark
-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Dynamis" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=dynamis&mode=context
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6. Kyriotetes, Spirits of Wisdom, Dominions
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(20) The result is an exceptionally beautiful and impressive etheric organ. Particularly during sleep, it is revealed in its gleaming and glowing, its resounding and its manifold effects of warmth, its inner language. And beholding it more closely, one can see that this organ permeates what I once described (because these things must be described in vivid pictures) as the various Lotus-flowers.
Thus you can realize how through this organ — which develops in this confluence of the etheric body, and connects with the streams of the astral body, forming the Lotus-flowers — man finds his connection with the external astral and cosmic universe. This, too, is a manifestation. This, too, can be described as an appearance, and its true inner reality must be sought.
This reality is found in the Hierarchy which in anthroposophical writings I have called the Kyriotetes. You have now drawn out from the word “etheric body” its ultimate reality. It is a working and flowing and weaving together of the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, who individualize their streaming, flowing, resounding, speaking activity, and form the human etheric body. " -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade, 1951, The Cosmic Word and Individual Man, A Lecture given at Stuttgart on May 2, 1923 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/CosWrd_index.html;mark=831,3,11#WN_mark
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(21) "After death we have no physical body; we are able to turn to good account what the Archangeloi have conferred upon us from our periods of sleep. But when as physical human beings on the Earth, we wake from sleep, we have again to descend into a physical body. The Archangeloi cannot bestow upon us the power to do this. Still higher Hierarchies must add their work, namely, the Beings designated in Occult Science the Exusiai and the Kyriotetes.
Into the urges, instincts and desires of the physical body — which offer resistance to us — these higher Beings must introduce the fruits of what we have achieved in communion with the Archangeloi through the spirituality of speech; and this now flames up within us, as the voice of conscience.
When that which we bring out of sleep into the body lights up as the voice of conscience, there is working, in this voice, all that has been bestowed by the Hierarchy of the Exusiai and Kyriotetes — a Hierarchy more sublime than that of the Archangeloi. Thus. when we discover in the physical world a man whose conscience is so strong that instincts of a higher order arise in his physical body, we realise that as a result of idealism in his speech, Kyriotetes and Exusiai have worked upon him.
Again, when through universal human love a man forms a real link with the Archai, the results of the work that he himself does on his karma appear in the body of the next earth-life when, in early childhood, while he is sleeping his way into life, he learns to walk, acquires balance, skill in the use of his arms, control of the glandular system, and so on.
All this is possible because he has been able, between death and a new birth, to work in communion with the Archai. But in order that in his life on Earth a man may develop delicate sensitivity, a quick and clear consciousness in regard to his own deeds, it is necessary for the still higher Beings referred to in the book Occult Science as the Dynamis to work together with the Archai." -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade, 1973, The Forming of Destiny in Sleeping and Waking, Berne, 6th April, 1923
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-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Spirits of Form" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=Kyriotetes&mode=context​​​​​​​​​​​​​
The First Triad
The first triad, or hierarchy, is closest to the "Godhead" or "Father" of the universe. This group consists of:
7. Seraphim, Spirits of Love
8. Cherubim, Spirits of Harmony
9. Thrones, Spirits of Will
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(22) "Thus when we go to sleep at night, setting forth with our Ego and astral body, leaving behind the body of our waking life, Angels, Archangels and higher spiritual Beings enter into us and animate our organs while we are outside — until we re-awaken. And what is more, as to our ether-body, even in our day-waking life we are not able to fulfill what is needed there. The Beings of the highest Hierarchy — Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones — have to indwell this ether-body even while we are awake; they remain there always." -Rudolf Steiner, Man as a Picture of the Living Spirit, September 2, 1923. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ManPic_index.html;mark=223,5,13#WN_mark
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(23) "But what lives outside in this way, these super-sensible activities of Archai, Archangels, and Angels, which are reflected in the waking human being in Willing, Feeling, and Thinking — these must be harmonized with the etheric and physical bodies. The physical body must be formed in such a way that it can become the organ of thought, of speech, and of movement. One sees then how the activity of the Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai passes over into a still higher activity: that of the Thrones, who bring human Willing into accord with the physical human organism, the human metabolism and limbs.
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Then we come to the Hierarchy of Cherubim, who bring the human faculty of speech into accord with its physical basis. In all that serves speech or song in the organism, or anything similar to speech — the Cherubim bring the human life of Feeling into accord with the organs of speech. And now the faculty of Thought must also have its physical organ in the human nerves and senses. It is the Seraphim who bring Thinking into accord with the nerves and senses of man. Speech, and all that is connected with it, is brought into accord with Thinking and Feeling by the Cherubim.
...From this we see how the physical human form dissolves into appearance, and behind it there stand as realities: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. We are always looking into the activity of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, when the human Ego is interwoven with its inner activity, when man in waking life moves, speaks, feels, and thinks." Rudolf Steiner, -Rudolf Steiner, The Golden Blade, 1951, The Cosmic Word and Individual Man, A Lecture given at Stuttgart on May 2, 1923 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/CosWrd_index.html;mark=831,3,11#WN_mark
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(24) "Through the co-operation of the Spirits of Will and the Spirits of Motion, the earth would be still in that form, if another activity had not come in, one which is exceptionally enduring and which expresses itself on the surface of our earth by the fact that to the Will-forces, acting in conjunction with the Spirits of Motion, was added that which we call the activity of the Spirits of Form. You may therefore imagine that these Spirits of Form, dancing as it were upon the waves, stilled the moving masses and brought them into forms; so that we have to describe the co-operative workings of three different forces.
These three forces proceed from three sorts of Beings. You see the Spirits of Form at work, their influence penetrates upwards as well as downwards, into the sphere of the Spirits of Will as well as into the sphere of the Spirits of Motion. Above them are the Spirits of Motion, below them are the Spirits of Will. That which on our earth appears externally chiefly as a fluidic element, not however our present-day water, but the old fluidic element, which was brought to rest by the Spirits of Form, — that we must look upon as the most external manifestation of the Spirits of Will or Thrones. But another element always mingles itself with this activity. The Spirits of Will or Thrones are assisted, so to speak, by the Cherubim and Seraphim.
The Cherubim help in the element of air, in everything which permeates the apparent earthy substance as gaseous substance. Air is as it were an illusion, behind which there are the mighty Beings we call the Cherubim. The Seraphim work in what we know as heat, they are behind every sort of heat." Rudolf Steiner, The Mission of the Individual Folk-Souls, Lecture 5, June 11, 1910.
-Rudolf Steiner Archive Search on "Spirits of Form" Keyword: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/search=mode?query=Seraphim&mode=context
Beyond Saturn are two more spheres, the spheres of the Cherubim and Seraphim.
It is important to consider that, in light of Anthroposophy, each sphere is occupied by groups of higher beings in terms of the activity, but that does not mean that they are confined to those spheres.
Thus it is, that each sphere of spiritual activity is connected to each other, yet brings a unique influence to humanity. Each one of these spheres is viewed in esoteric wisdom in light of the planets - or rather the forcees behind the planetary emobodiments and not the physical planets themselves.