Superhierarchies @ 149
ous ways with the mundane work of the elemental beings, the nature
spirits, offspring of the Third Hierarchy.
Bittleston is expansive, though a touch ecclesiastical, in his descrip-
tion of the joint roles of hierarchical beings influencing the earth from
planets and sun: "We may feel something of the greatness of the sun by
turning first towards the Spirits of Form, through whom all visible
things strive towards their archetypes, towards the Spirits of Move-
ment, through whom all beings meet and part, passing through need
and fulfillment, and towards the Spirits of Wisdom who give all things
their meaning, their place within the whole."
The actual operating space of these hierarchical spirits is explained
as being not so much a single planet as a space within the whole orbit
described by each planet as seen from the earth, Ptolemaically. Angels,
being closest to humans, work closest to earth, up to the orbit of the
moon: archangels up to the limit of Mercury's orbit, archai to that of
Venus, dynamis to Mars, exusiai to the sun. Beyond the sun, the do-
main of the kyriotetes coincides with the orbit of Jupiter, that of
Saturn with the bailiwick of the thrones.
The sublimest hierarchy of spiritual beings-thrones, cherubim,
seraphim-are seen as inhabiting space beyond the zodiac, the sera-
phim receiving their high-level ideas directly from the Divine Trinity;
cherubim elaborate these ideas, transforming them into workable
plans; thrones put the plans into practice. Known to occultists as spirits
of will, love, and harmony, the members of this First Hierarchy are said
to be so intimate with the source of life,"having gathered wisdom over
millions of years of cosmic growth," they no longer have to receive
their life from outside but can create it from themselves and give it
away. The inner experience of these beings of the First Hierarchy, says
Steiner, lies in creation, in forming independent beings. "To create and
live through other beings is the inner experience of the First Hier-
archy: here we have not only self-creators, but creators of whole
worlds: creation of worlds is their outer life, creation of beings their
inner life."
As Steiner elucidates the process, whatever is created by spirits of
the First Hierarchy continues to exist by itself, is separated from them