De Septem
Lenten Meditation for March 24, 2026
In the pre-1969 liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, today is the feast of Saint Gabriel the Archangel. It is fitting that his feast falls today, as tomorrow commemorates one of his most important deeds, that is, the Annunciation. And so, in honor of Saint Gabriel, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the angels, and in particular on the highest among them
According to both the Scriptures and the tradition, there are, among the angels, seven who are highest and who “stand before the throne of God.”
Why are there seven spirits before the throne? The obvious association is with the seven planets known to the ancients, and worshiped or venerated throughout the world. We have, then, in the order of the Universe, a progression from One to Three, or One-and-Three, to Seven, with an ontological gap between the Three and the Seven. Readers familiar with the Tree of Life will already understand the meaning of this.
The names of the seven highest archangels are Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Jegudiel, Barachiel, and Selathiel. Each has a particular role to play in the government of the Universe. Michael is the highest of the angels, the chief of the heavenly host. Gabriel announces the plans of God. Raphael is the angel of healing, and of journeys. Uriel is the enlightener of souls. Jegudiel is the angel who delivers divine judgment. Barachiel is the commander of the guardian angels. Selathiel, finally, conducts the prayers of the faithful to the throne of God.
Readers who come to this work from a Catholic or Anglican background may not know all these names. Western Christians typically stop at Uriel, and of late the Roman church in its boundless stupidity has prohibited the faithful even from calling upon him. (This has been a recurring theme since the Middle Ages, but was strongly reiterated again by Pope John Paul II in 2006. Part of the justification included references to “New Age” types calling upon angels. In other words, the Church discovered that people were doing magic on their own again, and interceded to stop it. As usual.) The names of the Seven are preserved in the Eastern churches.
This is one case, though, where esotericists are equally unlikely to be familiar with the material in question. Most of us know of at least one list of seven archangels, and these are usually associated with the planets. Cassiel (or Tzaphkiel, or Orifiel) governs Saturn; Tzadkiel is assigned to Jupiter; Samael or Kamael, to Mars; Michael to the Sun; Hanael, to Venus; Raphael to Mercury; Gabriel, to the Moon. Lists like this can be found in works like Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy or Trithemius’s De Septem Secundeis.
If you turn to the list of the Seven from the Orthodox tradition, you’ll notice that they can’t be quite as easily assigned to the planets. Raphael, governing both travel and medicine, is perfectly associated with Mercury. The rest are less clear. Should Jegudiel (the celestial judge) or Barachiel (the ruler of the guardian angels) be given to Mars? Which, if any, could be assigned to Venus?
To my mind, the answers are, in the first case, neither, and in the second, none. I’d like to propose a different set of associations for the Highest Seven. It’s not one I’ve seen before, but I think it works.
In the old, geocentric, model of the universe, the seven spheres of the planets are preceded (in the order of creation) by the Eighth Sphere, the Sphere of the Fixed Stars. The Eighth Sphere is different from those that follow, rotating counter-clockwise rather than clockwise. Surmounting the Eighth Sphere (from our perspective) is the North Star, a faint point of light at the height of the Heavens. Its appearance is that of a geometric point, barely visible from our world yet acting for millennia as a guide to travelers, especially those who travel by sea-- the sea itself being an image of the life of the incarnate soul. It is, as such, an image of the throne of God: Often faint and hard to discern, yet a source of light and guidance, especially on the most difficult of journeys.
Surrounding the North Star is a group of seven stars which never set below the horizon, but which turn about it in a counter-clockwise circle throughout the year. These are the seven stars of the “Big Dipper.” In Taoist tradition, the stars of the Big Dipper are seen as a kind of heavenly ladle that pours out the power of Heaven onto the Earth. They are also each assigned to a particular deity and worshiped. I believe that we can see the Seven Highest Angels as playing exactly this role in our tradition, and the system of the Dipper Stars and the Pole Star as an image of the Throne of God and the Seven Spirits who stand before it and, as it were, pour out the divine will upon the Earth.
Given how well this fits the traditional cosmology, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the true origin of the Seven-- with that said, I’ve never seen anyone discuss it before.
And so what we have in the northern sky is a visible image of the One and the Seven. In the Seven Spheres of the planets, then, we have, not the primordial seven, but the same archetype reproduced at a lower level-- the astral plane in which astrological phenomena have their origin. Three of the Highest Seven reproduce themselves at this lower level of manifestation; four do not. Descending down another level, we have the angels of the four elements: Michael (Fire), Gabriel (Water), Raphael (Air), and Uriel (Earth): Here, again, four of the seven highest recur, and to my mind the presence of Uriel at the highest and lowest levels seems particularly significant.
And in truth there may be yet a higher order of the seven. Our current North Star, Polaris, was not always the North Star, and another star will occupy that role at some point in the future. Over the course of a Great Year, I have read-- that is, the 25,000-odd year period of the astrological ages-- seven different stars will play the role of North Star. Perhaps these are the true Seven Highest, each marking out a different moment in the cycle of the twelve 2,1000-year astrological ages. And the One and the Three remain invisible, only shown forth by the angels who stand before their throne.