The Seven Archons — Planetary Rulers
The seven Archons are the cosmic powers created by the Demiurge who rule the seven planetary spheres — the jailers of souls, whose power must be transcended in the soul's ascent to the Pleroma.
The seven Archons (Greek: archon — ruler, prince) are the subordinate cosmic powers created by Yaldabaoth to assist in ruling the material cosmos. Each corresponds to one of the seven planetary spheres of ancient cosmology (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) and exercises dominion over the corresponding level of reality. In the Apocryphon of John, they are given names derived from Jewish angel names distorted: Athoth, Harmas, Kalila-Oumbri, Yabel, Adonaiou, Sabaoth, and Sabbede. Each Archon contributes to the construction of the human body, imprisoning the divine spark within layer upon layer of material existence. The soul's return to the Pleroma requires ascending through all seven spheres, at each level stripping away the 'garments' (psychological and material constraints) imposed by that Archon. This cosmic geography — with its seven levels between earth and the divine — influenced later Kabbalistic, Hermetic, and Islamic cosmological traditions.
Seven in number, they are guardians of the seven heavens, and their names are the names of the days of the week — for each rules a day and a sphere.
Historian of religion Ioan Couliano traced the Gnostic Archon system as a 'psychocosmological map' — each Archon corresponding to a psychological complex or limiting belief-system that the meditating practitioner must recognize and transcend in their inner journey toward liberation.
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- What Gnosticism says about fate
The system has staff. Seven rulers hold the seven planetary spheres of ancient cosmology, and each is said to contribute something to whoever passes through.