The planetary spheres belong to the classical and Hellenistic picture of a layered cosmos: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the sphere of the fixed stars. Hermetic, Gnostic, and Neoplatonic traditions often described the soul’s descent through these levels and its return through them after death or through contemplative initiation. The accounts differ, but they commonly treat the spheres as sites of fate, passion, purification, and liberation.
For the Western Mystery Tradition, the ascent through the spheres became a lasting map of inner transformation. Within the Royal Art, the planetary gates can be read as symbolic disciplines of the soul: each threshold asks for the surrender of a false power, the recovery of a virtue, and a deeper freedom to return toward the Kingdom.