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Godwin, Joscelyn - The Great Chain of Being
Identifier
002845
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
see also the description of Who might we meetA description of the experience
Joscelyn Godwin
In the world view of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, all other beings in the universe were pictured as an orderly hierarchy, a 'Great Chain of Being' stretching from Earth to Heaven
At the bottom of the chain are the minerals and rocks and the vegetable and animal kingdoms; then come the elementals, whose highest members merge with the spirits of the planetary spheres; above them are the spirits of the fixed stars; and then the angels in their ninefold hierarchy.
At the lower end of the hierarchy are the beings concerned with the nature and government of the material world