The Ptolemaic ladder that Dante climbs in the Paradiso, from the Earth through the seven planets to the fixed stars, the Primum Mobile and the Empyrean. Each heaven carries its rays from two lineages (Alice Bailey's esoteric astrology and the Ascended Master flames), its Hermetic colour, its tone, and the beings who keep it. Tap a sphere to open it.
The traditions agree on the ladder itself and on the Sun. Bailey gives the Sun the 2nd Ray of Love-Wisdom, and the Ascended Master teaching gives Sunday the yellow flame of the same 2nd Ray, so the two systems meet at the heart of the map. Everywhere else they diverge, because they reach the planets by different roads.
Bailey assigns rays to planets directly in Esoteric Astrology. The Ascended Master teachings tie each ray to a day of the week, and every weekday is named for its planet, so the flame of a planet here is read through its day. That reading puts the blue flame of Will, and Archangel Michael with it, on Tuesday and Mars, while the Hermetic day-angels of the Heptameron keep Michael at the Sun. The Golden Dawn adds one more turn by giving Raphael to the Sun and Michael to Mercury.
Sound shows the same pattern. Paul Foster Case's Hermetic notes and Hans Cousto's cosmic octave come from opposite methods, symbolic and astronomical, yet both place the Moon on G♯. The Primum Mobile carries Cousto's tone of the Earth's day, since the old cosmology made that outermost moving sphere the source of daily rotation. The Empyrean lies beyond motion, so it has no tone.
Placing the Maha Chohan, Lord of the Seven Rays, in the Primum Mobile is this map's own synthesis. The sphere that sets all the others turning is the natural seat for the one who holds all seven rays.
Bailey ray. Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology (1951), sacred and non-sacred planets. The Sun and Moon each veil a hidden planet.
Flame, ray archangel, Chohan. The Ascended Master teachings (Theosophy, I AM, Summit Lighthouse). Embodiment lore follows Summit Lighthouse and is devotional tradition.
Day angel. The Heptameron attributed to Peter of Abano, carried into Agrippa and later grimoires.
Sephirah and its archangel. The Hermetic Qabalah of the Golden Dawn.
Hermetic colour and note. Golden Dawn King scale colours; musical notes after Paul Foster Case (B.O.T.A.).
Cosmic octave. Hans Cousto, The Cosmic Octave (1978): orbital periods raised by octaves into hearing.
Choir, souls, virtue, liberal art. Dante, Paradiso (cantos II–XXXIII) and Convivio II.13–14, following Pseudo-Dionysius.
Devotion of the day. The traditional Catholic weekday devotions, matched to each planet through its day.