Ministering Spirits of the Local Universe

38:7.1In all es­sen­tial en­dow­ments cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are sim­i­lar to ser­a­phim. They have the same ori­gin but not al­ways the same des­tiny. They are won­der­fully in­tel­li­gent, mar­velously ef­fi­cient, touch­ingly af­fec­tion­ate, and al­most hu­man. They are the low­est or­der of an­gels, hence all the nearer of kin to the more pro­gres­sive types of hu­man be­ings on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

38:7.2Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are in­her­ently as­so­ci­ated, func­tion­ally united. One is an en­ergy pos­i­tive per­son­al­ity; the other, en­ergy neg­a­tive. The right-hand de­flec­tor, or pos­i­tively charged an­gel, is the cheru­bim—the se­nior or con­trol­ling per­son­al­ity. The left-hand de­flec­tor, or neg­a­tively charged an­gel, is the sa­no­bim—the com­ple­ment of be­ing. Each type of an­gel is very lim­ited in soli­tary func­tion; hence they usu­ally serve in pairs. When serv­ing in­de­pen­dently of their se­raphic di­rec­tors, they are more than ever de­pen­dent on mu­tual con­tact and al­ways func­tion to­gether.

38:7.3Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are the faith­ful and ef­fi­cient aids of the se­raphic min­is­ters, and all seven or­ders of ser­a­phim are pro­vided with these sub­or­di­nate as­sis­tants. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim serve for ages in these ca­pac­i­ties, but they do not ac­com­pany ser­a­phim on as­sign­ments be­yond the con­fines of the lo­cal uni­verse.

38:7.4The cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are the rou­tine spirit work­ers on the in­di­vid­ual worlds of the sys­tems. On a non­per­sonal as­sign­ment and in an emer­gency, they may serve in the place of a se­raphic pair, but they never func­tion, even tem­porar­ily, as at­tend­ing an­gels to hu­man be­ings; that is an ex­clu­sive se­raphic priv­i­lege.

38:7.5When as­signed to a planet, cheru­bim en­ter the lo­cal courses of train­ing, in­clud­ing a study of plan­e­tary us­ages and lan­guages. The min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time are all bilin­gual, speak­ing the lan­guage of the lo­cal uni­verse of their ori­gin and that of their na­tive super­uni­verse. By study in the schools of the realms they ac­quire ad­di­tional tongues. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, like ser­a­phim and all other or­ders of spirit be­ings, are con­tin­u­ously en­gaged in ef­forts at self-im­prove­ment. Only such as the sub­or­di­nate be­ings of power con­trol and en­ergy di­rec­tion are in­ca­pable of pro­gres­sion; all crea­tures hav­ing ac­tual or po­ten­tial per­son­al­ity vo­li­tion seek new achieve­ments.

38:7.6Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim are by na­ture very near the mor­ontia level of ex­is­tence, and they prove to be most ef­fi­cient in the bor­der­land work of the phys­i­cal, mor­ontial, and spir­i­tual do­mains. These chil­dren of the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit are char­ac­ter­ized by “fourth crea­tures” much as are the Ha­vona Servi­tals and the con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions. Ev­ery fourth cheru­bim and ev­ery fourth sa­no­bim are quasi-ma­te­rial, very def­i­nitely re­sem­bling the mor­ontia level of ex­is­tence.

38:7.7These an­gelic fourth crea­tures are of great as­sis­tance to the ser­a­phim in the more lit­eral phases of their uni­verse and plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties. Such mor­ontia cheru­bim also per­form many in­dis­pens­able bor­der­line tasks on the mor­ontia train­ing worlds and are as­signed to the ser­vice of the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions in large num­bers. They are to the mor­ontia spheres about what the mid­way crea­tures are to the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets. On the in­hab­ited worlds these mor­ontia cheru­bim fre­quently work in li­ai­son with the mid­way crea­tures. Cheru­bim and mid­way crea­tures are dis­tinctly sep­a­rate or­ders of be­ings; they have dis­sim­i­lar ori­gins, but they dis­close great sim­i­lar­ity in na­ture and func­tion.