The Planetary Princes

50:2.1All Plan­e­tary Princes are un­der the uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tive ju­ris­dic­tion of Ga­briel, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of Mi­chael, while in im­me­di­ate au­thor­ity they are sub­ject to the ex­ec­u­tive man­dates of the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns.

50:2.2The Plan­e­tary Princes may at any time seek the coun­sel of the Mel­chiz­e­deks, their for­mer in­struc­tors and spon­sors, but they are not ar­bi­trar­ily re­quired to ask for such as­sis­tance, and if such aid is not vol­un­tar­ily re­quested, the Mel­chiz­e­deks do not in­ter­fere with the plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion. These world rulers may also avail them­selves of the ad­vice of the four and twenty coun­selors, as­sem­bled from the be­stowal worlds of the sys­tem. In Sa­ta­nia these coun­selors are at pres­ent all na­tives of Uran­tia. And there is an anal­o­gous coun­cil of sev­enty at the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters also se­lected from the evo­lu­tion­ary be­ings of the realms.

50:2.3The rule of the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets in their early and un­set­tled ca­reers is largely au­to­cratic. The Plan­e­tary Princes or­ga­nize their spe­cial­ized groups of as­sis­tants from among their corps of plan­e­tary aids. They usu­ally sur­round them­selves with a su­preme coun­cil of twelve, but this is var­i­ously cho­sen and di­versely con­sti­tuted on the dif­fer­ent worlds. A Plan­e­tary Prince may also have as as­sis­tants one or more of the third or­der of his own group of son­ship and some­times, on cer­tain worlds, one of his own or­der, a sec­ondary La­non­an­dek as­so­ciate.

50:2.4The en­tire staff of a world ruler con­sists of per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit and cer­tain types of higher evolved be­ings and as­cend­ing mor­tals from other worlds. Such a staff av­er­ages about one thou­sand, and as the planet pro­gresses, this corps of helpers may be in­creased up to one hun­dred thou­sand or more. At any time need is felt for more helpers, the Plan­e­tary Princes have only to make re­quest of their broth­ers, the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, and the pe­ti­tion is granted forth­with.

50:2.5Plan­ets vary greatly in na­ture and or­ga­ni­za­tion and in ad­min­is­tra­tion, but all pro­vide for tri­bu­nals of jus­tice. The ju­di­cial sys­tem of the lo­cal uni­verse has its be­gin­nings in the tri­bu­nals of a Plan­e­tary Prince, which are pre­sided over by a mem­ber of his per­sonal staff; the de­crees of such courts re­flect a highly fa­therly and dis­cre­tionary at­ti­tude. All prob­lems in­volv­ing more than the reg­u­la­tion of the plan­e­tary in­hab­i­tants are sub­ject to ap­peal to the higher tri­bu­nals, but the af­fairs of his world do­main are largely ad­justed in ac­cor­dance with the per­sonal dis­cre­tion of the prince.

50:2.6The rov­ing com­mis­sions of con­cil­ia­tors serve and sup­ple­ment the plan­e­tary tri­bu­nals, and both spirit and phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are sub­ject to the find­ings of these con­cil­ia­tors. But no ar­bi­trary ex­e­cu­tion is ever car­ried out with­out the con­sent of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, for the “Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

50:2.7The con­trol­lers and trans­form­ers of plan­e­tary as­sign­ment are also able to col­lab­o­rate with an­gels and other or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings in ren­der­ing these lat­ter per­son­al­i­ties vis­i­ble to mor­tal crea­tures. On spe­cial oc­ca­sions the se­raphic helpers and even the Mel­chiz­e­deks can and do make them­selves vis­i­ble to the in­hab­i­tants of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. The prin­ci­pal rea­son for bring­ing mor­tal as­cend­ers from the sys­tem cap­i­tal as a part of the staff of the Plan­e­tary Prince is to fa­cil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the in­hab­i­tants of the realm.