and upheaval, it is extremely comforting to believe in
the existence of spiritual beings whose principal employment is
the protection and encouragement of human beings. In the words of
Ps. 91:10–11:
He will give his angels charge of you,
To guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
Lest you dash you foot against a stone.
In point of fact, far and away the great majority of contemporary
angel books focus on stories in which people are helped by
angels in some way. Typical of this literature is the kind of
encounter reported in Eileen Elias Freeman’s book, Angelic Healing.
Freeman relates that she had an encounter with an angel in the
guise of a hospital nurse. On the night before Eileen’s cancer
surgery, she was unable to sleep. She prayed and received the sacraments
of the church, but she was still crying into her pillow and
shaking with fear. Suddenly, a voice next to her said, “Can I help?”
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She turned over to see a
nurse sitting by her bed. Eileen told him she was scared, that she
would never get through her illness, that she would die, and that
the cancer had already spread too far.
“Get a hold of yourself,” the man said quietly. “None of what you
say is true. There’s a purpose in everything that happens. You just have
to get through this and learn from it. Whatever happens, God won’t
abandon you. Don’t give in to the fear.”
Eileen looked at the man in amazement, as this was the same message
she had been receiving in response to her prayers. She asked him if he was
an angel. His response was, “I suppose I am. After all, we nurses are sometimes
called ‘angels of mercy,’ aren’t we? You’d better try to get some sleep
or your real angel will be put out.” Eileen closed her eyes for an instant,
and when she reopened them the nurse was gone. In his place was a luminous
glow, which she perceived only for a moment before it faded away. If
the bulging shelves of angel books that one can find in almost any bookstore
are an accurate indication, there is a significant portion of the population
that cannot get enough of these miracle stories.
Angels are the traditional intermediary spiritual beings between
god and humanity. They are defined by their function of messagebearer,
although this role does not exhaust their activities. Originating
in Zoroastrianism, they are particularly (though not exclusively)
found in the Western family of religions—Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam—where God is conceived as being so elevated he does not
intervene directly in the world. Angels are often pictured delivering
messages to mortals or in other ways carrying out God’s will. Many
religions contain notions of guardian angels, who are angels assigned
to watch over and protect individuals.
Angels are traditionally pictured cohabiting heaven with deceased
human beings, and in the contemporary period it is not uncommon to
find confusion between angels and ghosts. Thus, for example, people
often equate guardian angels with the spirits of departed human individuals.
Popular movies even portray the deceased with wings—an
attribute formerly reserved for angels. These portrayals fly in the face of
the traditional understanding of angels as a separate order of creation.
They were never (with a few legendary exceptions) incarnated in
human bodies. Another contrast between traditional and contemporary
angelology is that the focus of most traditional angel lore was on
the activity of God through his angels, whereas in the contemporary
period God almost seems to have been eclipsed by his angels. Let us, by
way of contrast, examine a more traditional miracle story, the apostle
Peter’s rescue by an angel in the Book of Acts.
The setting for this tale is the persecution of the early Christian
Church in Palestine. Herod the king (grandson of Herod the Great),
appointed to his position by Rome, executed James, the brother of
John, and imprisoned Peter with the intent of executing him as soon
as the Feast of Unleavened Bread had passed. Aware of Peter’s
impending fate, the community prayed for his deliverance:
Peter was kept in prison; but earnest prayer for him was
made to God by the church. The very night when
Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping
between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries
before the door were guarding the prison; and
behold an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone
in the cell; and he struck Peter on the side and woke
him, saying, “Get up quickly.” (Acts 12:5–7)
The first point to note is that the Christian God is one who
responds to prayer. In this case, he sends an angel to answer the
prayers of the Christian community. This is consistent with the traditional
Hebrew understanding of a regal divinity who sends angels out
from the court of heaven to deliver his messages to his people. The
angel directs Peter to dress and follow him out of prison. Peter, half
asleep, thinks he is in a dream.
When they had passed the second guard, they came to
the iron gate leading into the city. It opened to them of
its own accord, and they went out and passed on
through one street; and immediately the angel left him.
(Acts 12:10)
The larger theme—God intervening in human affairs to rescue a
captive—is entirely consistent with tradition, an echo of God’s rescue
of his people from their captivity in Egypt and Babylon. It is also significant
to note that the angel appears rather abruptly, accomplishes
the task at hand, and then departs as soon as the task is complete.
This mode of action tends to deemphasize the importance of the angel
and gives the glory to God. In this instance, when relating the story of
his rescue to other believers, Peter “described to them how the Lord
had brought him out of the prison” (Acts 12:17), thus focusing attention—
and particularly praise—on God rather than on his agent.
As messengers of God (the Greek word angelos means “messenger”),
angels are particularly characteristic of the great monotheistic
faiths of the West. This is the case because in polytheistic systems, gods
and goddesses often arrive in person to deliver messages. Religious
authorities in the monotheistic traditions, fearing a return to polytheism,
have often expressed concern over excessive focus on angels. The
historical example of Zoroastrianism is instructive in this regard.
Angels in the proper sense first emerged in Zoroastrianism, the
first true monotheism. In the history of religions, Zoroastrianism,
founded in Persia by the prophet Zoroaster in about 1000 BC, has
been an unusually fruitful faith, exercising an influence on the docIntroduction
xvi Angels AtoZ
trines of other religions disproportionate to its size. Angels are but one
part of Zoroastrianism’s legacy to its sister/brother religions, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
While it is difficult to reconstruct the details of Zoroaster’s original
message, it appears that his intention was to reform the preexisting
religion of the area rather than to create a new religion. It is also clear
that Zoroaster preached the centrality of one god, Ahura Mazda. The
other divinities of the earlier pantheon were reduced to the status of
mere agents of the supreme deity—i.e., to the status of angels. Also,
some of the gods of the original pantheon were transformed into
demons, although this transformation may have been due to factors
completely independent of the reforming activities of Zoroaster. As
Zoroastrianism developed, the number of celestial beings multiplied,
leading some observers to remark that the old polytheistic system had
unwittingly been revived in the later stages of this religious tradition.
Judaism was similarly threatened by an overemphasis on angels.
The Jewish religion is a complex tradition that has experienced a
number of important transformations over the millennia. While most
accounts of angel history attribute Zoroastrianism as the first religion
to have true angels, attendant spiritual beings served Yahweh from the
very first biblical narratives, long before Persian religious ideas began
to exercise an influence on Judaism.
The biblical God sends out his angels to carry messages, to protect,
and to destroy. They also have the function of constantly offering
praise to Yahweh. Only in the latter books of Hebrew Scriptures (the
Christian Old Testament) do angels begin to do more than simply
worship God and carry out his orders, as when the angel of the Lord in
the book of Zechariah intercedes with God on behalf of Israel
(1:12–13). The latter books of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the
book of Daniel, reflect the distinct influence of Persian angelology. As
a result of several centuries of Persian control of the Middle East, Jews
were brought into contact with Zoroastrian religious ideas. Of decisive
significance in view of later developments in Judaism’s sister/brother
religions, Christianity and Islam, was Zoroaster’s doctrine of the ongoing
struggle between good and evil—a dualistic world view that
included war between good and evil angels. Earlier Hebrews had not
postulated an evil counter-divinity or devil opposed to Yahweh. In the
book of Job, for example, Satan is a member of the heavenly court
whose role appears to be that of a prosecuting attorney rather than
that of an enemy of God.
In order to explain the origin of a devil in the traditionally nondualistic
faith of Judaism, new stories were developed, though they were
Introduction
Angels AtoZ xvii
never incorporated into Scripture. These extra-biblical writings
explained evil in terms of the revolt and/or disobedience of God’s angels.
In one story, Satan declared himself as great as God and led a rebellion of
angels against the celestial order. Defeated, he and his followers were
tossed out of heaven, and subsequently have continued to war against
God by attempting to ruin the Earth, God’s creation. A less well-known,
alternative narrative, which is best preserved in the apocryphal Book of
Enoch, is that a group of angels lusted after mortal females, and Fell after
leaving their heavenly abode and copulating with them.
In addition to the notion of an ongoing spiritual warfare between
good and evil, Judaism also adopted the idea of a final judgment and
resurrection of the dead at the end of time—a time when righteousness
would finally triumph. This happy ending would be preceded by
an all out war in which the angels of God would defeat Satan and his
fallen angels once and for all. These notions particularly characterized
the thought world of the Essenes, a small Jewish sect whose surviving
writings, the Dead Sea Scrolls, are characterized by an apocalyptic,
endtime emphasis that pictured a supernatural redemption at the
hand of God and his angels.
Beyond the Hebrew Bible, a number of important bodies of Jewish
religious literature further developed notions about angels. The most
important of these are the Talmud. While attempting to tone down
what they viewed as an unhealthy overemphasis on angels, the talmudic
rabbis simultaneously recognized such post-biblical innovations as
the division between angels of peace and evil angels. The talmudic literature
also adds much detailed speculation on the nature of angels
without changing the fundamental notions that had been developed
earlier. Much the same can be said about Jewish mystical speculations,
such as those contained in the Zohar.
Christianity inherited its angels from Judaism. Angels eventually
came to be so important that some of the early Church councils worried
that devotion to angels was eclipsing devotion to God. Medieval
Christian angelology moved in two directions. The first is characterized
by a fascination with the personalities of specific angelic figures.
Such writings as the Books of Enoch, the Testament of Abraham, and
the Apocalypse of Elijah describe the functions of angels named Uriel,
Raguel, Sariel, Jeremiel, and others who serve alongside Gabriel,
Michael, and Raphael. Christian non-canonical writings, especially
the Nag Hammadi texts, continue and elaborate upon this trend. The
second tradition of Medieval angelology is primarily a philosophical
one, focusing on such issues as the corporeality or non-corporeality of
angels, and the precise ordering of the hierarchy of angels.
Introduction
xviii Angels AtoZ
Many of the conventions of angelic representation were established
in the Medieval period. In other words, certain artistic conventions
allow one to immediately recognize pictures of angels—e.g.,
human figures with wings, white robes, halos, and sometimes harps.
Wings signify that angels are celestial beings, white robes and halos
symbolize purity and holiness, and harps indicate that angels sing
God’s praises.
The last major monotheistic tradition is Islam, a religion founded
in Arabia by the Prophet Muhammad in the year 622 C.E. Mala’ika is
the Islamic term for angel and like the Greek word angelos, means
messenger.
Angels are regularly mentioned in the Islamic holy book, the
Koran. Some, such as Djibril (Gabriel) and Mikhail (Michael), are also
found in Judaism and Christianity. Djibril and Mikhail are two of four
important Muslim archangels. The other two are Izra’il and Israfil. Djibril
(often spelled Jibril) is of especial importance in Islam. It was Djibril
who originally contacted The Prophet and who dictated the Koran to
him. Djibril was also the angel who conducted Muhammad to heaven
during the Night Journey. In some areas of the world, angels, many with
unusual names, play an important role in popular Islam. These practices
may be rooted in the pre-Islamic religions of those areas.
As messengers of god, angels are most properly denizens of the
monotheistic faiths. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily absurd to seek
angel-like beings in non-monotheistic religions. As part of their
efforts to discover parallel beings in other religions, contemporary
authors often mention certain Hindu/Buddhist spirits/demi-gods, such
as devas, apsaras, and gandharvas, as well as such messenger divinities
of the classical Greek and Roman pantheon as Eros, Hermes, and
Nike. These latter deities are particularly appropriate for comparison
as they contributed iconographically to Christian angels.
Another class of beings that invites comparison with angels are
fairies. Fairies are a kind of nature spirit that, under different names
and guises, are found in every part of the world. Often pictured as
small humanoid beings with wings, they present the appearance of
mini-angels. Unlike angels, however, fairies have always had a mixed
relationship with humanity. As nature spirits concerned with natural
processes, they do not normally seek out human contact, but, when
they take a liking to someone, they will help her or him in various
ways. On the other hand, they have also been pictured as mischievous
beings who enjoy playing pranks on people. Because the Church did
not have room in its world view for morally neutral spiritual beings
who were neither good nor evil, fairies were rejected as agents of
Introduction
Angels AtoZ xix
Satan. Traditional religious authorities were thus responsible for driving
a wedge between fairies and angels, and the rather obvious family
resemblance between them has been obscured ever since.
In the West, angels began a gradual decline in importance in the
wake of the rise of modern science in the early modern period. The
physical sciences undermined belief in the concrete reality of heaven,
hell, angels, and devils. The only important countervailing tendency
was the emergence of depth psychology, which gave these entities new
plausibility as mental phenomena. Carl Jung, for instance, postulated
the existence of a collective unconscious and discussed mythology and
religion in terms of the “primordial images,” or “archetypes,” in the
collective unconscious that every human being inherits. Using this
approach, it is possible to acknowledge demons, spirits, and angels as
the personifications of the unconscious, rather than as literal spiritual
beings existing independently of our perceiving minds.
The notion of angels as actual, literal beings came back into fashion
within two distinct subcultures, modern Evangelical Protestantism
and the contemporary metaphysical/spiritual subculture. Within evangelicalism,
renewed interest was stimulated by Billy Graham’s popular
1975 book, Angels. This book as well as other works that were composed
in the wake of Angels’s success investigated the nature and the
purpose of angels. These books provide thoroughly biblical guides to
the world of angels, and are filled with stories of personal experiences
that fit the scheme of biblical angelology.
Evangelical authors generally agree with the theory that the Christian
God created the angels—countless thousands of them—some time
before he created the physical universe. A war in heaven resulted in the
expulsion of Satan and his angels. Human beings were created later, in
God’s image, a little lower than the angels. Regarded as messengers of
the word of God, the good angels serve him as well as his people, whereas
evil angels serve Satan and his purposes. God has provided assistance
for men in their spiritual conflicts, through the actions of countless
angels at his command, who provide unseen aid on our behalf.
More recently, evangelical interest in angels was stimulated by
Christian novelist Frank E. Peretti whose works feature “spiritual warfare”
between Christian angels and fallen angels. The action in these
novels moves back and forth between two interacting levels: while
angels and devils cross swords in the spiritual realm, Peretti’s human
heroes and heroines do battle with Spiritualists, witches, psychologists,
secular education advocates, and other groups viewed by conservative
Christians as being under demonic influence. The Christians’
concentrated prayers provide power and protection for warrior angels,
Introduction
xx Angels AtoZ
who are then empowered to win their battles against supernatural
demons. A decisive defeat of Satan’s legions in the spiritual realm
leads more or less directly to the defeat of Satan’s earthly minions.
The story of the metaphysical/spiritual interest in angels begins
with a nineteenth-century occult movement, Theosophy. While the
term Theosophy has more than one meaning, in contemporary usage
it refers to the particular synthesis of ideas that manifested in the
Theosophical Society that was founded in New York in 1875. Theosophy
postulates a complex view of the universe within which humanity’s
origins, evolution, and ultimate destiny are delineated in some
detail. Like the ancient Gnostics, who they view as one of their predecessors,
Theosophists populate the cosmos with innumerable spiritual
entities. A significant class of these entities are what Theosophists call
devas, which is a Sanskrit term for the demi-gods of Hinduism and
Buddhism. Within Theosophy, devas are the rough equivalents of
angels, although devas have many more functions than do Christian
angels. In particular, devas oversee natural forces, and are responsible
for building up forms on inner planes as well as on the physical plane.
Devas became part of the more general metaphysical subculture in
the early 1970s when a movement known as Findhorn was being featured
in Spiritualist periodicals. The early Findhorn community
focused around a highly successful vegetable garden in which community
members were engaged in a unique cooperative arrangement with
agricultural devas (understood in Theosophical terms). Dorothy
Maclean, a member of the Findhorn community, communicated
directly with devas during the first several years after the Findhorn
Garden was started in Scotland. After establishing communication
with these nature spirits and determining that she and the other two
people at Findhorn, Peter and Eileen Caddy, were to build their garden
in cooperation with the devas, Maclean posed specific gardening
questions to the devas and received answers from them. Putting these
answers into action, the Findhorn Garden, renowned for its inexplicably
abundant produce, was created.
Thus the devas, who had long been identified with the angels of
Western religious traditions, entered the consciousness of the Spiritualists,
though it was more than two decades before they occupied center
stage. How long angels will ride their current crest of popularity is
difficult to predict. One anomalous indicator is that Spiritualism
shares its present angel craze with the conservative Christian subculture—
an unprecedented parallelism that indicates the interest in
angels may be more durable than earlier Spiritualist pursuits. A more
historically informed glance at angelic matters indicates a high correIntroduction
Angels AtoZ xxi
lation between an interest in angels and millennial expectancy. If this
correlation holds true in the present case, angels should be with us
until at least the end of the millennium.
Angels A to Z is the one resource that will enable you to fully
embrace the angel phenomenon. In a single source, we have attempted
to provide an overview that is not limited to a list of angels or a
historical overview. Rather, it has been our goal to provide a unique
blend of entries that truly embodies everything to do with angels.
In Angels A to Z you will encounter angels from myriad religious
traditions, from the Hindu asura and the Zoroastrian fravashi to
Christian principalities. We introduce you to good angels and fallen
angels; angel herbs; angels in legend and lore; and angel theosophists
such as Rudolf Steiner and Emanuel Swedenbцrg. We delve into the
contemporary scene, investigating angels in the occult, metaphysics,
and Spiritualist traditions. You can explore angels across the ages
through the works of traditional artists (like Giotto and Rembrandt)
and the very contemporary artwork of artists such as Glenda Green
and Karyn Martin-Kuri. We even answer the etymological question:
Where do the terms angel and demon come from? From halos to
wings, Angels A to Z gives you the big picture.
The alphabetical form of Angels lets you quickly locate your entry
of interest, and bold-face terms direct you to related entries in the text.
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