12 Angels in World Religions
Last week we reviewed the subject of angels as they appear in a number of selected literary works from various historical periods. Today we will see how angels are depicted in the doctrines of some non-Christian religions.
To begin, here is an introductory note from Wikipedia:
Angels
“The majority of people in the world believe there are angels. Interestingly enough, there are more people who believe in angels than there are people who believe in a Higher Power, oddly enough. They are found in just about every religion and culture throughout the ages, and the most fascinating thing is that accounts are strikingly similar.”
From Spring Wolf’s Spiritual Network-Angels explained:
“Angels: {Latin: angelus} ~ {Greek: angelos; "a super natural being"} ~
{Hebrew: malak; "a messenger"}
A being empowered as a messenger of the divine, for divine justice, guidance and/or protection
An Overview
Let's start with the misconception that Angels are strictly Christian or non-pagan. They're not. Mythology of Angels existed long before Judaism and Christianity.
Angels also are major figures in Buddhism, Hinduism, and in Celtic and Norse mythology as well as in many Shamanistic legends. But not all of these call these entities "angels", just like not everyone refers to a prayer as a mantra, or a spell of protection a prayer.
While Metaphysics, Pagan Metaphysics and non-Pagan religions all have their concepts of Angels and Demons they are not exactly the same. The theories or beliefs coincide and overlap at some points, and others set in stone details or structures that cannot be crossed.”
I will begin our angel review with Judaism, because the Jewish culture is the source of many of our Christian concepts of angels. Surprisingly, there is really quite a lot of material here. I say surprisingly, because I don't usually think of the Jewish religion as a particularly mystical religion. We are familiar with the many, many Jewish rituals that crowd the activities of their daily lives, but these rituals always have their basis in law, which has its basis in practicality. The mystical writings like the Kabbalah are not the first things think of when we think about Jews. So this somewhat lengthy discussion of Angels, in the Jewish culture, is especially interesting. After a review of Judaism we will branch out and look at some oriental perspectives, and some historical perspectives.
JUDAISM
The Jewish scriptures use the term 'messenger of God' to refer to angels. They're also mentioned in the Kabbalah. Angels were seen as semi-divine beings who were never human, who served God, carrying out tasks for Him as necessary. Sometimes it was to bring messages, sometimes to help test people, sometimes to fight and sometimes to save people.
The oldest portion of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch, uses the (Hebrew) terms מלאך אלהים (mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm; messenger of God), מלאך יהוה (mal'āk̠ YHWH; messenger of the Lord), בני אלהים (bənē 'ĕlōhîm; sons of God) and הקודשים (haqqôd̠əšîm; the holy ones) to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as angels. Later texts use other terms, such as העליונים (hā'elyônîm; the upper ones).
The term מלאך (mal'āk̠) is also used in other books of the Tanakh; a similar Arabic term, ملائكة (malā'ikah), is used in the Qur'an. Depending on the context, the Hebrew and Arabic words may refer to a human messenger or to a supernatural messenger. A human messenger might be a prophet or priest, such as Malachi, "my messenger"; the Greek superscription in the Septuagint translation states the Book of Malachi was written "by the hand of his messenger" ἀγγέλου angélu. Examples of a supernatural messenger are the "Malak YHWH," who is either a messenger from God, an aspect of God (such as the Logos), or God himself as the messenger (the "theophanic angel.")
Scholar Michael D. Coogan notes that it is only in the late books that the terms "come to mean the benevolent semi divine beings familiar from later mythology and art." Daniel is the first biblical figure to refer to individual angels by name, mentioning Gabriel (God's primary messenger) in Daniel 9:21 and Michael (the holy fighter) in Daniel 10:13. These angels are part of Daniel's apocalyptic visions and are an important part of all apocalyptic literature. Coogan explains the development of this concept of angels: "In the postexilic period, with the development of explicit monotheism, these divine beings—the 'sons of God' who were members of the Divine Council—were in effect demoted to what are now known as 'angels', understood as beings created by God, but immortal and thus superior to humans." This conception of angels is best understood in contrast to demons and is often thought to be "influenced by the ancient Persian religious tradition of Zoroastrianism, which viewed the world as a battleground between forces of good and forces of evil, between light and darkness." One of these is hāšāṭān, a figure depicted in (among other places) the Book of Job.
Philo of Alexandria identifies the angel with the Logos inasmuch as the angel is the immaterial voice of God. The angel is something different from God Himself, but is conceived as God's instrument.
In post-Biblical Judaism, certain angels took on particular significance and developed unique personalities and roles. Though these archangels were believed to rank among the heavenly host, no systematic hierarchy ever developed. Metatron is considered one of the highest of the angels in Merkabah and Kabbalist mysticism and often serves as a scribe; he is briefly mentioned in the Talmud and figures prominently in Merkabah mystical texts. Michael, who serves as a warrior and advocate for Israel (Daniel 10:13), is looked upon particularly fondly. Gabriel is mentioned in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:15–17) and briefly in the Talmud, as well as in many Merkabah mystical texts. There is no evidence in Judaism for the worship of angels, but there is evidence for the invocation and sometimes even conjuration of angels.
Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides explained his view of angels in his Guide for the Perplexed II:4 and II
“... This leads Aristotle in turn to the demonstrated fact that God, glory and majesty to Him, does not do things by direct contact. God burns things by means of fire; fire is moved by the motion of the sphere; the sphere is moved by means of a disembodied intellect, these intellects being the 'angels which are near to Him', through whose mediation the spheres [planets] move ... thus totally disembodied minds exist which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies [objects] here in this world.”
—Guide for the Perplexed II:4, Maimonides
According to Kabalah, there are four worlds and our world is the last world: the world of action (Assiyah). Angels exist in the worlds above as a 'task' of God. They are an extension of God to produce effects in this world. After an angel has completed its task, it ceases to exist. The angel is in effect the task. This is derived from the book of Genesis when Abraham meets with three angels and Lot meets with two. The task of one of the angels was to inform Abraham of his coming child. The other two were to save Lot and to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
INDIVIDUAL ANGELS
From the Jewish Encyclopedia, entry "angelology".
• Michael (translation: who is like God?), kindness of God*
• Gabriel (archangel) (translation: the strength of God), performs acts of justice and power*
*These are the only two angels mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible; the rest are from extra-biblical tradition.
• Raphael (translation: God Heals), God's healing force
• Uriel (translation: God is my light), leads us to destiny
• Samael (translation: the severity of God), angel of death—see also Malach HaMavet (translation: the angel of death)
• Sandalphon (translation: bringing together), battles Samael and brings mankind together
• Jophiel (translation: Beauty of God), expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden holding a flaming sword and punishes those who transgress against God.
Hermetic Qabalah
According to the Kabbalah as described by the Golden Dawn there are ten archangels, each commanding one of the choir of angels and corresponding to one of the Sephirot. It is similar to the Jewish angelic hierarchy.
As in so many ancient religions there is no lack of highly specific organization. It is interesting to me how the mystical beings of light have been arranged in hierarchical choirs, each of which has a very specific function. But how could this be without some kind of direct human-angelic interaction?"
We now turn to ISLAM:
“Angels are mentioned repeatedly in both the Koran and the Hadith. Islam teaches that angels are God's messengers. Unlike humans, they have not been given the gift of free will-- their job is to act as messengers, to test people, record deeds, guard, and even to question the dead. An example of a task they carry out is that of testing individuals by granting them abundant wealth and curing their illness. Believing in angels is one of the six Articles of Faith in Islam.
Some examples of angels in Islam:• Jibrail: the archangel Gabriel (Jibra'il or Jibril) is an archangel who serves as a messenger from God.
• Michael (archangel): or Mikail, the angel of nature.
• Israfil (Arabic: إسرافيل, translit.: Isrāfīl, Alternate Spelling: Israfel or Seraphim, Meaning: The Burning One ), is the angel of the trumpet in Islam, though unnamed in the Qur'an.
Along with Mikhail, Jibrail and Izra'il, he is one of the four Islamic archangels. Israfil will blow the trumpet from a holy rock in Jerusalem to announce the Day of Resurrection. The trumpet is constantly poised at his lips, ready to be blown when God so orders.• Darda'il: the angels who travel in the earth searching out assemblies where people remember God's name.
• Azrael is Azraa-eel or Izrail: the Angel of Death. No authentic reference of this in Quran or Hadeeth. Only referenced as angel of death or ملك الموت.
• Kiraman Katibin: the two angels who record a person's good and bad deeds.
• Mu'aqqibat: a class of guardian angels who keep people from death until its decreed time.
• Munkar and Nakir: the angels who test the faith of the dead in their graves. They ask the soul of the dead person questions. If the person fails the questions, the angels make the man suffer until the Day of Judgement. If the soul passes the questions, he will have a pleasant time in the grave until the Day of Judgement.
• Ridwan: the angel in charge of maintaining Jannat or Paradise.
• Maalik: the angel who keeps or guards hellfire.
• Harut and Marut are two angels mentioned in the second Surah of the Qur'an, who were sent down to test the people at Babel or Babylon by performing deeds of magic. (Sura Al-Baqara, verse 102.) The Qur'an indicates that although they warned the Babylonians not to imitate them or do as they were doing, some members of their audience failed to obey and became sorcerers, thus damning their own souls.”
• HINDUISM• Hinduism is known as the world's oldest living religion. It's one of the first religions for which we have scriptures, and some of those scriptures date back nearly 6,000 years. In Hinduism, besides the major Gods there are a host of minor Gods called 'devas'.
• The word deva means 'shining one', and they were believed to inhabit the astral plane, the higher plane of existence. Devas played the role of protector to humans. It was believed that, though spiritual in nature, devas could appear to us in human form and they were believed to bring messages or help guide people in their spirituality.
• Hinduism has many different types of spiritual beings who act in a similar capacity to Angels. One example is the minor gods, or devas, referred to as the "shining ones". They inhabit the higher astral plane of the divine world. Gods, devas, planets like Sani (Saturn), gurus (teachers), and ancestors can all play a protective role for humans. The Asuras are also a component of Hinduism. They are also referred to as evil spirits or demons. They are fallen devas who inhabit the lower astral plane, the mental plane of existence. Much like the fallen angels outlined in Christian philosophy. If an Asuras does a good dead, they can be reincarnated into devas and do not have to remain eternally in the lower plane. Hinduism also includes Apsaras, who are heavenly nymphs, who preside over sacrifices, and lipika, who regulate karma. Devas and asuras can inspire or bring down aspirants, helping or hindering people on their spiritual journey.
Buddhism
• The Buddhists for instance refer to angels as devas, or celestial beings. Some paths of Buddhism use the label dharmapalas or dharma protectors. In Tibetan Buddhism, devas are sometimes considered to be emanations of bodhisattvas or enlightened beings. Other paths of Buddhism have specific important devas, as they are often derived from pre-Buddhist cultures and religions and not from Buddhist philosophy itself. So these paths encorporated pre-Buddhist local or regional mythology into their Buddhist paths long ago.
GREECE• Ancient philosopher Aristotle believed in the 'first mover'-- or an immortal being that never changed who was responsible for the order and wholeness of the universe. According to Aristotle, just as there is a First Mover, so, too, must there be spiritual secondary movers.
• In Neo-Platonism, the second movers became associated with angels. The word 'angel' actually comes from the Greek word angelos, meaning 'messenger'.
• In the commentaries of Proclus (4th century, under Christian rule) on the Timaeus of Plato, Proclus uses the terminology of "angelic" (aggelikos) and "angel" (aggelos) in relation to metaphysical beings.Norway
• In Norse mythology the equivalent angels are the Valkyries who were originally sinister spirits of slaughter, dark angels of death who soared over the battlefields like birds of prey, carrying out a warrior’s fate in the name of Odin. They chose the heroes of the battle and took them away to Valhalla, the heavenly home of honor for Odin's ghostly army. In later Norse mythology, the Valkyries were romanticized as Odin's Shield-Maidens, virgins with golden hair and snowy arms who served the chosen heroes everlasting mead and meat in the great hall of Valhalla. They also soared over the battlefield as lovely swan-maidens or splendid mounted Amazons. This was portrayed in the Volsung Saga and Niebelungenlied, where the heroine Brynhild was a beautiful fallen Valkyrie.
Celtic
ZOROASTRIANSMIn Celtic mythology, the Faeries were often seen as the helpers of mankind. They too have many corolations to their deeds as an angel would. There are a few lesser Goddesses which also acted as Angels; and perhaps that's why they're often referred to as the lesser Goddesses, such as the goddess Sirona.
• Zoroastrianism believed in a being referred to as 'Fravashi'.
In Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion that developed in Persia (now Iran) during about 1,000 B.C.E., there are different angel-like figures. These were beings of light that manifested the energy of the Divine. They believed that each person had at least one Fravashi, seen as a guardian angel. The Fravashi patronize human beings and other creatures, and also manifest God's energy. The Amesha Spentas have often been regarded as angels, although there is no direct reference to them conveying messages, but are rather emanations of Ahura Mazda ("Wise Lord", God); they initially appeared in an abstract fashion and then later became personalized, associated with diverse aspects of the divine creation.
BAHA'IIn the Baha'i faith, angels are seen to come to us as confirmations that there is a celestial, powerful God and to reveal God's 'abounding grace' to humankind. They're described as 'blessed beings' that have transcended this world and are released from the 'chain of self', gone on to take on their angelic attributes.
In his Book of Certitude Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, describes angels as people who "have consumed, with the fire of the love of God, all human traits and limitations", and have "clothed themselves" with angelic attributes and have become "endowed with the attributes of the spiritual".
'Abdu'l-Bahá describes angels as the "confirmations of God and His celestial powers" and as "blessed beings who have severed all ties with this nether world" and "been released from the chains of self", and "revealers of God's abounding grace". The Bahá'í writings also refer to the Concourse on High, an angelic host, and the Maid of Heaven of Bahá'u'lláh's vision.
SikhismThe poetry of the holy scripture of the Sikhs – the Sri Guru Granth Sahib – figuratively mentions a messenger or angel of death, sometimes as Yam and sometimes as Azrael ("Ajraeel"):
The Messenger of Death will not touch you; in this way, you shall cross over the terrifying world-ocean, carrying others across with you.
Chitar and Gupat, the recording angels of the conscious and the unconscious, write the accounts of all mortal beings, but they cannot even see the Lord's humble devotees. However, Sikhism has never had a literal system of angels, preferring guidance without explicit appeal to supernatural orders or beings.
TheosophyIn the teachings of Theosophy, Devas are regarded as living either in the atmospheres of the planets of the solar system (Planetary Angels) or inside the Sun (Solar Angels) and they help to guide the operation of the processes of nature such as the process of evolution and the growth of plants; their appearance is reputedly like colored flames about the size of a human. It is believed by Theosophists that devas can be observed when the third eye is activated. Some (but not most) devas originally incarnated as human beings.
It is believed by Theosophists that nature spirits, elementals (gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders), and fairies can be also be observed when the third eye is activated. It is maintained by Theosophists that these less evolutionarily developed beings have never been previously incarnated as humans; they are regarded as being on a separate line of spiritual evolution called the "deva evolution"; eventually, as their souls advance as they reincarnate, it is believed they will incarnate as devas.
It is asserted by Theosophists that all of the above-mentioned beings possess etheric bodies that are composed of etheric matter, a type of matter finer and more pure that is composed of smaller particles than ordinary physical plane matter.
Contemporary belief in angelsA 2002 study based on interviews with 350 people, mainly in the UK, who said they have had an experience of an angel, describes several types of such experiences: visions, sometimes with multiple witnesses present; auditions, e.g. to convey a warning; a sense of being touched, pushed, or lifted, typically to avert a dangerous situation; and pleasant fragrance, generally in the context of somebody's death. In the visual experiences, the angels described appear in various forms, either the "classical" one (human countenance with wings), in the form of extraordinarily beautiful or radiant human beings, or as beings of light.
In the US, a 2008 survey by Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, published by TIME magazine, which polled 1,700 respondents, found that 55 percent of Americans, including one in five of those who say they are not religious, believe that they have been protected by a guardian angel during their life. An August 2007 Pew poll found that 68 percent of Americans believe that "angels and demons are active in the world", and according to four different polls conducted in 2009, a greater percentage of Americans believe in angels (55%) than those who believe in global warming (36%).
According to the Gallup Youth Survey, in a Teen Belief in the Supernatural poll of teenagers (aged 13–17):
in 1978, 64% of American young people believed in angels;
in 1984, 69% of teenagers believed in angels;
and by 1994, that number grew to 76%,
while belief in other supernatural concepts, such as the Loch Ness monster and ESP, has declined.
In 1992, 80% of 502 surveyed teenage girls believe in angels, and
81% of Catholic teens and 82% of regular church attendees harbored beliefs in angels.
According to another set of Gallup polls, designated towards all Americans,
in 1994, 72% of Americans said they believed in angels, while in
2004, 78% of the surveyed Americans indicated belief in angels,
with the percentage of Americans that did not believe in angels dropping from 15% to 10%,
and the percentage of Americans that were "not sure" dropping from 13% to 11%.
A 2008 survey of over 1000 Canadians found 67 percent believe in angels.
These are just a fraction of the representations of angels in various religions. In modern times, many people who consider themselves non-religious, non-spiritual, agnostic or even atheistic, continue to believe in the presence and intervention of angels in human life."
The so-called New Age spirituality cannot be properly called a religion, per se, but it has brought lots of newly articulated spiritual concepts to the table. The following excerpt from Castaneda's Yaqui Way of Knowledge discusses a shamanistic view of paranormal entities which are apparently, a direct analog to ANGELS:
"They saw that the inanimate energy has no awareness. Awareness, for shamans, is a vibratory condition of animate energy. Don Juan said that the shamans of ancient Mexico were the first ones to see that all the organisms on Earth are the possessors of vibratory energy. They called them organic beings, and saw that it is the organism itself sets up the cohesiveness and the limits of such energy. They also saw that there are conglomerates of vibratory, animate energy which have a cohesion of their own, free from the bindings of an organism. They called them inorganic beings, and described them as clumps of cohesive energy that are invisible to the human eye, energy that is aware of itself, and possesses a unity determined by an agglutinating force other than the agglutinating force of an organism.
The shamans of Don Juan's lineage saw that the essential condition of animate energy, organic or inorganic, is to turn energy in the universe at large into sensory data. In the case of organic beings, the sensory data is then turned into a system of interpretation in which energy at large is classified, and a given response is allotted to each classification, whatever the classification may be. The assertion of sorcerers is that in the realm of inorganic beings, the sensory data into which energy at large is transformed by the inorganic beings, must be by definition, interpreted by them in whatever incomprehensible form they may do it.
There are two nuggets here I would like to emphasize:
"there are conglomerates of vibratory, animate energy which have a cohesion of their own, free from the bindings of an organism"
Clearly, the universally upheld definition of angels is that they are free from the bindings of organisms, and:
"the essential condition of animate energy, organic or inorganic, is to turn energy in the universe at large into sensory data"
This idea is in agreement with the idea, as proclaimed by Steiner, that angels impress spiritual energy onto the devotee's astral body, transforming it into information that is somehow able to be interpreted by the human senses.
Another new age slant on angels is that of Tom Kenyon:
"In this message we wish to discuss our perspective regarding the nature of angels. This has nothing to do with religion. Rather it has to do with interdimensional reality.
For our purposes we shall divide the topic of angels into three broad categories.
Angels of the Spiritual Realms
These ephemeral beings are electromagnetic fields of intelligence, some of which have form that is recognizable and some of which do not. These electromagnetic fields of intelligence interact with human beings in unique ways, and the expectations and beliefs of any given human have a lot to do with the nature of the experience. In other words, the belief system of the human being greatly affects what is experienced.
Angels from the spiritual realms take many different forms and while some of them have energy fields that give the impression that they have wings, many of them do not.
These types of angels are created beings. They are force fields of intelligence that are sent out into the ethers, into the cosmos, to do the bidding or to take the action of their creator.
This creator can take the form of what might be referred to as a god, goddess, demigod or demigoddess, an interdimensional being, an alien intelligence, or even a human being. These types of angels have no free will of their own. They are created for the sole purpose of a particular intention.
In most cases an angel will continue on its mission with single-mindedness until the energy that created it is no longer able to sustain it. In some very rare instances these angelic beings can gain a level of self-awareness and an ability to make personal choices separate from the being that created them or gave them birth. This is a very rare occurrence, but it does exist.
Within this category of angels, you have a host of beings with many different intentions.
The focus of this message is on angels who have a life-affirming and positive intent.
Angels Within
A second category of angels may best be described as electromagnetic fields of intelligence that exist solely within the human body. These are force fields of intelligence created through the emotions and beliefs of the individual human. They are subtle energetic forces that move through the human body in response to beliefs and emotions.
One of the great abilities you possess as a human being is to create angelic forces within your body through the use of positive intent and positive emotion.
Alien Intelligences
This third category of angels is not angelic at all, but it is a misinterpretation.
It occurs when a human being encounters an alien intelligence. This type of encounter can be misinterpreted as having been an interaction with an angel. Many of your spiritual and religious traditions have stories about encounters with angelic beings, or gods/goddesses who were, in truth, simply more advanced alien civilizations."
Of particular interest in this last excerpt is the way the line between angelic entities and human entities is blurred. Much of the preceding material poses the question of whether when you die do you become an Angel or not. Clearly the Mormons and the Hindus have the idea that a human being can ascend into an Angelic state, whereas the other philosophies maintain that angels are the angles of God, with no personal identity, and who cease to exist once their ACTION has been performed. The Kenyon quote suggests even more complicated alternative answers to this question.
What this tells me is not that the truth of angels is quintessentially one thing or another, but merely that there are different categories of higher beings, some of whom are angels and some of whom are something completely different. For me, I prefer the abstract interpretation of an angel: that angels are merely ANGLES of God and have no actual personality of their own; this is what I was taught when I first got my spiritual awakening. But' clearly there are differences of opinion on this point. Hence, the arrangement of angels into distinct choirs or functions turns the term "angel" into a categorical designation rather than a specific designation; in other words, any of a number of very different higher beings which are considered miraculous by us on the lower plane, can be termed "angels" in a generic sense.
This is something to consider in prayer, since we like to know who we are talking to when we are on the HELP line. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to suggest that our prayers are addressed to God through the medium of angelic intelligence, whether it be Jewish angelic intelligence, Hindu angelic intelligence, or Islamic angelic intelligence.
We can see from all the preceding material that most religions of the world not only affirm the existence of angels in the abstract, but encourage their devotees to cultivate an active relationship with them, seeking spiritual guidance and power. When we pray, we think we are addressing the Father or the Son directly, but in light of the foregoing, it is quite possible that we are speaking to the Divine through the mouthpiece of angels.
Next week we will examine angels from the strictly Christian perspective.
Let us pray. Jesus we know you hear our prayers and we thank for answering them in the language you think best speaks to our deaf human ears. Amen.
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