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Angels |
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All about Angels - Introduction
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Angels have been
around, it is said, since the beginning of time and assisted with Creation. One
ancient Hebrew text says that angels were made on the second day of Creation.
After God had made animals and birds, he formed humans so that they might be a
bridge between the angels and animals with the potential to strive towards
either state.
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Angels appear to
humans in the form to which the individual most easily relates. To some this may
be as a full blown Archangel with golden wings or for others a kindly stranger
who helps us when we are lost or afraid and then disappears. Because when you
are dealing with a non physical energy being, you will interpret that being
within your own perceptual system and your own cultural and personal
understanding of angels.
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We all have guardian
angels. If you haven’t met yours yet or if you stopped believing in and
talking to angels when childhood ended and people convinced you they weren’t
true, There are ways of opening or reopening pre-existing channels to angelic
connection.
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For those of you who
already know and love angels, you can expand your personal angel explorations.
So,
who are these angels?
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Because angels are
made of pure energy that vibrates at a level we possess only in the outer or
more spiritual layers of our aura or personal energy field, we see them mainly
at times of prayer or meditation or when the material world suddenly fails us
and we are thrown back on to our inner spiritual nature.
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Children regularly
see angels as they do other spirit beings such as fairies, because the very
young operate quite naturally on those more spiritual levels before their
personal energy fields get weighed down with formal knowledge and material
concerns.
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What is not in doubt
is that encounters with angelic energy forms are always transforming and
positive. For angels are intermediaries between humanity and Divinity. When they
suddenly enter our lives, whether in dreams, visions or waking encounters, life
is not the same any more, but is so much better. It is like someone pulling back
the curtain of your bedroom windows to reveal a bright sunny morning when you
were still hiding under the bedclothes.
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After you have been
touched by that light, the radiance may reveal how dusty some of the corners of
our lives and minds are and opens horizons so high and wide you would need many
lifetimes even to start exploring.
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This angelic
awakening may not always be comfortable any more than someone opening those
curtains on a bright morning when you were sound asleep and telling you to leave
the warmth of your bed because it is a lovely day outside. But we are always
glad we did go into the sunshine and it is like that with angel contact.
Understanding
Angels
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Angelology, the
study of angels, is a very complex, sometimes confusing and contradictory area
of knowledge spanning thousands of years and many cultures. Angels are
traditionally found in the Judaic, Christian, Islamic and Zoroastrian religions,
though other faiths such as Buddhism have their evolved sky beings. Angels are
in formal religion regarded as intermediaries between God or the gods and
humankind.
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Angels are
beings of light or spiritual energy who are part of the formal religions of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Angels are sent as guides to humanity and to
protect the planet. Though sometimes regarded in hierarchies, the guardian angel
is closest to individuals and so has become the most significant. Though
Archangels rank above angels and therefore have less personalised relationships
with people, in magic Archangels usually form the main focus. This is because
they represent archetypal or idealised qualities and have the power and
authority to offer protection.
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Our concept of
angels is affected by the society in which we live. However, because angels have
been recognised in so many cultures over the ages our view is influenced by the
literature, religious philosophy and art of earlier times. For example; the
militaristic qualities of the bands of angels in biblical writings as well as
those of Islam or the Jewish esoteric wisdom, the Kabbalah, may stem from the
need to defend those faiths against unbelievers and those who still followed
earlier Mother Goddess religions or those with many deity forms. The angels of
the Kabbalah and ceremonial magic in both mediaeval and early twentieth century
occultism, come from the Jewish tradition, dating from times when ancient Israel
incorporated earlier pagan gods as angels serving the One True God.
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My own favourite
artistic depiction of an Angel is the Angel of Death portrayed by Carlos Schwabe,
a painter in late Victorian and early Edwardian times who showed the Death angel
as a green–winged beautiful woman dressed in jade, surrounded in green light,
set against the white snow of a winter cemetery. She is encouraging a frightened
man to leave his grave so she may take him to heaven. She has been identified as
Azrael, the once fiery Archangel of Death.
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The real
significance of such paintings is that people have expressed angelic energies in
many different ways. Though Archangels with the exception of Gabriel are
generally viewed as very masculine, they are androgynous and we may perceive
them in a compassionate female light in some rituals. It can be helpful to
download images of Angels from the Internet or study them in books. However, it
is our own conceptualisation of the energies of specific Angels and the
relationship we develop with them through ritual and meditation with which we
can most fruitfully work.
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