Angels: An Ancient Tradition Revived

A haunting question surrounding the whole subject of spirituality, which organized religion attempts to address, has been the apparent physical reality of spirits associated with terminated physical lives on Earth.

It is taught that spiritual masters exist on earth and can then be asked to intervene after their deaths. More plausibly, spirits of folks with emotional attachments to the living also act positively in a person’s life.  Thus we have the idea of the guardian angel.

I find it plausible if we accept the existence of a physical spirit surviving death, then it is equally plausible such spirit will act to any extent possible to provide for its living attachments.

Since we are approaching the capability of providing just this physical reality for humanity today in about two generations, and since it appears humanity walked this path around forty thousand years ago, it appears all is in place for a soul/spirit/angel regime to have a present physical reality.

As I have posted in the past, once we accept the practical reality of God and spirit as a real consequence of the natural advance of science, the mystical formulation relied on in the past is exposed for the rubbish it is and our eyes are opened to the nature of our present blindness.

Angels: an ancient tradition revived

American Christianity is innovative, adaptive and diverse. Interest in angels reflects this.

Friday, November 18, 2011

By Diane Swanbrow

http://www.speroforum.com/a/YTFNDSALUT28/Angels-an-ancient-tradition-revived

Angels are everywhere today—on lapel pins, magnetic dashboard figures, keepsake ornaments and in a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. But interest in angels is more than a contemporary fad. According to a University of Michigan historian, angels stirred intense interest in the early years of Christianity as well.

"Just as many people today think of pets as part of their families, many people in the first 500 years of Christianity were convinced that angels were part of their lives," said Ellen Muehlberger, assistant professor of Near Eastern studies and history at the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Various types of angels are named, but not defined, in the Bible. Christians worked out what angels did and what they were during the fourth and fifth centuries, according to Muehlberger, who is writing a book on angels in late ancient times. An author living in Syria around the year 500 organized what little was known about angels into a "Celestial Hierarchy": Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Authorities, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.

In late antiquity, the identity of angels was much broader than what it is now: some Christians spoke of Christ as an angel, or suggested that Christian ascetic monks who renounced family, food, drink and sex and lived out in the desert were really angels. But Muehlbergersays when the Egyptian monks learned they were being considered angels, they emphatically rejected the idea.

"They said, 'We act like animals, not angels,'" Muehlberger said.

The monastic emphasis on humility was in direct conflict with the reputation ascetics had as special, holy people, equal to the angels, she explains.

Exactly how angels looked and acted, and what humans could do to gain or lose their help was a frequent topic of debate, according toMuehlberger.

Most people did not envision angels looking the way we imagine them today—as beautiful winged creatures in diaphanous gowns.

"In antiquity, some Christians believed that angels were minds, or intellects, detached from bodies," Muehlberger said. "In a way, angels were like computers—very, very good at figuring things out and getting things done because they had rational minds but did not have the difficulty of having desires and passions, like humanity."

One of the most widespread modern notions about angels emerged in the late ancient era of Christianity that Muehlberger is studying. In those times, while some Christians assumed that guardian angels protected all human beings, others were convinced that angels were only given to those who had demonstrated their virtue. These were "companion angels," and not everyone had one.

"Certain monks in late ancient Egypt didn't believe that they were born with a guardian angel who watched over them throughout their lives. Instead, they expected to get a companion angel only as a reward for virtuous behavior," Muehlberger said. "Your companion angel was an assistant who could help you fight off demons, and only arrived if you proved yourself worthy. But if you went away from the community, into the village, and engaged in 'worldly' activities, that companion angel might leave you."

While non-Christians also believe in angels, Muehlberger says the belief is especially prevalent today in Christianity, especially in the United States.

"North American Christianity has always been innovative, adaptive and diverse," she said. "I see the contemporary interest in angels as an example of this."