Holy Guardian Angel

For other uses, see Guardian angel.

The term Holy Guardian Angel was possibly coined either by Abraham of Worms, a German Cabalist who wrote a book on ceremonial magick during the 15th century or Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who later translated this manuscript and elaborated on this earlier work, giving it extensive magical notes, but the original concept goes back to the Zoroastrian Arda Fravaš ('Holy Guardian Angels'). In Mathers' publication of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, he writes:

"If thou shalt perfectly observe these rules, all the following Symbols and an infinitude of others will be granted unto thee by thy Holy Guardian Angel; thou thus living for the Honour and Glory of the True and only God, for thine own good, and that of thy neighbour. Let the Fear of God be ever before the eyes and the heart of him who shall possess this Divine Wisdom and Sacred Magic."[1]

Later, author and occultist Aleister Crowley popularized the term within his religious and philosophical system of Thelema.

Aleister Crowley's teachings

Within the system of the magical Order A∴A∴ founded by Aleister Crowley, one of the two most important goals is to consciously connect with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, representative of one's truest divine nature: a process termed “Knowledge and Conversation.”

It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.[2]

In some branches of occultism, the term is so widely known that HGA has become a common abbreviation even in non-English-speaking countries. Crowley seems to consider it equivalent to the Genius of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Atman of Hinduism, and the Daemon of the ancient Greeks. He borrowed the term from the Grimoire "The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage".

Even though the Holy Guardian Angel is, in a sense, the “higher self”, it is often experienced as a separate being, independent from the adept.

Methods of achieving knowledge and conversation

Crowley said that the Abramelin procedure was not the only way to achieve success in this endeavour:

It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him.[3]

Since the operation described in “Abramelin” is so complex and requires time and resources not available to most people, Crowley wanted to provide a more accessible method. While at the Abbey of Thelema in Italy, he wrote Liber Samekh[4] based on the Bornless Ritual, a ritual designed as an example of how one may attain the Knowledge and Conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. In his notes to this ritual, Crowley sums up the key to success: “INVOKE OFTEN.”

Crowley also explains, in more detail, the general mystical process of the ritual:

The Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of his Holy Guardian Angel. The absence of his bodily, mental and astral consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his attention which has made him deaf to his Soul, and his preoccupation with their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soul.
The effect of the Ritual has been
  1. to keep them so busy with their own work that they cease to distract him;
  2. to separate them so completely that his soul is stripped of its sheaths;
  3. to arouse in him an enthusiasm so intense as to intoxicate and anaesthetize him, that he may not feel and resent the agony of this spiritual vivisection, just as bashful lovers get drunk on the wedding night, in order to brazen out the intensity of shame which so mysteriously coexists with their desire;
  4. to concentrate the necessary spiritual forces from every element, and fling them simultaneously into the aspiration towards the Holy Guardian Angel; and
  5. to attract the Angel by the vibration of the magical voice which invokes Him.
The method of the Ritual is thus manifold.

Another detailed description of the general operation is given in The Vision and the Voice in the eighth Aethyr and is also described in Liber 8.[5]

Variations in Crowley's teachings

Crowley only states that the Holy Guardian Angel is the 'silent self' in his early life. In his late sixties, when composing Magick Without Tears, he states something very different. According to Crowley's later definition, the Holy Guardian Angel is not one's 'self', but an independent and discrete being, who may have been a human like oneself at one stage:

Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be especially careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent on one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have picked up the elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves... I believe that the Holy Guardian Angel is a Being of this order. He is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term 'Higher Self' implies a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion."[6]

The idea that the HGA is an independent, spiritual being, rather than a manifestation of the Self, has led to uneasiness in some circles that the doctrine is a disguised form of diabolism.

Peter Carroll's teachings

An occult writer, Peter Carroll split the concept in two and speaks of two "Holy Guardian Angels". According to his work Liber Null and Psychonaut, one is the Augoeides,[7] a projected image of whatever the magician strives for, and the other is quantum uncertainty, which ultimately determines the acts of the magician and is a spark of the only true creative force, the chaos of Chaos magic.

Enochian teachings

The Enochian system of 16th Century occultist Dr. John Dee offers a concept similar to Crowley's later teachings with regard to the Holy Guardian Angel. It is more in concord with traditional teachings of the HGA as a messenger of God and one of His angels (critics of Crowley's system said it was open to the interpretation of the HGA being either a fallen angel (demon) or a lost, or damned, human soul).

In this dialog between Dee and the angel Jubanladace on p. 18, Cotton Appendix XLVI 1, the angel says the following:

Dee: If I should not offend you, I would gladly know of what order you are or how your state is in respect of Michael, Gabriel, Raphael or Uriel.
Jubanladace: Unto men, according unto their deserts, and the first excellency of their soul, God hath appointed a good Governor or Angel, from among the orders of those that are blessed. For every soul that is good, is not of one and the self same dignification. Therefore according to his excellency we are appointed as Ministers from that order, whereunto his excellency accordeth: to the intent that he may be brought, at last, to supply those places which were glorified by a former: and also to the intent, that the Prince of darkness might be counterposed in God's justice.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ MacGregor Mathers, S. L.. The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. Book Tree. ISBN 1-58509-252-5
  2. ↑ Crowley,Magic Without Tears, Ch.83
  3. ↑ Book 4, "One Star in Sight"
  4. ↑ Crowley, Aleister. Liber Samekh.
  5. ↑ Crowley, Aleister. Liber 8.
  6. ↑ Crowley, Magick Without Tears
  7. ↑ Caroll, Peter J. Liber Null and Psychonaut. pp. 49-51
  8. ↑ Now in various collections of the British Library. See especially Sloane MSS 3188, 3189 and 3191, and Cotton Appendix XLVI. All the above are available in digital scans at : http://www.themagickalreview.org/enochian/mss/

References

External links

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