Guardian angel

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), the founder of the esoteric religion Thelema, considered the Holy Guardian Angel to be representative of one's truest divine nature and the equivalent of the "Genius" of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Atman of Hinduism, and the Daimon of the ancient Greeks.

Following the teachings of the Golden Dawn, Crowley refined their rituals which were intended to facilitate the ability to establish contact with one's guardian angel.

They originally patrolled the boundaries of the ramparts of heaven,[2] but volunteer to descend to earth to stand by individuals to the end of their days.

[non-primary source needed] The guardian angel concept is present in the books of the Hebrew Bible, and its development is well marked.

These books described God's angels as his ministers who carried out his behests, and who were at times given special commissions, regarding men and mundane affairs.

[non-primary source needed] In rabbinic literature, the rabbis expressed the notion that there are indeed guardian angels appointed by God to watch over people.

[5] According to Rabbi Leo Trepp, in late Judaism, the belief developed that, "the people have a heavenly representative, a guardian angel.

For Chabad, God watches over people and makes decisions directly with their prayers and it is in this context that the guardian angels are sent back and forth as emissaries to aid in this task.

An example of this can be seen in the birth protection rituals practiced among others by Ashkenazi Jews in parts of Alsace, Switzerland and Southern Germany.

Pregnant women and newborn children would be given text amulets bearing the names of the angels Senoi, Sansenoi and Semangelo.

[13] In his 2014 homily for the Feast of Holy Guardian Angels, 2 October, Pope Francis told those gathered for daily Mass to be like children who pay attention to their "traveling companion".

Each one of us can do so in order to evaluate the relationship with this angel that the Lord has sent to guard me and to accompany me on the path, and who always beholds the face of the Father who is in heaven.

[17] The Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments discourages assigning names to angels beyond those revealed in scripture: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.

[19][20] Within the Opus Sanctorum Angelorum is the Confraternity of the Holy Guardian Angels that one becomes eligible for after entering a two year formation period.

[21] Father Giovangiuseppe Califano recounted how, one day, a newly appointed bishop confessed to Pope John XXIII that he could not sleep at night due to an anxiety which was caused by the responsibility of his office.

[24] Saint Pio of Pietrelcina was known to instruct his parishioners to send him their guardian angel to communicate a trouble or issue to him when they could not travel to get to him or another urgency existed.

[26] Building upon sacred scripture and the teachings of the Church Fathers, Richard Montagu, the Anglican Bishop of Norwich in the 17th century, stated that It is an opinion received, and hath been long, that if not every man, each son of Adam, yet sure each Christian man regenerate by water and the Holy Ghost, at least from the day of his regeneration and new birth unto God, if not from the time of his coming into the world, hath by God's appointment and assignation an Angel Guardian to attend upon him at all assayes, in all his ways, at his going forth, at his coming home.

[27] Sergei Bulgakov writes that the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that: each man has a guardian angel who stands before the face of the Lord.

[33] In Reformed Dogmatics, Heinrich Heppe states that some Reformed theologians espoused the view of guardian angels, including Bucan, who taught: That as a rule to each elect person a certain particular good angel is appointed by God to guard him, may be gathered from Christ's words, Mt.

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.

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.

[a]Having studied The Book of Abramelin during his time with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, occult writer Aleister Crowley adapted the concept of the Holy Guardian Angel from Renaissance magic (see above) and made it central to the philosophy and practices of Thelema, popularizing it in the process.

In his earlier writings, Crowley states that the Holy Guardian Angel is the "silent self",[38] the equivalent of the Genius of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Ātman of Hinduism, and the Daimon of the ancient Greeks.

[39] In his late sixties, when composing Magick Without Tears, he states that the Holy Guardian Angel is not one's self, but rather a discrete and independent being, who may have been previously human.

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.

[42] Since the operation described in Abramelin is complex and requires time and resources not available to many people, Crowley wanted to provide a more accessible method.

"[43] 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.

Later the Anglican English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), stated his belief in Religio Medici (part 1, paragraph 33): Therefore for Spirits I am so farre from denying their existence, that I could easily beleeve, that not onely whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato; there is no heresie in it, and if not manifestly defin'd in Scripture, yet is it an opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a mans life, and would serve as an Hypothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common Philosophy affordeth no solution:[46]By the 19th century, the guardian angel was no longer viewed in Anglophone lands as an intercessory figure, but rather as a force protecting the believer from performing sin.

[citation needed] A parody appears in Lord Byron's 1819 poem Don Juan: Her guardian angel had given up his garrison (Canto I, xvii).

[citation needed] In Cardinal Newman's 1865 poem The Dream of Gerontius, the departed soul is met by his guardian angel.