I am interested in angels in religions over time. Not the love-y love-y guardian angels or the flying cupids, but the really cool ones. The one who (In Christianity and Islam for example) fight against their fallen brethren. The imposing figures, archons of pure good and evil.
I have read a few books on them, but these mixed the powerful ones in with hippie’s acid induced visions so to speak. Can anyone give me a little info on some of the more powerful angels throughout history in different religions? For example, I’d classify a valkyrie as an angel. I am gonna be really specific and say that they have to have form, not just a “cloudy spirit.” Did the Mesopotamians have angels?
Names and occupations would be of great help. Especially the fallen ones. Thanks for helping me out!
Not a bad book, but spends way too little time on each angel. It says a mere 5 sentences about Lucifer, who is one of the most, if not the most widely known angel.
I thought I remembered Raphael being an archangel too (I was right) & Uriel, as well, as mongrel_8 says, but I checked on a google search & one of the sites that came up is Jophiel’s web page…I’ll include the link here in case he doesn’t see the thread before it falls off the front of GQ. There’s a lot of information there, including about angelic hierarchies. He may have more to say about angel-equivalents in other religions. I can’t really think of anything like that - I wuldn’t have considered the valkyries to be equivalent for one thing. They are Odin’s daughters/foster daughters & have a very specific role. Angels in judaeo-christian reference have a very different origin.
Anyway, I don’t have anything on there about Aeons, Devas and the like simply because it would have taken way too much effort and wasn’t the area I was interested in. As someone else said, you can try A Dictionary of Angels (which incidentally has 28 lines in my copy about Lucifer which is more than enough to say: He’s not an angel, never was, look under Satan instead). Another good book, believe it or not, is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Angels which covers angels of other faiths pretty well.
To my understanding form is precisely one thing that angels in many traditons do not have! For example, in Islam an angel who wants to show himself to a human has to veil its true essence, as it is of such power that it will destroy its watchers. The same goes for many spirits and gods in many religions.
So it seems that angels have essence and nature, but not necessarily a form. Angels are spirits of the highest kind.