Recently, my
friends Rufus Opus and Jason Miller got together with me on Zoom and we talked
about our experiences with the Holy Guardian Angel. Podcaster Aequus Nox had
started a thread about the Holy Guardian Angel last year on her wall, the
thread had a MASSIVE response, and I honestly dislike weighing in when threads
are too big, so I commented off thread. My post led to another thread in which
it was suggested that Jason and I do a sort of panel discussion on the HGA.
Since Rufus went the non-Abramelin route I figured his perspective would be a
good one to include...Facebook memories reminded me of the thread and that
resulted in the discussion finally happening a few weeks ago. You can now see
it here on YouTube.
We collected
together a ton of amazing questions from the
One question
stood out as pretty different from the others. It was a question I had been
asked before. It is one of those questions where it could have a pretty simple
answer, "There's no real relationship, so there isn't much to say."
Or it could have a significantly more complex answer when taken as a question
about one's over all practice. We didn't address it in the panel, so I'm going
to talk about it a little bit here.
The question
in question...What is the relationship between the Holy Guardian Angel and
Hekate? That was how it was originally put to me, Jove was included when it was
asked in this context.
So yeah, most
basic answer, they are from different spiritual models so there isn't much
relationship. If we consider the Holy Guardian Angel in a NeoPlatonic context, the
angel is a daimon, but not one which is an echo of or representative of some
particular god. So, the angel doesn't specifically relate to any particular
god, but may partake of influences from several gods in so far as they relate
to the birth of the particular individual. The daimon could also be viewed as
an aid in understanding the gods and interacting with them very much in the
same vein as the Guardian Angel teaches and guides the individual on their path
with God in Catholicism.
The Guardian
Angel is an angel, but it's a special angel, one connected uniquely to you. As
an angel it functions in a different way and resides in a somewhat different
space with different natures and capacities from a god. A simple way to
consider it is it's smaller and specialized to you.
None of that
is especially useful. As magicians asking a question like this we want to know
how these relationships work practically. The relationship between the spirits
innately based on their nature can inform how we interact and work with them.
Understanding how they relate in our individual practice will be more useful
and more interesting. This can also vary from person to person.
For me, Hekate
kind of touches most everything. She is expansive and far reaching and rules in
all areas of creation. You could approach Hekate as a teacher of magic. You
could approach Hekate as a gatekeeper. You could approach her as a patron of
witchcraft. There are so many different specific options. For me, I consider
that she controls the paths by which things manifest and by which spirits come
to us. She controls the locks which open and close doors for options to
manifest and for spirits to enter and depart. She controls the crossroads at
which possibilities intersect and which occur in the spaces where our
experience and the experiences of the spirit world and magical awareness
intersect.
The Guardian
Angel is kind of like a magical wingman with a bit of Jiminy Cricket thrown in.
The angel can help retrieve spirits for you. The angel can help with commanding
and controlling spirits when needed. The angel can introduce you to other
spirits. It can give you guidance. It can make communication clearer and
easier.
When I wrote
Living Spirits: A Guide to Magic in a World of Spirits, I talked about Hekate
and the Holy Guardian Angel both in terms of intermediary spirits. Both of them
can help you with engaging other spirits and working with other spirits. Each
does it in different ways. For me, it isn't so much would you work with Hekate
or would you work with the Holy Guardian Angel, so much as how does each fit
into your practice.
The Angel is
someone who is generally with me when I'm doing work even if I'm not directly
engaging my angel. My angel can chime in with advice or inspiration. The
relationship is often interactive outside of a ritual context. In a ritual
context it might be that my angel is referenced or called upon specifically, or
asked to perform a particular function. I might ask my angel to help bring a
spirit, or to help me see or communicate. Outside of ritual I might ask my
angel for guidance or simply to help accomplish something I need.
Hekate is
someone who is more visibly present on a consistent basis in my ritual work.
She is relatively consistently present in my awareness of magical and spiritual
realities and in my feelings of respect and devotion. But, at least so far, my
relationship with Hekate is not as directly interactive. I can feel her
presence and influence when I work, and sometimes at other times. I don't tend
to call upon her or ritually work with her as the direct object of the ritual
or to directly communicate. Though some things might be changing in that regard
for me. She is someone I call upon in most work I do to help me with access to
spirits and the places in which spirits reside. She is present as the power
that binds together magic and therefore to some degree binds together and
underwrites the universe itself.
Both are
present in my work and impact my work. Both are present in my life and impact
my life. They are present in different ways doing different things. Their
presence is one which I don't perceive as directly interactive with one another
but behind the scenes, maybe it is and I just don't see it.
If I were
answering this question about the Angel and some other god, my answer would be
pretty different. Hekate for me is simultaneously the Bright-Shining Goddess
who befriended the grieving Demeter, she is the goddess who taught Medea and
Circe and all other witches whose blood carries in it the power of Helios, she
is the Cosmic Force which organizes the universe in the Chaldean Oracles - and
which seems to echo the Egyptian Heka even if there is no historical connection
between them; she is the multifaceted splendedly dark and brilliantly shining
goddess who has encompasses and syncretized to herself all other goddesses as
she appears in the Greek Magical Papyri, and she is the divine feminine which
we see in she herself, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Persephone, in Sophia and
many other forms. So far reaching a being as to encompass all of these natures
and functions in a single person is beyond the limited way in which we often
look at individual spiritual beings.
She is not the
only god who is so ever present and far ranging for me. But she's the one most
visibly active in magic. Other gods who feel and seem more specific and defined
are no less in my view despite the cosmic magnificence that my description of
her should imply. Each is vast in their own way. But Hekate's nature is itself
vastness.
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