A Dictionary of Angels

Magalene Meretrix reviews A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels by Gustav Davidson

With the recent surge of popular interest in things angelic, especially the proliferation of “fluffy” angels, I expected Davidson’s book to be more mainstream pap. I was pleasantly surprised. With no apparent religious bias, Davidson’s book places “demons” right next to “angels,” explaining in the book’s introduction that the lines drawn between angels, fallen angels and demons are arbitrary at best. His book is well-researched and includes angels from various religious sources as well as literary sources such as Poe and Milton.

Scattered throughout the text are black-and-white reproductions of art, mostly old and ancient, depicting angelic beings. The appendix has many charts and lists of angels and angelic scripts and seals, diagrams of amulets, magical circles and accessories for evocation and angelic spells, prayers and an exorcism. The bibliography is vast. [via]

Consider also:

  1. “Pseudo-Dionysus ranks the Thrones amongst the highest third of his nine (three by three ranking) orders of Celestial Beings and gives to them the function of showing forth the Divine Radiance. ‘The name of the most glorious and exalted Thrones denotes that which is exempt from and unattained by any base and earthly thing, and the super mundane ascent up the steep. For these have no part in that which is lowest, but dwell in fullest power, immovably and perfectly established in the Most High, and receive the Divine Immanence above al passion and matter, and manifest God, being attentively open to divine participations.’ Chapter VII: Of the Seraphim, Cherubim & Thrones & their first Hierarchy”
  2. “Sit down, servant of Satan! I love you. Let us weep over the sins of humanity—weep in despair!” “Let us weep,” I say. “Swallow the tears of sin.”
  3. “St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) made the authoritative resolution of this dilemma and subsequently established standard Christian dogma in the first part of his Summa Theologica. He refers to the Thrones 15 times in question CVIII: ‘The angelic degrees of hierarchies and orders.'”
  4. Spell Casting with Heart & Spirit
  5. “In order to see why Dee and Kelly would have recognized a term like ‘Throne’ to be a definition of one of the Orders found in the Sigillum, it is important to understand how the concept evolved theologically.”