The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (2 page)

Angels – messengers, guardians, warriors; fearsome or friendly, sexy or innocent; godly or fallen – have ascended of late in bestselling fantasy literature: Anne Rice had a series of novels concerning angels. Danielle Trussoni’s
Angelology
was a
New York Times
bestseller in 2010 and a sequel is expected. Paranormal and urban fantasy series with angels in major and supporting roles include those by Cassandra Clare, Sharon Shinn, Faith Hunter, Nalini Singh and more.

Otherworldy aliens, fluffy-winged babies with haloes, spiritual guides, protectors, the foci of meditation – whether obvious or disguised as mere humans, many find comfort in a belief in angels that has no direct connect with traditional religion.

But whatever we believe or imagine demons and angels are, ancient myth and religion probably supplied at least part of our ideas.

Angels and demons – or their close equivalents – exist in many cultures and religions. These spiritual beings mediate between humans and the domain of the transcendent and holy or the realm of that which brings misfortune or opposes the holy. In Western religions, angels are seen as benevolent and demons as malevolent. But the roles of these intermediaries are not so clear-cut in Eastern religions and more ancient belief systems. They often can be both righteous and wicked and can switch roles as needed.

The ancient Greeks considered a
daemon
¹
to be a spirit or demigod. Depending on the source and era, they played a number of roles – including that of a guardian spirit – but they could be either good or evil. Although we derive the English word
demon
from this Greek word, it came to mean a supernatural being that troubles, tempts, or brings woe (including illness and bad luck) to humankind. Sometimes the demon’s power could then be harnessed by a magician or summoned and controlled by sorcery.

The Jews were influenced by Egyptian, Chaldean and Persian beliefs in good and evil spirits. In the Hebrew Bible, there are two types of demons, the
se’irim
(“hairy beings”) and the
shedim
. The
se’irim
resembled goatish satyrs and were described as dancing in the wilderness. Sacrifices were offered to both and they seem to be more akin to the pre-Islamic jinn – a supernatural being that could be either good or bad – rather than evil demons. In popular lore, the early Hebrews may have seen demons as ungodly creatures from a netherworld, which either acted on their own or were ruled by a particular devil.

That demons or unclean spirits were thought to exist in Judea 2,000 years ago is borne out in the New Testament. According to the gospels, Jesus cast out many demons causing various afflictions. Some of the disciples cast out demons by uttering the Messiah’s name.

By the time the last books of the New Testament were written, demons were associated by Christians with “fallen angels” – followers of Satan/the Devil, an angel who rebelled against God and was cast out from heaven. (The Devil was also the serpent that convinced Eve to disobey God, and the tempter of Job and Jesus.) Satan’s intent was to lead mortals away from God; demons (or lowercase “devils”) assisted him in his goal.

Using the few references to demons and Satan in the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation – in which the ultimate battles between God and the Devil were envisioned – Christian theologians began postulating more complicated beliefs about the demonic.

Similarly, although not truly a part of Judaic theology, rabbis, Talmudists, and later medieval scholars – with the exception of Maimonides (1135–1204) and Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) – accepted them as real. Rabbis eventually developed a classification of demons.

The Kabbalah – a mystical school of thought not taken seriously by most Jews but integral to Chasidic Judaism – has a vast demonology of its own. Under the influence of Kabbalah, popular belief in demons became widespread and even influenced Christian scholars constructing their own demonologies.

Although other mythologies and religions posit helpful guardian spirits and supernatural messengers from the gods, angels are specific to the three Abrahamic religions. Angels were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but angelic mythology was greatly expanded between 530
BCE
and 70
CE
in non-biblical Judaic literature, particularly the Book of Enoch
²
which includes an angel hierarchy, describes different types of angels and provides several with names. As with demons, the mystic Kabbalah also developed an influential angelology.

Islam views angels as beings who have no free will and only obey God. They praise God and ask forgiveness for humans. Angels act as messengers for God and perform other tasks. In Islamic tradition, Muslims have two recording angels –
kirman katiban
(“honourable scribes”) – named Raqib and Atid that note all of a person’s good or bad deeds.

Belief in angels is an article of Islamic faith, but Muslims don’t have demons per se. According to the Qu’ran, God created three sentient species: angels, jinns and humans. Jinn, like humans, have free will and can choose between good and evil. One early jinn, Iblis, disobeyed God and was condemned to Hell. But God also granted Iblis respite until the final day of judgement. Jinns who chose evil become
shayatin
and Iblis – or Shaytan – rules them. Shaytan and his minions tempt those who are not sincere believers into sin.

The closest mainstream Judaism comes to belief in
the
Devil is a being whose role as accuser and adversary has been assigned to him by God. Demons and dybbuks (dead spirits that possess the living), however, are mentioned in both biblical and rabbinic literature, and are often found in Jewish folk tales and fiction.

Early Christian theologians wrestled with what to believe about angels for several centuries, always fearing adherents would worship them rather than Christ. Eventually deemed acceptable, there was much scholarly discussion of roles, classifications and hierarchies. Much of that tradition is still kept by the Roman Catholic Church.

Martin Luther (1483–1563) was more concerned with the corruption Satan and his demons could bring to humans than dealing with angels. He acknowledged angels as providential agents of God, but nixed praying to them (or the saints) or regarding them as “helpers in time of need” or as assigned to individual functions. John Calvin (1509–1564), even more concerned with the demonic, kept strictly to scripture and further downplayed the angelic. Later Protestant theologians continued in this vein.

The division continues to this day. Catholic doctrine affirms that prayers can be made to angels asking for intercession. Protestants only pray directly to God.

Although there is now a great diversity among Protestant denominations, Protestant belief can be discussed in a general manner. Both Protestants and Catholics agree there are angels, and both accept what is written of angels in the Bible, but they have different Bibles. The Catholic Bible includes the Book of Tobit, which mentions the archangel Raphael; for Protestants the only named angels are Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer. The Catholic Church also accepts traditional teachings about angels not included in the Bible, including other named angels and the role of guardian angels assigned at conception. The recognition of the presence of angels in daily life is also part of the Catholic faith; Protestants differ on the ministry of angels, but few denominations emphasize them. Protestants do not accept the nine choirs of angel hierarchy, while Catholics have a long, if unofficial, tradition recognizing seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels. In worship services, Protestants mention angels primarily at Christmas and Easter while Catholics are reminded they worship with the angels, archangels and hosts of heaven. The Roman Church also observes two angelic feasts: the Feast of the Archangels (29 September) and the Feast of Guardian Angels (2 October).

Christian fundamentalist Billy Graham’s 1975 book,
Angels: God’s Secret Agents,
spurred new angelic inter est among many Protestants, but Graham’s lessons stayed strictly within the confines of his interpretation of the (Protestant) Bible.

The Catholic Church noted a rise in angelic popularity during the twentieth century. Given in a series of six General Audiences from 9 July to 20 August 1996, the Catechesis on the Holy Angels by Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the existence, mission and role of the angels, including the Church’s faith in the guardian angels, their veneration in liturgy and feast, and “recommending recourse to their protection by frequent prayer”.

As for demons, the Pope also reminded the faithful of the real ity and presence of Satan and “that in certain cases the evil spirit goes so far as to exercise his influence not only on material things, but even
on man’s body
so that one can speak of ‘diabolical possession’.” In 2004, Pope John Paul II asked Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) to direct bishops to appoint and train more exorcists in their dioceses.

Whether you abide by mainstream faith or seek your own path, there’s far more to know about angels and demons than my limited space can convey. For me, they are both equally fascinating . . . but then, maybe the devil made me write that . . . or an unseen angel guided my thoughts . . .

Paula Guran

9 September 2012

1
   Or
daimon,
another spelling.

2
   The Book of Enoch is sometimes referred to as 1 Enoch, as there are actually three books of Enoch.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Suzy McKee Charnas

In this entertaining and thoughtful story, Rose Baum, an atheist suicide, meets her guardian angel. The angel also serves as a psychopomp (from the Greek word for “guide of souls”). Although not always portrayed as angels, psychopomps act as non-judgemental guides for the recently dead. In Rose’s case, her angel-guide provides her with a way to delay what she thinks awaits her in the afterlife . . . and we learn an interesting explanation for both ghosts and vampires.

After Rose died, she floated around in a nerve-wracking fog for a time looking for the tunnel, the lights, and other aspects of the near-death experience as detailed in mass-media reports of such events.

She was very anxious to encounter these manifestations since apparently something loomed in the offing, in place of the happy surcease of consciousness her father had insisted on as the sequel to death. The older she had grown, the more inclined Rose had been to opt for Papa Sol’s opinion. Maybe he would show up now trying to explain how he was right even though he was wrong, a bewildered figure of light along with Mom and Nana and everybody?

It would be nice to see a familiar face. Rose felt twinges of panic laced with a vague resentment. Here she was with the gratifyingly easy first step taken, and nothing was going on. Since she was still conscious, shouldn’t there be something to exercise that consciousness on?

A siren wailed distantly. Suddenly she found herself walking on – or almost on, for her feet made only the memory of contact – the roof of her apartment building with its expensive view eastward across Central Park. She hadn’t been to the park in years, nor even outside her own apartment. Her minute terrace had provided quite enough contact with the streets below. As far as Rose was concerned, these streets were not the streets she had grown up in. She preferred the comfortable security of her own apartment.

Being on the roof felt very odd, particularly since it seemed to be broad daylight and cold out. Far below in the street she could see one of the doormen waving down a cab; he wore his overcoat with the golden epaulets on the shoulders. Rose could have sworn she had taken her carefully hoarded pills late at night, in the comfortable warmth of 14C. Why else would she be wearing her blue flannel nightgown?

Turning to go back to the refuge of her own place, she found an Angel standing close behind her. She knew him – it? – at once by its beautifully modeled, long-toed feet, the feet of a Bernini Angel she had seen in an Italian church on a tour with Fred. Indeed, the entire form was exactly that of the stone Angel she remembered, except that the exposed skin was, well, skin-toned, which she found unsettling. Like colorizing poor old Humphrey Bogart.

“Leave me alone,” she said. “I don’t want to go.”

“You’ll go,” the Angel said in a drifting, chiming voice that made her ears itch. “Eventually. Everyone does. Are you sure you want to stand out there like that? I wouldn’t say anything, but you’re not really used to it yet.”

Rose looked down and discovered that she had unwittingly backed off or through or over the parapet and now hovered nineteen stories above the street. She gasped and flailed about, for though she had no body to fall – nor for that matter arms to flail or breath to gasp with – sensory flashes still shot along her shadowy, habitual nerve pathways.

Thus the Angel’s fingers closed, cool and palpable, on hers and lifted her lightly back onto the roof. She snatched her hand back at once. No one had touched her in years except her doctor, and that didn’t count.

But it was not really the Angel’s touch she feared.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” she said, unable to bring herself to mention by name the anywhere she did not wish to go. “I’m a suicide. I killed myself.”

“Yes,” the Angel said, clasping its hands in front of its chest the way Dr Simkin always used to do when he was about to say something truly outrageous. But it said nothing more.

“Well, how does—how do you, um, all feel about that, about people who kill themselves?” She knew the traditional answer, but dared to hope for a different one.

The Angel pursed its perfect lips. “Grouchy,” it replied judiciously.