Angels and the Angelic Realm

Part II

Re-printed with Permission from http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/angels/angels_uk.htm

Description Of The Angels Best Known To Us

MICHAEL (Archangel):

Michael is surely the best known of the archangels. Michael is acknowledged by all three Western sacred traditions. He is believed to appeared to Moses as the fire in the burning bush, and to have rescued Daniel and his friends from the lions' den.

To Christians, he's the angel who informed Mary of her approaching death.

Islamic lore tells us that his wings are the color of 'green emerald and are covered with saffron hairs, each of them containing a million faces and mouths and as many tongues which, in a million dialects, implore the pardon of Allah.'

In the Dead Sea Scrolls Michael emerges as the 'Prince of Light' fighting a war against the Sons of Darkness in which he leads the angelic battle against the legion of the fallen angel, Belial.

Michael is the protector of the Christian Church, guardian angel of Israel, and commander-in-chief of God's angel armies. He led them during a war in heaven in which Satan and his fallen angels were driven out of the clouds.

Even though he lives in the seventh heaven. Christian art and iconography shows Michael with a sword or with a scale weighing the souls of the dead.

GABRIEL (Archangel):

Gabriel seems to be our most frequent visitor from the higher realms. He astonished Mary, and her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, with the pronouncements concerning the births of their respective sons.

To the followers of Islam, Gabriel is the Spirit of Truth who dictated the Koran to Mohammed.

In Jewish legend it was Gabriel who parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Hebrews could escape from the Pharaoh's soldiers.

According to court testimony of the time, it was Gabriel who came to Joan of Arc and inspired her to go to the aid of the dauphin (the eldest son of the king of France).

Gabriel's apparent ongoing interest in this planet is most probably due to his function as heavenly awakener, the angel of vibratory transformation.

Gabriel in Hebrew means 'man of God', and is seen as God's messenger.

Described as a human figure with long hair and multi-colored wings and often seen holding a scepter or lily.

RAPHAEL (Archangel):

Raphael is perhaps the most endearing of all the angels, and the one most frequently depicted in Western art. His image is featured on the canvases of such masters as Botticelli, Titian, and Rembrandt. He appears to be the high archangel charged with healing the Earth. Raphael is the travelers guide, guardian of youth. The ruler of the second heaven shows up in Christian paintings carrying a pilgrim's stick, a wallet and a fish. The poet Milton has Raphael eating supper with Adam and Eve in Eden.

Raphael's career seems to be peppered with medical missions. He healed the pain of circumcision for Abraham as the old man had not had the procedure done when he was young.

Raphael was then sent by God to cure poor Jacob's thigh after he'd bee n roughed up by Samael. And it's also claimed that Raphael gave Noah a much-prized 'medical book' after the flood. There's a legend that when Solomon prayed to God for aid in building the great temple in Jerusalem, Raphael personally delivered the gift of a magic ring with the power to subdue all demons. It was with this 'slave labor' that the Hebrew king completed the construction. Raphael has also been called 'a guide in hell,' which after all is where healing is needed the most.

URIEL (Archangel):

Uriel is ranked variously as a seraph, cherub, regent of the Sun, flame of God, presider over Hades and, in his best-known role, as the Archangel of Salvation.

Like Metatron, Uriel is said to be one of the angels of the Presence, a most high posting since only the highest voltage angels can sustain the presence of God. Uriel is thought to have been

"the spirit who stood at the gate of the lost Eden with the fiery sword."

The Book of Enoch tells us that it was Uriel who was sent by God to warn Noah of the impending flood, and elsewhere it is written that he disclosed the mysteries of the heavenly arcana to Ezra, and that he also led Abraham out of Ur in the Chaldean region.

Some have claimed that the divine art of alchemy was brought down to Earth by Uriel, and that it was also this angel who gave the Kabbalah, the Hebrew mystic tradition, to humankind.

METATRON (Cherubim):

In the world of Jewish mystics, came to hold the rank of the highest of the angels despite his not being mentioned in the Scriptures. The meaning of his name has never been satisfactorily explained although one interpretation of it is "one who occupies the throne next to the Divine throne.

In a number of traditional sources, Metatron is said to have been the prophet Enoch, who was taken up to Heaven and transformed into an angel of fire, with thirty-six pairs of wings, to continue his days as a celestial scribe.

Metatron has also been identified as the Liberating Angel and the one who wrestled with Jacob; the one who stayed Abraham's hand from sacrificing his son Isaac; and the one who led the Hebrews through the forty years in the wilderness.

In certain schools of mysticism, Metatron, said to be the tallest of all the heavenly beings, became known as Lesser YHWH. In Hebrew, the letters 'LHWH' stand for the most sacred and unpronounceable name of God." "As God has many names, so, too, Metatron was thought to have many names, the use of which was believed to offer the user protection and access to this great angel's powers. Yahoel, Yofiel, Surya, and Lad are just a few of his other names."

MELCHIZEDEK: Lived and taught 2000 years before the Christ!

Melchizedek, the Sage of Salem, is another of the few known cases of a high angel taking a human, very male, body. He appeared fully formed, some two thousand years before Christ, announcing that he was a servant of El El yon, the Most High. He then set up a teaching center over which he personally presided for ninety-four years.

It was Melchizedek who delivered God's Covenant to Abraham and introduced the revolutionary concept of salvation through pure faith to the thinking of the planet. He established an extraordinary wide-flung missionary program, centered in Salem, the ancient site of Jerusalem, sending out thousands of missionaries who literally circled the globe.

Melchizedek was believed to be the father of the seven Elohim (Angels of the divine presence).

In the third century a.d. a group of 'heretics', calling themselves Melchisedans, claimed to be in touch with 'a great power named Melchizedek, who was greater than Christ'.

His sojourn here as the Sage of Salem was said to have been a concerted effort on behalf of the celestials to bring some much-needed light to a dark and chaotic time, and to set the seeds for the coming of the Christ.

ARIEL (Throne):

Some confusion exists as to exactly whose side Ariel is on. He's ranked as one of the seven princes who rule the waters and is also known as Earth's Great Lord. To the poet John Milton, however, Ariel is a rebel angel who is overcome by the seraph Abdiel on the first day of the great war in Heaven.

Jewish mystics used Ariel as a poetic name for Jerusalem.

In Gnostic lore, Ariel is the angel who controls the demons. Ariel has also been associated with the order of angels called the thrones and is known to have assisted the archangel Raphael in the curing of disease.

ISRAFEL:

Israfel, whose name in Arabic folklore means 'The Burning One', is both an angel of resurrection and of song. By these same accounts, Israfel paved the way for Gabriel by serving three years as a companion to Mohammed, whom he'd originally initiated into the work of being a prophet.

In an Islamic variant of the Genesis account of Adam's creation, Allah sends Israfel, Gabriel, Michael, and Azrael (the Angel of Death) out on a mission to fetch the seven handfuls of dust needed to make humanity's progenitor. According to legend, only Azrael returned unsuccessful.

RAZIEL (Power):

Raziel is believed to be an 'angel of the secret regions and Chief of the Supreme Mysteries'.

There is a legend that Raziel is the author of a great book, 'wherein all celestial and Earthly knowledge is set down.' When the angel gave his tome to Adam, some envious angels stole it away and threw it in the ocean. After it had been recovered by the primordial angel/demon of the deep, Rahab, the book passed first to Enoch, who apparently claimed it as his own, then to Noah, who learned how to make his ark from it. Solomon, too, was thought to have possessed the book, which allowed him his unusual knowledge of magic and control over the demons.

The Zohar, the major work of Jewish mysticism, claims that set in the middle of Raziel's book there is secret writing 'explaining the fifteen hundred keys (to the mystery of the world), which were not revealed even to the angels.'

Other Jewish mystics report that 'each day the angel Raziel, standing on the mount of Horeb, proclaims the secrets of men to all mankind'

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