Holy Guardian Angel

I'm finally getting around to the long promised essay on the Holy Guardian Angel. I guess that up until now I've been avoiding it because it's such a strange and vague subject and means something different to everyone it seems. So I've got my books stacked around my computer, Rockstar on my desk, and some nice mindless music to help me focus.

Let me state here that I am in no ways an expert in this subject, even less so than in Qabalah and the G.:D.: in general. However, in my defense, there are no experts, or else those that do exist are silent.

The term "Holy Guardian Angel" comes from The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. This is a medieval text which describes a six month long ritual whose purpose is to bring about "Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel". It was originally meant to mean a separate entity assigned to the individual as the link to the divine. However, S. L. Mathers, who translated the manuscript into English, interpreted it to be the so called Higher Self of the individual. It is the part of us still connected to the divine. In an earlier post, I described the Seven Bodies of Man. In this system, the Fifth Body or the Spiritual Body is the equivelant to the HGA.

Now of course, there will be those who will read this and think, "Well, I know all about this Higher Self that he's talking about. I go to angel classes and vision quests and had great spiritual experiences. I must have already activated this in me." I want to make something clear. Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel is THE GREATEST SPIRITUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. Therefore, don't cheapen it by reducing it to something that you can get from a weekend workshop. If you read the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage from cover to cover, you will just begin to understand the demands required for such a feat. There are very few who have the means or the willpower to go through with this ritual, and many have lost their minds in the trying.

This somewhat corresponds to Enlightenment or Nirvana in the Eastern systems. Now I have never met anyone who I have judged to be enlightened in my lifetime, particularly those who claimed to be. Likewise, anyone running around claiming to have achieved Knowledge and Conversation with their Holy Guardian Angel is simply making a fool of themselves.

So, what do the so called experts have to say about the HGA? Crowley was particularly obsessed with KCHGA (I'm getting tired of spelling it out). To him, there was nothing more important. He is often quoted on this matter from Magick Without Tears. "It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple."

This means little to those who have never heard the terminology used here, so let us look at what Dion Fortune has to say. She is somewhat vague in her work, but equates this process to Initiation proper. In The Training and Work of the Initiate, she states, "The word Initiate... means one in whom the Higher Self, the Individuality, has coalesced with the personality and actually entered into incarnation in the physical body."

Consider this. If the HGA is the Immortal self, the aspect of yourself which continues from life to life in the eternal cycle of reincarnation, the thing which determines before birth what the purpose of the coming life will be, and then carefully selects the environment, upbringing, and astrological influences that will allow for this purpose to be realized, the part of yourself that is released from the Wheel of Karma after many lifetimes of Karmic adjustment and readjustment, and when this is accomplished, this Individuality ascends to the Inner Planes to continue its aspiration to reunite with the Divine; if all these things describe the HGA, then consider what would happen if this part of yourself united with the part of yourself that goes to work every day, pays your bills, and wonders about your place in the world. Such people who reach this level of development are truly Titans, on par with the Saints and Masters who inspire us to persevere.

So now my brain is tired from trying to explain something that I don't really understand myself. I only hope that I haven't confused you on the issue. So I'm going to wrap this up briefly. The purpose of the G.:D.: Tradition is to equip the student with the knowledge and experience necessary to facilitate this accomplishment. Theoretically this is supposed to correspond with the grade of Adeptus Minor. This grade is really just symbolic of this attainment. The rest is up to the individual. However, perhaps for the first time in the Initiates lifetime, they have been shown the door and given the keys to unlock the gate to the secrets of the Eternal Soul.