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Angels

Shit-in-a-cis...shitty knickers...

Very unfortunate, either way.

Actually...shit-in-a-kiss...that's the worst so far.
 
pastrecalls said:
I saw an Angel..I was about three years old and it was as clear as day...HUGE.. just floating there..I remember thinking how strange it was because I could see it's feet...My Grandma wouldn't look were I was pointing and she just dragged me up the road..I don't think she beleived me and I never mentioned it to her again..but I DID see it.
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Hi, pastrecalls!
I was just wondering what made you decide it was an angel rather than some other kind of entity? Did it, for example, have wings, or a halo? :)
 
Butterfly...It..or should I say she, had long blond hair that hurt my eyes to look at because it was so shiny..HUGE wings..very very white and she had a long flowing, wispy gown that stretched right down to the grass(she was hovering in the corner of a field)
I remember thinking it was strange because, although she was HUGE I could see her feet. She was very white...I can still see it now as if it was yesterday! My Grandma literally pulled me up the road as fast as she could and she wouldn't even look to were I pointed, she seemed cross with me for even mentioning it...I think she thought I was a naughty girl and being blasthemus(SP)
so I never spoke of it to her again.I do believe I have a guardian Angel today, I often feel I am not alone and often look behind me thinking someone is there..it isn't scary though..I have always felt like that.I was driving in thick fog, many years ago and and the steering wheel suddenly pulled to the left. I bumped onto the grass verge and stopped, ahead of me I could just make out faint red lights, the lights of the cars in front that had stopped because there had been a big pile up. If I had carried on, I would of smashed into all the cars in front...one of many things that have happened and I just take them for granted.:)
 
Just a thought, but as there has been a decline in religion in the west over this century, does anyone else think that people are turning to ideas like angels instead. It seems to me that people are unwilling to accept that maybe ultimately we are on our own and totally reponsible for our own actions. This way there is always a get-out clause.......
 
I totally agree..we are responsible for our own actions and I believe ..what goes round ....comes round. I am not convinced Organised Religion is the answer either. It is too easy to hide behind. If you are catholic, it seems, you can commit dreadful things and repent and all is forgiven. If that is the case, if there is a heaven, it is full of people who have done dreadful things, said sorry and let in...I do not want to go there then. I have my OWN religion, don't know what you call it, but I believe you should treat people and animals with great repect. You should treat them with empathy.I strongly believe in reincarnation..if you have empathy you can truely put yourself in that other persons or animals position. When I was little, I was brought up in that way. My parents showed me to respect...It is wrong to deliberately give pain to, say, an earth worm as it is to deliberately give pain to a human...nothing to do with religion...just respect for LIFE. I have brought my children up in the same way...that is why our house resembles a zoo! We were also foster parents for a few years and I have found, emotionally damaged children, who have not been taught empathy can gain so much if they are taught to tend to animals and treat them with respect...we can all gain so much....THEN we get our rewards.
 
Thanks for explaining about the angel, pastrecall.
From your previous post it sounds as though seeing it has had a profound effect on your life.

I'm afraid I take things a stage further and even apologise to inanimate objects if I'm clumsy with them. :rolleyes: Its not that I think they have feelings, just that I feel everything should be treated with respect. Kind of "if you're gentle with things they have a better aura, so it creates a better atmosphere". ;)
 
Gimauche said:
Just a thought, but as there has been a decline in religion in the west over this century, does anyone else think that people are turning to ideas like angels instead. It seems to me that people are unwilling to accept that maybe ultimately we are on our own and totally reponsible for our own actions. This way there is always a get-out clause.......
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Without a doubt, Gimauche. It probably started after WWII when some people suddenly started putting their faith in space beings. Since then there has been a dramatic rise in interest in the paranormal, which as you say coincides with the decline of the Church.
 
I agree Butterfly...oh what a lovely world this would be if we all acted like this all the time...life is soo short and we should enjoy every second...never put off till tomorrow what can be done today and just be kind to one and other and most important of all....SMILE... it brings total strangers together in such a way...I have so often met complete strangers and got talking and laughing with them and ended up in moments feeling I have known them all my life.:)
 
I'm off to bed now...sleep well...talk again another day.
zzzzzzz::eek:
 
Gimauche said:
Just a thought, but as there has been a decline in religion in the west over this century, does anyone else think that people are turning to ideas like angels instead. It seems to me that people are unwilling to accept that maybe ultimately we are on our own and totally reponsible for our own actions. This way there is always a get-out clause.......
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Perhaps it might be better to say 'a decline in Christianity'. I think most folks arecarrying on a religion of some sort. I don't know what mine is, but it has lots of small, nasty gods...
 
My friend tells me there is a big confernece about angels in your Cornwall this Summer. Does anyone have details?

Is it proper big conference, or three old ladies in a tent?
 
Anyone else run across this?

From The Ashes of Angels: The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen race by Andrew Collins, Signet 1996, ISBN 0-451-18926-4.

This is not a reccommendation BTW: unless you actually want to wet yourself laughing.

From the Ashes of Angels is the result of a ten-year study by the author into the historical reality of an advanced civilization in Egypt and the Near East during prehistoric times.
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...these human angels -described as tall, with white hair and viper-like faces- originated in Egypt and constructed the Great Sphinx and other megalithic monuments along the Nile at the end of the last Ice Age.
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"An exciting and original intellectual quest. Andrew Collins has put important new facts before the public concerning the mysterious origins of human civilization."-Graham Hancock
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I recently met a young lady of 19 who was nearly killed in a spectacular road accident 10 years ago. She was thrown through a shop window and found herself lying underneath the crashed car inside the shop. A man appeared from nowhere and pulled her out from under the car, which immediately dropped down flat exactly where she'd been lying. Several people saw this beside the girl and her mother, but nobody knows who the man was: he seemed to melt away afterwards. Sounded like one of those 'angel' stories to me.
 
If you're interested in the paranormal then how can that be divorced from the concept of 'God' or 'Christianity'? It seems to me that it is, in fact, the Catholic Church that allows most of the wierd things we discuss on the fortean message board, as opposed to any other religion, to be true - they accept that people see ghosts, poltergeists, angels, the virgin mary, Jesus, the devil, strange animal apparitions, possessions, etc. and take them seriously as phenomena and help people instead of telling them they are tired or stressed because the 'devil' per se doesn't actually exist anymore, etc.

It's wierd how some of us can believe SOME things yet not others.
When you start getting into the subject of the paranormal it soon becomes increasingly difficult to say 'Oh I believe that because so many people have seen it...but not that because despite everyone seeing something it sounds silly' etc.

I'm not criticising anyone for their beliefs, just confused about how you can decide the 'wheat' from the 'chaff' of the things discussed on this site? Personally I have trouble with 'dog-headed men' on the IHTM forum but I have to think 'Hey...look at what I believe in...who am I to think THIS is wierd??!

I've never seen an angel and don't feel I have one. My dad went to a psychic when he was younger and she drew a picture for him of his guardian and he said it was his Auntie Octavia. He said he was surprised as she had eight children of her own and what the hell was she doing looking after him when she had so many of her own to worry about? Good point. But I still believe in them anyway. ;)
 
Chant said:
It's wierd how some of us can believe SOME things yet not others.
When you start getting into the subject of the paranormal it soon becomes increasingly difficult to say 'Oh I believe that because so many people have seen it...but not that because despite everyone seeing something it sounds silly' etc.
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It's called the power of discrimination, or maybe, 'rule of thumb.'

I had an old work mate once who (sometime before he drove himself into the back of his sooped up Jaguar XJ12 Automatic, on the A6 Barton Cutting), gave me a valuable piece of advice. We were working a way somewhere one day when I said, "The foreman said you have to do such-and-such now!"

And he said, "I don't have to do anything, mate! No one orders me about. I'm a free agent, mate."

Strangely enough, Charles Fort, many years before that, said something very similiar, "I conceive of nothing, in religion, science, or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear for a while."

i.e. You don't have to believe, or disbelieve, in anything. If Roman Catholicism fits, fine. Just don't expect anybody else to join the flock. ;)
 
Fashionable again...

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1197512004
Why religion's out and we're loving angels instead

JULIA HORTON


TAP the word "angel" into one internet search engine and you get a massive 22,200,000 hits. Admittedly a few relate to TV shows or films such as John Travolta’s Michael and the Emmy-winning Angels in America, but it won’t be long before you find a site like AngelHaven.com.

Here, one Norm Braverman - your "angel on the web" - invites you to "feel the presence of angels, share your angelic experiences, visit angel chatrooms, send an Angel Gram and ask questions about angels".

So there are even angels on the internet these days. But while it’s easy to be sceptical about sites such as Norm’s, for many people angels are a comforting reality.

A survey this week by ITV’s This Morning show hinted that while the number of people actively involved in organised religion has been plummeting for some time, interest in angels is now commonplace.

One in three people in Britain in the survey said that they believed in angels, with one in six claiming they had been helped by one.

But how, in today’s secular world, do people actually define "an angel" - and why do so many people believe in them?

Biblical scholar and Methodist preacher Margaret Barker is an authority on angels. She says: "Angels are the way that human beings perceive the divine [God], but because our minds are limited we are only able to see a limited aspect of the divine. These limited aspects are experiences which are traditionally labelled angels."

While the traditional image of an angel is a winged figure with a beatific smile as featured on untold Christmas cards, Barker, whose book An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels is published this month, says the majority of people who claim to have encountered angels do not actually see anything.

"Most people who say they have an experience of angels do not say it was a visual experience. Many people sense a presence or hear something. A very common thing is to smell a particular flowery sweet perfume.

"People tend to think angels have to be seen because the common way people learn about angels is through paintings, the most common being the angel Gabriel.

"But if you read the original text in Luke [in the Bible] of Gabriel coming to Mary, he does not say that Mary saw Gabriel, the English translation inserts the word ‘saw’. Luke says he came in and she heard him."

Barker has listened to many people recounting their experiences of angels, including one woman who was out walking with her husband when he fell gravely ill "in the middle of nowhere".

"Then the next walker who came past was a doctor. She [the woman] was not able to trace who he was [when she tried to contact him later to thank him]." The woman eventually came to the conclusion that the person she had encountered was an angel.

Barker herself claims to have encountered angels "many times". "I know I’m not writing fiction. In a library, for example, I will write out what I think is the reference for a book I want, and I will write it wrongly [accidentally], but when I go to get the [wrong] book and open it, I find the answer to the question I was looking for."

Barker, a grandmother living in Derbyshire, stands by her beliefs, but she admits doctors might well "put it down to my age".

As to why so many people say they see angels, regardless of whether or not they are religious, Barker’s explanation is simply that, in her view and that of the Church, angels are real. She says: "Just because you don’t believe in something does not mean it is not there."

She adds that people "instinctively" believe because it makes them feel better: "There is a huge sense of insecurity in the world today, which some call freedom, but most people don’t want freedom, they want security. The traditional way to describe security is the guardian angel. Angels are reassuring in an uncertain world."

That view would seem to be supported by websites like AngelHaven.com, which features a quote at the top of its homepage reading: "Our angels are always with us, even when we can’t see or feel their presence. Rest easy, knowing that you are continuously guided, loved, and protected."

Traditionally, the religious definition of angels is as messengers of God.

The Rev Charles Robertson, minister at Edinburgh’s Canongate Kirk, gives the Church of Scotland’s view: "We believe in angels as messengers of God for purposes of guiding, guarding and protecting, but not necessarily as the biblical stereotypes, the radiant beings [which people imagine].

"Angels are central in our belief because of the biblical witnesses [such as when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary]."

He is quick to distance the Church from the secular view of angels, and also disputes Barker’s claim about the way angels are experienced, saying: "They definitely do not smell."

Explaining the positive effects which Christians gain from their belief in angels, he adds: "I think it is a comfort to people, even if they think in terms of the childhood guardian angel. The thought that somebody with a kindly eye is watching over them brings comfort, in moments of stress, and also in moments of happiness."

The Catholic Church echoes the Kirk’s view of angels as messengers of God.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church says: "We believe and accept the existence of angels as spiritual non-corporeal [without physical bodies] beings.

"We would say that as purely spiritual beings they have intelligence and will, they are personal [individuals] and immortal.

"We also believe that we all have a guardian angel, that there is an angel who takes care of us and protects us. They are heavenly, in that sense. They are messengers from God, for example, the angels coming to the shepherds at Bethlehem."

In An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels, Barker explores the role of angels in religion, particularly Judaism and Christianity, her area of expertise.

But it also looks at non-religious views of angels, such as those in author Philip Pullman’s cult trilogy, His Dark Materials.

The climax in the trilogy is the destruction of God, who the author portrays as a jumped-up angel.

Barker says that often even secular beliefs describing angels as supernatural beings are very close to religious ones, explaining: "I don’t think he [Pullman] was aware of how accurately he was reproducing classical angels, such as things he was saying [in his books] about angels appearing in groups of five, which is an established thing [according to religious belief]."

While religious and secular views on angels are likely to continue to differ, both sides seem to agree that the impact of people’s belief itself is the same.

As Ben Williams, Edinburgh-based psychologist, says: "I can’t say whether angels exist or not, or what they are.

"But believing in angels gives people a feeling of security that there is something out there that is more powerful than they are, and benevolent."
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I have heard a few times that wings on angels are an invention of artists, particularly from the 16th century I think. I whipped out me King James and found 5 descriptions of wings in the Bible, Enoch has so many mentions of wings I gave up on him. ;) From the (pretty scary) descriptions I have read, the flowing robes and beautiful faces are definately made up, I wouldn't fancy meeting an angel, especially not in a dark alley!

Here are the ones I found if anyone is interested.

Exodus25:20
And the Cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the Cherubims be.

Ezekial 10:20
This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Cebar; and I knew that they were the Cherubims.
Every one had four faces apiece, and every one had four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.

1 Kings 6:23
And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits height.
And five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub: from the uttermost part of the one wing unto the uttermost past of the other were ten cubits.

Revelation 4:8
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, which was , and is, and is to come.

Isaiah 6:2
Above it stood the Seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Edit, another interesting wing snippet from Gustav Davidson's Dictionary of Angels. Apparently Mohammed described Gabriel as having 140 pairs of wings! I'd like to see Rembrandt try and get his brush round that lot. ;)
 
I always find the New Agey-type Angelophiles a bit odd - this woman lives somewhere in the area (my Dad is a big fan of such things and sent me the link):

Dating the celestial way

Nov 24 2005

By Tom Hughes, Crosby Herald


CROSBY writer, presenter and angel therapist Laura Penn has launched a new book called The Angels' Guide to Dating.

In the book ex-Radio City presenter Laura explains how to find your perfect partner through advice from angels.

She said: "Angels are not fluffy things flying on clouds, they are very down-to-earth and if you listen to them they can really change your life."

Laura believes that angels were responsible for helping her find happiness with her husband, Gordon.

It follows her first book, The Angels' Guide to Life.
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Source
 
Pfft, a mere amateur. Behold! Doreen Virtue.
Apparently her real name.. Avoid the message boards unless you actually enjoy feeling queasy. :snore:

angel_125.gif
 
min_bannister said:
Pfft, a mere amateur. Behold! Doreen Virtue.
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I beheld, and wish I hadn't.

The first words angels are usually recorded as saying to humans are, "Fear not." Not the sort of greeting that would likely come from a creature who had a fluffily feminine appearance.
 
Yup, the angel who tells the shepherds about the birth of Christ says 'Fear not, for behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy...'
I know that whole passage by heart, having learned it when I was about 9.

Anyway...

Gloria Hunniford's on the cover of the Sky New magazine this month. She's fronting a new programme about angels on Sky Real Lives (from Friday 24th July, 9pm). It's called 'Angels', surprisingly enough. ;)

I'll be watching as I love to read about angels and haven't seen anything much on TV about them. :D
 
Just having a little flick back through this thread when a voice came on t'wireless talkng about hearing angels' wings. :shock:

It was in R4's Feedback discussing a programme about nuns or something.
 
Angels, imaginary friends

I recall when my eldest was a young,un in his cot, I used to love hearing him gabbling away in his baby talk language. Later when he was able to talk reasonably I asked him who he was talking to, he told me "Paul", I asked who Paul was and he replied that he was his "friend" but only he could see him. My old Nan told me it was my sons Guardian Angel and that as the child grew older the Angel would leave him but would always be there to guide him subconciously. Is that an Angel ??
 
Perhaps angels are all around us.

There is a biblical injunction to be kind and generous to all. To offer hospitality and help wherever possible. I believe the wording go something like "because you do not know if you might be entertaining angels". After all "angel" is just a word, and has probably been applied to any number of differing beings.
 
Biblical angels are essentially messengers from God, I don't know why people thinks of them as pleasant beings, whenever one shows up you can be sure your life's going to get complicated at the very least. As mentioned earlier in this thread, they generally seem to rather scarey.

The quote from Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 13:2 is depending on the translation:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (KJV)
 
Timble2 said:
Biblical angels are essentially messengers from God, I don't know why people thinks of them as pleasant beings...As mentioned earlier in this thread, they generally seem to rather scarey.
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Which is why their first words to humans are often "Fear not."
 
ElishevaBarsabe said:
min_bannister said:
Pfft, a mere amateur. Behold! Doreen Virtue.
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I beheld, and wish I hadn't.

The first words angels are usually recorded as saying to humans are, "Fear not." Not the sort of greeting that would likely come from a creature who had a fluffily feminine appearance.
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I don't know about that. Picture Barbara Cartland. She was fluffily feminine and she scared the bejeezus out of me when she was on telly
 
From my limited understanding based on Kabbalah, angels and daemons are based on pure emotions rather than sexual entities so there is no feminine or masculine, many,well most, having emanated from us humans... it is believed we create angels and demons, for want of a better description with every strong emotional response we have... it is up to us then, to work with them, and with the negative ones, work on them... through working on ourselves by transferring our intention of self fulfillment to fulfilling others.
As to the higher realms, that is much more complex.
Cheers Felicity
 
Anyone in the UK see Charlie Brooker on You Have Been Watching tonight? They reviewed a Sky programme about angels and it was very funny, including the woman who thought she had been visited because she found a seagull - sorry, angel feather on her car! There was even a reconstruction in case this was too mind boggling for the viewer to envisage!

The panel were complaining that the sceptic on the show who came up with the rational explanations was given very short shrift, but I would say, what do you expect? The kind of people who tune into a show about angels on Sky aren't going to be Richard Dawkins aficionados, are they? They want confirmation.
 
Anyone see Mastermind last night? One of the contestants had "Angels" as his specialist subject, and I don't know what he was expecting, but he only got two points! He seemed a bit of a "believer" so maybe he wanted questions on people's visions, but he didn't even know about the Angels of Mons.

It's on iPlayer if you want to cringe...
 
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