Talk:Guardian angel

Guardian spirit

"Guardian spirit" redirects to this article, but this article barely even mentions protective spirits in cultures outside of Judeo-Christian ones. Is "guardian angel" really the place to put every culture's conceptions of guardian spirits? If anything, wouldn't it be the other way around (although "guardian angel" gets more Google hits than "guardian spirits", obviously). -Silence 02:40, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

"Guardian spirit" probably redirects here because there is no article on guardian spirits in general. Perhaps the redirect should go to "spirit guide." Your call. MamaGeek (Talk/Contrib) 14:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Silence is referring, I think, to how fully developed the thought is outside of the west and how eastern philosophies have also come to something like a g.a. I.e. there should be an article on the guardian spirit that includes everything from animism to ancestor worship to daemons to the Islamic protector. However, the Guardian angel article should confine itself to what's in Christian thought and how it got there (e.g. by discussing the Islamic tradition and its influence around 1309). Geogre 15:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Angels aren't solely spirit, but also flesh. They can appear as invisble and disincarnate spirits, but also they can appear within a human flesh. This applies bho to angels of Satan and to angels of God, while solely the seconds are capable of loving their neighbour and to look for ourselves and human communities. Their work in a human body is described in Genesis 19:1–7, Psalms 91:11 in the Book of Tobit and in 1 Corinthians 11;10. It is problematic if their had an own immutable flesh, apart of the multiple and mutable forms -both animal (for demons) and human- in which they are always been used to appear. In the first case, angels woul have a dyophysite nature, both human and spiritual, which for definition is invisible, bodiless and without physic mass. By virtue of this twofold nature, the saint angels of God belong to the Roman Catholic notion of the Communion of saints.

Guardian angel prayer

I put back the guardian angel prayer, including an explanation. It is a widely-know and oft-used prayer, especially for Christian children. There is also a Wikilink to it from List of Prayers, so if it is determined by consensus that the prayer should be removed, please redirect that link. MamaGeek (Talk/Contrib) 14:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The guardian angel prayer here looks very suitable. In the future, I hope to add information about Orthodox prayers to guardian angels; in particular, the prayers seek protection from both physical and spiritual harm, and help in avoiding temptations to sin. (And generally, they are usually a brief part of a much longer prayer that is chiefly addressed to God, but may include short parts addressed to Mary, one's guardian angel, or other saints.) I don't know enough to know if these are distinctive features or common to all Christians. Wesley 16:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Is the prayer you're talking about in the List of prayers? Does it have its own article? If not, you may want to consider adding it. It sounds pretty complex, maybe too much so for this article. It may be better to put it on its own page (the full prayer, not just the angel part), and link to it from here. Just an idea. MamaGeek (Talk/Contrib) 16:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Folks, we really need a source for that prayer. If it's common, it should be attested somewhere besides ourselves. There is much more to do in this article, and I've set it aside for quite a while. However, there is much more to the theology and, in particular, the counterpositioning of Arabic/Islamic thought. Most of the schema of angels employed by Western literature comes from Islamic sources (in Paradise Lost, for example), and all the alchemists were drawing from those sources. Consequently, there is a much more developed guardian angel theology in Islam. Although this article is about the Christian guardian angel, a fair amount has bled into the west from Islam. Geogre 15:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for the assertion that Orthodox Christian angelology is from Islam? Pseudo-Dionysus wrote before this era. CRCulver 00:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't saying that Greek Orthodox angelology was from Islam. The doctrine of the guardian angel is well developed in the Greek fathers. However, the exact positioning (seraphim/cherubim vs. orders), along with the names, etc. are all developed in Islam, so the contemporary mystery with angels is really derived from Christianity + Arabic belief + Islam + Christianity, with the Greek church following the same lines until the schism and then getting a different direction. I still say that prayer's got to go, though, unless someone has a citation for it. It's been a month, and the thing is still sitting there without citation. Geogre 02:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comparison to greek philosophy

The text says the following: "The belief that God sends a spirit to watch every individual was common in Ancient Greek philosophy, and Plato alludes to it in Phaedo". The greeks were polytheists, which god does the text refer to? Furthermore should a reference be added here. -ramz- 19:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• "The Greeks" were polytheists, but Platonists weren't. The reference is to the work in question. At any rate, Plato's "guardian angels" are angelos, sort of. Remember that the Platonic view is that the ideal is outside of motion, and a demiurge is necessary for creation, but the demiurge isn't going to go below the empyrean. Therefore, there are messengers and spirits flowing between the empyrean and the sublunary world. That's the guardian angel of the Platonic world view, and it's very important for Plato's system. Geogre 11:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• I'm pretty sure the Zoroastrians had a concept like guardian angels, see Avesta.org and Fravashi, but I see no mention of this in the article. That's a bit perplexing as I've usually heard the theory that Christians got the notion from Zoroastrians not Platonists.--T. Anthony 10:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Or hell, maybe Christianity got it from Job, as mentioned in the article because it sure sounds like it if you read the verses. 69.254.76.77 (talk) 02:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Reading over Yasht 13, I wouldn't exactly call the Fravashi "guardian angels". The seem to do more like minister to the workings of the entire world. It said something about if it wasn't for them, the evil gods would keep the heavenly bodies from preforming their usual functions. Yasht 13 has the most material on them and is their "primary source" but the liner notes from Avesta.org mention a reference to Buddhism in the Yasht so people didn't really start talking about them in the "guardian angel" sense until Buddhism made its way into Iran. The idea already existed in pre-exilic texts, so the Jews didn't need anyone's ideas to get all the way there. What ever happened to thinking people can come up with ideas on their own? Some type of protecting higher force, in my opinion, is far too universal for everyone to have needed to borrow from from each other. Also, as far as I can find about Plato's angels, they seem to only guide the spirits to the underworld. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.254.76.77 (talk) 21:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

• The article states that Plato got the concept of 'idea' from standard Zoroastrianism, but it is just as possible, even more likely that both Plato and Zoroastrianism developed their conceptions from roots in their common Indo-European or proto-Indo-European heritage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.239.152.174 (talk) 21:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Saints banner

The above banner was placed on this article as there is a liturgical feast day for the Guardian angels, as indicated in the article, and we in that project are working to improve all articles relating to individuals commemorated in Christian liturgical feasts. The inclusion of the banner gives us in the project an idea of the current status of the article. We will upon completion of tagging work harder on the importance assessment, which will give the members of the project a chance to concentrate their efforts where it is most needed. That will happen sometime later, though. I can't say when, as I'm still in the process of tagging. In any event, I hope that these statements are sufficient to justify the banner not being removed by someone else later. John Carter 15:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Occult?

No problem, of course, but aren't angels, by the nature of their being angelos, not hidden and therefore not occult? Like I said, it's all fine with me, but it does seem...odd. Geogre 12:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Angels are a central part of the Western occult tradition, particularly in the Kabbalah and systems of ceremonial magic based upon it. Guardian angels are also a significant part of occultism/magick based directly on Judeo-Christian practice. Another example would be Enochian, which is specifically considered a form of the angelic language. Hope that helps clarify. Cheers! Vassyana 22:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Page name

This article should be named Guardian angel. This is clearly the primary meaning (even the generic Guardian angel page redirects here). So, per WP:DAB, this article's name should be without the disambiguation (spirit) . -- P199 (talk) 14:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Origin

The view that the "prince of the Persian Kingdom" was referring to one of the fallen angels... may not be quite as clear cut as presented. The note to Daniel 10:13 in the NAB follows Jerome in stating that this was the guardian angel of Persia, just as Michael protects Israel (Dan.10:21); while Clarke suggests that it was Cyrus himself, who resisted the angel's promptings. This statement also seems to contradict the last sentence in the Old Testament section which identifies the prince of the Persians as one of the angels assigned to particular districts.Mannanan51 (talk) 02:45, 3 June 2011 (UTC)mannannan51

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Lead

My removal of some vague/dubious information and inappropriate sourcing was reverted without any reason, so if you want to have a serious discussion please do so. --Pythagimedes (talk) 07:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Order of sections

Rabbinic litterature is a secondary source in respect of the whole Bible. If you quotes the Old Testament, then the New Testament shall be the immediately subsequent section since for Christian (and in some way also for the Muslims) it has the same authority and divine inspiration than the Old Testament. From a Jewish point of view this statement is not true, but a similar order of sections doesn't observe WP:NPOV.

Differently, religious commentaries are secondary sources derived from the Holy Bible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.14.138.216 (talk • contribs)

Post-merge discussion

I don't know whether editors who follow a majority religion excluded the viewpoints of the religion Thelema from this article, or whether the followers of Thelema wished to create their own walled-garden, but we basically had a POV split across a single subject, so I was bold and merged them. Skyerise (talk) 12:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skyerise: The John Dee material doesn't really fall under history for the HGA in Thelema. Dee doesn't use the phrase in the quoted/referenced material, and I don't know that Crowley explicitly makes any link between the HGA and John Dee. There was already a separate magic section for that material before, and it makes sense to present it together. You could set aside the Abramelin material as history under Thelema, but this ignores the intervening centuries as though only Thelema matters and prior history is just a prelude. It would be like making the Biblical section a subsection of the Christianity section. I don't see why you are strictly enforcing a division by religion when that's not the most natural way to organise the material and the article already has other sections (eg. Biblical, Literature) which don't fall under the heading of a major religion. -- Scyrme (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. Skyerise (talk) 17:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Skyerise: ?? You mostly just changed it back the way it was before, except with "Enochian" instead of "Renaissance". (The latter is arguably better because it encourages non-Enochian additions.) When I said "you could" it was a hypothetical, not a suggestion. I don't agree with doing it that way. I can support keeping the Renaissance and Golden Dawn history together for now, since the Golden Dawn is mostly mentioned to contextualise the translation of the original text. However, the history pertaining to Renaissance magic is independent of Thelema, as is the history pertaining to the Golden Dawn. It should remain separate much as the Hebrew Bible section is separate from and not included in the Christianity section, despite it being canonical in Christianity. -- Scyrme (talk) 17:55, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

It's needed as historical background in the Thelema section - Crowley did not coin the term. The article should stay, as much as possible, organized by religion, because that's the way it's been historically. If it's outside the Thelema section, then the reader will miss the history of the term when they get redirected there. This seems the best solution. Putting Thelema as a subheading under ceremonial magic is just plain wrong. Skyerise (talk) 18:00, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

That he did not coin the term can be explained by starting with something like:

"Having studied The Book of Abramelin during his time with the Golden Dawn, author and occultist Aleister Crowley adapted the concept of the Holy Guardian Angel from Renaissance magic and made it central to the philosophy and practices of Thelema, popularizing it in the process."

I think that's enough to make it obvious that Crowley didn't invent the idea, and implies further history which anyone interested can seek out by scrolling up or following the links. If you want to make things even harder to miss, we can add a "(see above)" with an internal link to the section on Renaissance magic. This would provide the necessary background and would eliminate the need for subsuming the existing material.

Articles can and should be reorganised when additional material makes it necessary to do so. Enforcing the old structure even when new material no longer fits that structure is just pointlessly conservative. You say it's plain wrong to put Thelema under "Ceremonial magic". I think it's plain wrong to place Renaissance and Golden Dawn history under the heading of Thelema. -- Scyrme (talk) 18:38, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but The Book of Abramelin is actively used in Thelema and also needs to be included. Unless you want to duplicate it outside and inside the section? People redirected will not see the previous section unless they scroll up. @Randy Kryn: what do you think? Skyerise (talk) 18:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Skyerise: The opening I suggested explicitly links to the Book of Abramelin; it's literally the first thing anyone reading the Thelema section would see. It's also named repeatedly throughout the section you've just renamed to "Methods of contact". It's hard to miss even if they don't scroll up and ignore the "(see above)", assuming we add one. I don't understand the problem.

To be clear, the only material regarding Abramelin I'm suggesting be separated from Thelema is the material I had previously separated to a subsection of "Renaissance magic". I'm not suggested the Thelema section be purged of all its mentions of the book. The Thelema-specific material on Abramelin can stay where it is.

If your objection is that you want all the Abramelin material collected under "Thelema" because it's actively used in Thelema, then I would once again point to how the article handles the Hebrew Bible, which is actively used in Christianity. -- Scyrme (talk) 20:28, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Well done. Skyerise (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Removal of spaces from citation templates

Needs to be discussed here by the edit-warrior attempting to force this change on the article. Skyerise (talk) 11:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)