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Swedenborgian Church of Puget Sound

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Angels

Are Angels Real? What Are Angels? Do Angels Help Us? What About Evil? The Power of Angels
 How Do I Contact Angels?

Angels are with You Right Now!
In recent years there has been an explosion of books, articles, TV and radio shows, lectures and workshops about how angels are with us right now. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) wrote more about angels than anyone in history -- and he wrote from his own mystical encounters with them! Swedenborg conversed with angels in the spiritual world daily for over 27 years. His descriptions of angels are similar to the encounters many people describe today. People have described encounters with spiritual beings in Near Death Experiences , as well as through intuition, prayer, meditation, and other forms of spiritual consciousness.
Are Angels Real?

Angels are presences in the spiritual realm, which we cannot see, but which are indeed a real part of the universe. New insights in quantum physics and other sciences are shedding more and more light on this world that we cannot see. Swedenborg understood each human being to be an “angel in training,” forming a spiritual presence while on earth, through choosing love and compassion over separation from the divine.
What Are Angels?

All those who genuinely try to live an honest and caring life are in an angelic state. When the physical body dies, the spiritual body continues. Heaven is not limited to Christians, but is open to all who live a loving religion as best they can. Heaven is not a reward for good behavior, but is a continuation of all that is loving and compassionate within us. Far from being “eternal rest,” angelic life is active and useful. Through their activities in heaven, angels grow closer to God for all eternity. The word angel means “messenger,” for angels are messengers of divine energy, who guide people to manifest God in a variety of ways.
Do Angels Help Us?
 
Angels are present to protect, guide, encourage, and even celebrate with us. An angel said to Swedenborg, “The pleasure in being useful is the life and soul of all heavenly joys.”  Angels’ presence is often disguised as our intuition, insight, dream, daydream, prayer, or some other inner resource. These are the experiences that carry us through a tough time or leads us to new levels of compassionate enlightenment. Angels intervene when we are in situations that put our spiritual future in danger.
 

Angels help us through death. Dying people sometimes look at or talk with someone whom no one else in the room can see. Angels exude a radiant love that far exceeds any earthly concept of love. Someone who has just died cannot help but feel safe, welcome, and at peace.
 
 
Angels also help babies.  At birth and during the first few months of life, infants are constantly in the care of angels.  Angels stay so close to them that their first inner experiences are filled with goodness and truth.  During his conversations with angels, Swedenborg found that all children who die, whether baptized or not, are taken into the care of angels who love nothing more than to care for children.  In heaven, they grow and mature as radiant spiritual beings.  No infants ever go to hell.
What About Evil?
Evil does exist, and so do evil spirits who try to influence us against our better and higher intentions. Swedenborgians do not believe in a single Satanic figure or “The Devil.” We understand evil spirits to be the forces that we attract when we act in our own self-interest toward egotistical ends. Hell is not a place where people are sent by God to be punished for their sins. Hell is a state of consciousness in which people seek to serve only themselves. It is a state of consciousness that we choose when we cling to resentment, envy, hatred, greed, fear, and other states of being that block the flow of divine love.
The Power of Angels

The only real power is the power of love. Everything in the universe owes its existence to God, the Divine Creator and Source and Ground of all Being. God’s divine energy is always flowing into us through a process that Swedenborgians call “influx.” Evil comes into being when we use our God-given free will to block or go against this divine flow of love. Angels guide us to live in accordance with God’s love, and guide us away from acting selfishly.

The power of spiritual light is larger and stronger than the power of darkness. Love is more powerful than hate. Christianity is based on the belief that life triumphs over death. A Swedenborgian author writes, “No power from hell is equal to that of an angel, and entire hosts of angels can be summoned by one prayer. The good and the true inevitably triumph if they are called.”
How Do I Contact Angels?

 

Angels, since they are a force of the divine,
know when their presence is needed in order to facilitate your spiritual growth.
Swedenborg did not advocate practices of attempting to channel specific spirits,
or summoning certain angels.
Angels live within and among us according to God’s will, not according to ours.
 

Angels are our spiritual companions. As in the material world,
we attract certain types of presences by our consciousness.
When we meet the very people we seem to need on our spiritual path,
that is a sign of the presence of angels among us.
 Everything that forms our consciousness -- our thoughts, our moods, our attitudes, our feelings -- serves to attract the spiritual presence of angelic companions on our journey.
 

The Bible says, “Remember to show hospitality.  There are some who, by so doing, have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)
Words of Wisdom
Emanuel Swedenborg
About Angels
 
“The purpose of the creation of the universe is an angelic heaven from the human race... People are born to become angels.”

“Angels’ function is to impart charity and faith, to notice the direction in which the person’s delights turn, and to modify and bend those delights toward what is good, so far as they can do so in the person’s freedom.”

“Everyone who comes into heaven comes into the greatest joy of his or her heart.”

“The more we love what is good and true, the more angels love to be with us.”

“There are two angels with each of us, one to affect what is of our will and the other to affect what is of our understanding.”

“Angels from the Lord lead and protect us every moment and every moment of every day.”

“When we enter a state of love or heavenly affection, we enter an angelic state.”

Kirven, Robert, Angels in Action, (West Chester, PA: Chrysalis Books, 1994)
Swedenborg, Emanuel, Heaven and Hell, (West Chester, PA:  Swedenborg Foundation, 1758)
Swedenborg, Emanuel, Awaken From Death, J.Lawrence, ed., (San Francisco, CA:  J. Appleseed & Co., 1993)