Angels, Fairies, Demons, and the Elementals. John Van Auken

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СКАЧАТЬ taken from Isaiah 40:22, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and earth’s inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain [or veil], and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”

      2. Firmament (Raki’a—the firmament, the canopy, the expanse of heaven, which are the stars, moon, and sun; mentioned in Gen 1:14-18, “‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”

      3. Cloud/Sky (Shehakim—the clouds from which the manna from heaven fell to nourish the seekers. Here is where the well of the “water of life” is and the fountain of gardens. These associations are taken from Psalm 78:24-26, “And He commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He caused manna to rain upon them for food,” and the “cloud” in 1 Kings 8:10-13, “And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord has set the sun in the heavens, but has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I have built thee an exalted house, a place for thee to dwell in forever.’”

      4. Mansion (Zebul—the lofty dwelling, “mansion of holiness” (zevul kodshekha) taken from Psalm 93:5, considered the temple-mansion in the Golden City. As found in I Kings 8:13, “I have surely built Thee a house of habitation, a place for Thee to dwell in forever. And whence do we derive that it is called heaven?” and in Isaiah 63:15, “Look down from heaven, and see, even from Thy holy and glorious habitation.” And Jesus refers to mansions in John 14:1-4, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Now Thomas challenges this, telling Jesus that they do not know where he is going or the way. But we do; and we have to go back to an answer Jesus gave Nicodemus to understand how this could be: “No one has ascended into heaven but he/she who descended from heaven, even the Son of man.” (John 3:13) We are the children of God, and as such we originated in the heavens, thus our souls descended from the heavens in order to incarnate in this world, and we’ll ascend back into heavens after our physical body dies. This is how Jesus can say, you know where I’m going and you know the way.

      5. Dwelling (Ma’on—the refuge, a place of peace from the struggles. Home of the ministering angels mentioned in Deuteronomy 26:15, “Thy holy habitation.”

      6. “City of God” (Makon—the changeless, perfect residence, containing the template or prototype for all life forms. This is the storehouse of good, eternal treasures. The name is taken from Psalm 46:5-6, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God will help her right early.”

      7. “Vast Plains of God” (Aravot—the highest heaven, the vast expansive plains of Infinity. This is the Divine Womb from which all life originally came into being and to which it returns, as taken from Psalm 68:4-5, “Lift up a song to him who rides upon the infinite plains; his name is the Lord, exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

      Notice that the first three heavens are associated with physical life, the second three with mental dimensions of consciousness, and the last with Infinity—a quality that human beings would have difficulty knowing directly because of their finite focus. Yet, through careful passage during deep meditation and transcendent ecstasy, we can rise to levels of consciousness in the Infinite Mind of God.

      The most important heaven for us is the lowest one, the Veil or Curtain, because if we can perceive it and develop a conscious awareness of it, then we have made the first big step toward total spiritual awakening. Despite what you may think, we know this veil well and are familiar with the qualities of our mind on both sides of this veil. To use a familiar example, how many times have we had a dream that impressed us (either scared us or inspired us or simply caught our attention), and as we came closer to waking, we noticed that our bladder was full, so we decided to go empty the bladder and then come back to the bed and reflect on the dream? Yet, when we returned to our bed, the dream was completely gone! We had no recollection of it. How is this possible? It is because we just experienced the veil, a most subtle yet opaque veil! When in the dream, we were in our soul mind and were quite comfortable there. We knew it as a part of ourselves. Then, as we engaged our body to walk to the bathroom, we passed through this veil into our outer mind, which is awakened to move the body. However, our outer mind did not have the dream! It has no content of the dream, only a sense that the inner mind has content that is going to be reviewed. But it does not contain that content. Now we see just how subtle and yet opaque this veil is. We do not even notice when we pass through it, and yet, once on the other side, we cannot see back through it.

      Fortunately, that’s only partially true, because if we practice becoming more aware of the subtle aspects of our consciousness, we will come to perceive the movement through the veil and know which side of the veil we are on at any given time.

      Now that we have some knowledge of the heavens, let’s look into the classical understanding of angels.

       The Angels

      As crowded and busy as earth is, the heavens are many times more crowded and busy. How many angels are there? Well the apostle John wrote: “I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.” (Revelation 5:11, NIV) The study of angels and the doctrine on angels are called Angelology, and were once widely accepted as a serious part of Theology. The term angel appears in the Bible 194 to 196 times, depending on which version you’re searching. And in some cases, angels are implied and understood by the scholars to be angels even though the term is not used. For example, in Genesis 18:1-2, the Lord appears to Abraham in the form of three “men,” which Abraham immediately knew were physical expressions of angels from heaven, and he treated them as such. But for all outward appearances, they looked like men. This is when Abraham debates with the three angels over how many righteous people need to be among the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah to keep the angels from destroying the cities, finally getting them to agree to ten righteous people.

      As to the appearance of angels, even the Scriptures warn us that sometimes we “entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2, KJV)

      Let’s begin our study with Edgar Cayce’s comments on angels.

      (Q) Is the guardian angel a healing force for physical betterment?

      (A) The guardian angel—that is the companion of each soul as it enters into a material experience—is ever an influence for the keeping of that attunement between the creative energies or forces of the soul-entity and health, life, light and immortality. Thus, to be sure, it is a portion of that influence for healing forces.

      And as may be experienced in the activities of individuals, it may become so accentuated as to be the greater influence in their experience. Thus it is as has been given of old; that to some there is the gift of healing, to some the gift of speech, interpreting of tongues, to ministering. Yet all are of the same Spirit. For these are ever that which is the assurance, in that as has been given—God hath not willed that any soul СКАЧАТЬ