Monday 14 April 2008

Have Angels Ever Incarnated?

As with his descriptions of the Archangels, Emanuel Swedenborg’s reports on the issue of whether angels have ever incarnated differs substantially from most current literature, in which angels are presented as a separate category of being who have never incarnated into physical form.

In contrast, Swedenborg asserted that all angels have incarnated at some point in their existence. The reason why many people perceive angels as a different type of spiritual being with no physical experience lies in the fact that there are different layers, or planes, to the spiritual world. Those angels who dwell on a plane closer to the physical are what we would call spirit guides, and we are easily able to see that they have had prior physical incarnations. However, those angels who dwell on the highest planes are so far removed from the physical plane and their prior incarnations that they seem to us to be another race of beings entirely.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting - the information I have received is that Spirit Guides are Souls just like us, only more advanced. I very much differentiate between angels and Spirit Guides.

Doreen Virtue also just calls all discorporate beings that assist us "angels" - it drives me a little crazy! :-) However, it is a concept that people can more easily wrap their brains around, I think. Believing in angels seems to be more accessible to many religious people, since they are mentioned in the bible, for example.

I'll have to check this out.

Blessings,
Andrea

Anonymous said...

Hi Andrea, glad you picked up on this, and I'd love to hear what further information you're able to glean on the subject!

I find Swedenborg's writings interesting - a lot of it does make sense to me (kind of in a "this just feels right" way!), though some of it, I do wonder about.

He did come from a very traditional religious background (his father was a Bishop), so perhaps he received information from the spiritual world in a way that made sense to him i.e. calling all beings angels, just with different roles and functions, and at different levels of existence. Maybe today we're a bit more open to accepting information that doesn't fit exactly with traditional teachings?!

Whether my guides are more advanced souls or angels I suppose doesn't ultimately matter to me as long as I have a close relationship with them :) [But it would be interesting to know...!]