In the early 1980's if you went to a specialist spiritual bookshop in London, like Watkins, to find books about angels, there were virtually none. Ten years later, there were whole shelves devoted to the subject. Some books were of value, and many were not. Often angelology and psychic experiences are mixed up, when the two are dealing with entirely different realms.

The idea of an angel is also often mixed up with the idea of a 'Master'. How a master has become a master is often not specified. There are some in the lightworker community that talk of physical angels, or the idea that we will become physical angels during the process of ascension (see here and here) which adds a further level of potential confusion.

All the major religions talk of angels. Hinduism has its devas and does Buddhism. These differ a little bit from the western view of angels, but with many similarities. The Fravashis of Zoroastrianism are akin to Guardian Angels. Judaism, Christianity and Islam not only all have an angelology, often they share the names of the key Angels as with Uriel and Gabriel and Michael.
Christianity has been hugely influenced by the insights of a mysterious writer named Dionysus the Areopagite, whose true identity is not known. It is from him that we gain deep knowledge of the three Choirs of Angels or the Celestial Hierarchies. The writings originate (it is estimated) in the 5th century CE. In Rudolf Steiner's lecture series Spiritual Beings, he suggests that Dionysus the Areopagite was an Athenian mystic alive at the same time as Jesus, which is an interesting proposition.

So what is an Angel? The meaning of the word (from its Greek roots) is messenger. Indeed the Hebrew word has exactly that meaning. So an angel bears a message from Divinity. A useful key to understanding the real nature of angels is that they are Intelligences. They are not part of nature. they are not advanced human beings. Quite simply they are divine.

It is helpful in seeking to understand the mysteries of Spirit or Soul to differentiate which chief category of knowledge it falls under. The Hermetic doctrine suggests there are three, and this classification is incredibly helpful in understanding many mysteries.

The Divine is Eternal and Spiritual. The Cosmos (which means 'beautiful order') is not Divine as such, because it is created. It is under the Divine Law, but also under immutable Natural Law. The Cosmos may be seen as the perpetual showing forth of Divine Life through endless creation. It is characterised by multiplicity. Finally Man* is a principle separate from both the Cosmos and the Divine, and yet participating in Divinity and Cosmogenesis.

In spiritual circles, there is much confusion over the use of the term ‘spirit’. With the word meaning very different things to different people, this uncertainty persists. Some suggest that this confusion has been deliberately fostered, using words for the understanding of our Journey back to our Source that have double or hidden meanings. It is helpful to go back to the root meaning of words, and also to find how the word was used in some of the earliest teachings that we cans till access today.

Spirit, as a word, has been in use since the 13th century. It relates to the Anglo-French word espirit and  has a relationship with the word ‘breath’ and the Greek word pneuma. If you look at a Dictionary like Merriam-Webster you will see that they suggest spirit is a synonym of Soul and Psyche. This in itself can give rise to real confusion, as the principle of Soul (Psyche) differs from that of Spirit.

Then we have the concept of spirits. This use of the word refers to what remains behind when a person or animal dies, and also to ghosts (which is not quite the same thing) and to demons or occasionally, angels. 

This after death state is explored in the Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come.  The malleability of that realm is rather well portrayed, as is the effect of the consciousness of the one who has died upon what they experience. In addition, the truth that there are those who assist the newly transitioned, is also illustrated.

Without clarity in the terminology, then discussion of processes like ascension, salvation or even following a spiritual path, is really difficult to undertake, without adding to the confusion. This current brief article and other related posts on Delphic Oracle, will suggest how these terms might be differentiated. It is right that we should start with a consideration of Spirit, as this is the highest principle that may be applied to Man (men and women). 

It is most helpful to differentiate between the terms Spirit, Soul and Mind. Mind is that which knows, and has been explored a little, already, here. Soul is the middle principle that falls between the corporeal (bodies and matter) and the incorporeal, (Spirit and Being). Spirit, in this context, is Divine.

The human being is very fruitfully considered as threefold, namely

Spirit
Soul
Body

Each of these are principles rather than ‘things’. As that is so, there is no state in which the human being does not have a body of some description, as that is the vehicle through which the Soul experiences. But the ‘body’ need not be a gross material body; it can be a dream body, an astral body or a body of light (referred to in some traditions as the rainbow body). There is an even higher idea that is of the self-shining body which it is said is the final Home of the Soul. 

Spirit is always perfect for it is Divine. Spirit is not within time and space, being completely transcendent to time and space. Human Spirit has been fruitfully described as a ‘Spark of the Divine’; but any notion that the individual Spirit is somehow separate from Divinity, or the Supreme Unity, would be an error. Yet each individual can, in truth, rest assured that they are in their highest sense, an Immortal Spirit. Everlasting life is not something that has to be given through salvation (at least from this point of view) but is already our birth-right as Spirit. We are indeed a Divine Self. The Greeks, in their beautiful grasp of this paradox (our Divine Perfection amidst imperfection), used the term nous. For at the level of the Divine, Spirit and Mind may be considered as one. Nous, or the Divine Mind, is available to all, but has to be won on the journey back to our true Home. When in touch with nous, then there is no separation between Divine Mind and our awareness. We simply know as The Creator knows. This is the seat of the deepest mysticism and the highest revelation. 

 Spirits
By mixing up the term spirit with that of ghost, or etherial being, real confusion sets in. In another post we have looked at the various levels of mind. Our everyday mind, the one that interfaces with our brain, and is our moment to moment awareness, is who we think we are, and that identity rests on our memories. Unfortunately, at this level of mind, memories are highly malleable. Our Higher Mind has a much fuller record of our memories, and these are less constrained by the limits of our body. Our Divine Mind, or Divine Awareness, has a perfect knowledge of all the has befallen us and all we have done. 

When we die, that is when our physical body can no longer be the home of our ordinary awareness, an opportunity arises for our day-to-day awareness, who we think we are, to merge with our Higher Mind. Should that not occur, then this lower mind drifts around lost, and remains close to those places in or on Earth that are familiar. We could rightly say that this is our ghost. 
Those who have read the Tibetan Book of the Dead (and no serious student of spirituality should skip that step!), will know that when someone dies, a monk will - under ideal circumstances - talk the consciousness through coping with the immediate after death state. 
Spirits, in this context are lost (lower) minds, that gradually lose their identity. They include what we might reasonably term demons, but that is a topic for another time. What they are not is Divine. They are bound to the temporal, and the Divine is never bound in temporality. 

All Power ultimately originates in God and is good. All will eventually return to God and be good.

Power, can be distorted and man is the distorting lens. The endless perfection of the Divine Creation, is revealed in the beauty of the Cosmos, taken as a whole. Man, using the abundance of the Cosmos, produces civilisations and habitats that are less than perfect, as is self-evident. The task for mankind, for all time, has been to grow to produce a perfection worthy of his and her Creator.

The world into which men and women incarnate is perfect in its potential but imperfect in its actuality, because even the forces of nature are subject to mankind's rulership – for being made in the image of God, man is created just a little lower than the Elohim, or the Gods. This power men and women exercise, by virtue of their immortal souls, influences all aspects of nature, for good or ill.

We live in a world of naïve realism. In other words, reality – on a day to day basis – is is what we can see, touch, smell, taste and hear. But below the world of the senses, is a cryptic region – an underworld of powerful natural forces – that weaves our visible world in quantum silence. This world also has beings, including the nymphs, sylphs, salamanders and gnomes of the four elements. These cryptic beings are also known as Elementals and Elementaries. Like all of nature, they are subject to mankind's rule, eventually, and to his influence, always. All acts of individual men and women affect this realm, and can give to some of these hidden 'creatures' huge influence and power. When great wrongs are committed, the denizens of these cryptic realms gorge themselves on the horror and fear – they absorb it, because that is their nature. They are not evil per se, any more than an avalanche is evil. They just do what they do. They are part of nature. They can, however, have a powerful affect on mankind, and especially those who in any way, through hating or violent acts, link up with them.

Some of mankind, versed in dark arts seek to bend the will of these hidden creatures, to their will. By so doing, these men and women become enmeshed with the negative powers they seek to control, and find it next to impossible to break free. The illusion of great power over other men and women, plus the lust for blood, sex and possessions of all kinds, draws them further into the influence of those creatures they seek to control. This enmeshment has infected many aspects of human activity. It is as clear in the excesses of some religious movements and epochs, as well as the distortions of the institutions of finance, commerce and politics. As art always has to reveal some truth, aspects of this hidden world has always been illustrated in the monsters of myth and the symbols to be found in books and film.

The freeing of mankind from the Cell-Net of these hidden powers is the huge challenge of our age. Not to try, is to allow the lesser, essentially natural forces, to control mankind's future and would, without higher intervention, lead to destruction of life on this earth. These powers would only be doing what they have been directed to do. (They are no more evil than a typhoon or an earthquake is evil. But they are decidedly evil in their effects.)

Women and men who understand this hidden aspect of reality have worked tirelessly for generations to enable individuals and groups to free themselves from these nefarious powers. These groups within and outside religious and philosophical movements have always understood the nature of the challenge and have tended to avoid describing in too great detail the truly awful nature of the sub-human creatures distorted by mankind. It is clear that that era of deliberately not talking of these things is at an end.

The word Archon means Lord or Ruler. In gnosticism (heavily influenced by the Christian commentators who saw it as heresy) the Archons are seen as sevenfold creators of manifested worlds. These worlds in themselves are under demonic power.

The higher teaching regarding the Archons, is more difficult to find. In this teaching the Archons are the Seven Spirits before the Throne. They are utterly good, with an emplacement above all the choirs of angels. They are the sevenfold creative powers summed up with these qualities: Piety, Knowledge, Counsel, Fortitude, Understanding, Wisdom, Reverential Awe.

It is not incorrect to use the word 'Archon' to denote the powerful occult complexes that 'rule' from the cryptic underworld. But these should not be confused with Eternal aspects of the Godhead.