The laying on of hands is a religious practice found throughout the world in varying forms. In Christian churches, this practice is used as both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit during baptisms, healing services, blessings, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other church officers, along with a variety of other church sacraments and holy ceremonies.
The Christian tradition of the laying on of hands has its roots in Jewish beliefs and practices. In biblical times the laying on of hands was an action which conferred blessing or authority.
Christianity: In the New Testament the laying on of hands was associated with the receiving of the Holy Spirit ... and is still used in a wide variety of church ceremonies, such as the ceremony of confirmation..
Healing form: In its healing form, the laying on of hands is based on biblical precedent set by Jesus. (source : Wikipedia)
Angels in history
The word angel comes from the Greek word "angelos", which means messenger. The Bible says that God appointed many angels to guard you in all your ways.
Angels are believed to watch over us, indeed some believe they are with us from birth to death. They say we are assigned an angel to guide and protect us throughout our lives.
The appearance and purposes of angels in art and litersature has varied throughout history and the world religions. Artists have given us their visions of angels as winged creatures, usually beautiful figures that are shown as glowing, shining, or floating - but often in human form.
Angels are also recorded in the Koran. "You shall see the angels circling around the throne, giving glory to their Lord".
Some people entrust their lives to guardian angels, or believe when they die they will be led to Heaven by the angel of death. Many stories show a stranger next to the deathbed at the time a person passes.
http://theshadowlands.net/angels.html
A History Of Angels In Western Thought
Angels appear in most of the ancient forms of culture: Sumerian, Egyptian, Mithraism, Judaism, Greek, Christianity and Islam.
Clearly, that's a lot of information for any single web site. So I recommend you to look at the following wonderful resource of information, for further reading and research:
http://www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/essays/angels.htm
The site also contains a very readable essay on meditation techniques from across the world.
What are angels? What form do they take?
Historically, angels who interacted with humans-such as Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Lot and his wife-came in human form and were only recognized as angels in retrospect.
But what exactly are angels, those "beings of light"? Some traditions, including members of the New Age movement, suggest that angels are beings of energy "vibrating at a much faster frequency" than humans can usually perceive.
We encounter them only when they slow themselves down or when we tune in to their frequency through prayer and ritual. Some traditions hold that each person has a personal angel; (source http://www.beliefnet.com/story/115/story_11544_1.html )
What does the Church say about Angels?
Christianity was just one of many inter-related religions that were present in the middle east in the first and second centuries after Christ. However, its ultimate success as the dominant religion throughout most of the Western world was due to its adoption by Constantine as the only religion acceptable within the Roman Empire. In effect, other religions and beliefs were banned by the Romans and many smaller cults or variations on Christianity withered and were forgotten. Angels appeared within this doctrine as the messangers of God, sent to watch over mankind, but in the background.
Our version of Christianity was defined in the third century when Constantine appointed The Council of Nicea to collect together the many religious documents of the period into a unifying code which became known as The Bible. In the centuries that followed, the Church became more and more insistent that the Bible was the only true Word of God for the guidance (obedience) of mankind. Anything else was herecy and often punishable by death. Interpretating the Bible was the role of the clergy and mankind was required to be totally obedient to the word of God. The Word of God was Law. Furthermore God only spoke to mankind through the Pope, his appointed representative on earth.
This viewpoint of Church supremacy wasn't seriously challenged for over 1000 years, until the Reformation, when two dramatic changes took place.
In the early 15th Century, Gutenburg invented the printing press. Copying books by hand had meant that they were very expensive. After the printing press, books (and knowledge) could now become more freely available.
In the same century, religious beliefs started to change, a period we know as the The Protestant Reformation. That's a whole new area of information, but let's summarise it by noting that Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church's obvious corruption as "unchristian" activity. The Catholic Church dominated men's lives. It had become too powerful and with absolute power came corruption - which extended even to the Papacy itself. The unintended consequence of Luther's attempt to force the Church to change, was a challenge to Catholicism itself from a new form of belief - Protestantism. It was an attempt to move back towards a lifestyle guided by the Word of God - The Bible.
Luther had the Bible translated into vernacular German, so educated men could read it for themselves. Gutenberg's printing presses helped spread the knowledge far and wide throughout Europe. Other language versions followed. For the first time, educated men could read and decide for themselves. Religious thinking started to evolve and with it came opinions and disagreements - as well as the ability to question some of the practices that had evolved within the established church.
Centuries later, Christian beliefs had fragmented into many different creeds or beliefs. The Methodists following the teachings of Wesley, advocated a stricter lifestyle, guided by the words of the Bible. Other religions wondered whether God's will - his guidance for mankind - only existed in the words of the Bible. What if God was still here, in every one of us, guiding and protecting? Was it true that the established Church was the only means of communication with God?
Quakers, The Society of Friends & Children of Light The Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, was started by a man called George Fox. When Fox was nineteen years old, he believed he had received a revelation from God- a sign that everyone should be guided by his or her "Inner Light," a concept earlier known as "Christ within." Fox did not intend to start a new religion, but his followers soon began to group together into the appearance of an organization, with such names as Children of Light, Friends of Truth, and later, Society of Friends.
It was in 1647 that Fox began to preach and attracted many converts. In 1650 Fox was convicted of blasphemy. At the sentencing Fox told the judge to tremble at the word of the Lord. The judge then called Fox and his followers "quakers"-hence the name Quakers that they are called today. Fox was imprisoned no less than five times and spent his last years in England .
The Society of Friends was formed by men and women who were dissatisfied with the religious life of the various Reformed Churches. They emphasised an individual approach to religion, strict discipline, and the rejection of authoritarianism. Source: http://www.cdli.ca/~wking/blair/history.htm
Quakers believe that all men are children of God and have inherited powers from God. Each of us was given a measure of this power or light.
Religion, or belief, is not just a matter of accepting words or practices (ie the dogma of the established Christian church) but of experiencing God for oneself.
The evolving interest in Angels
It seems that the current interest in angels came from New Age thinkers who were looking beyond established religious thinking, at the role and identity of angels and how they still guide us today. There are now so many books and web sites providing information on angels - and angel cards.
More information to follow soon......... |
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Angels in art
Artists have traditionally pictured angels as having a human form, showing benign expressions as you would associate with love. In recent Western art, they appear in the female form - but this was not always the case.
We usually think of angels as having wings. Man has envied the birds and been obsessed throughout historywith the desire to fly. It was natural therefore to imagine that angels could do so. However, angels with wings did not appear in art at all until the time of Constantine. The tradition of Angels with wings became common only after the Renaissance, whcih as also the time when Leonardo Da Vinci explored the design of wings to enable mankind to fly
It is easy to forget one of the most common sources of angel images - our churches and cathedrals. Religious carvings usually depict angels with wings, in roles that are clearly to protect and guide mankind.
Angels: Read more?
In researching this article, I explored many web sites. One of the most interesting sources of information on angels is: http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/angels/
Metatron
Arch Angel Metatron is at the centre of Angelic Reiki beliefs.
Metatron
(Hebrew ?????? or ???????), is the name of an angel in Judaism and some branches of Christianity. There are no references to him in the Jewish Tanakh (Old Testament) or the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). Metatron does appear in later post-scriptural Islamic esoteric and occult sources. There is no consensus as to his genesis or the role that he plays in the hierarchy of Heaven and Hell.
Metatron is mentioned in the Jewish Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatron
Ascended Masters
There is a very readable web site with lots of information on Ascended masters - well worth exploring
www.ascension-research.org/am-names.html
Quakers:
There is a lot of information about the Quakers and their beliefs on the internet. If you want to find out more, try the following:
Wikipedia
www.quaker.org/friends.html
Resources/Copyright
Information for this feature was drawn from many online sources. Where we have quoted sections from other web sites, the original source is acknowledged and a link provided, to help our visitors explore further. We freely acknowledge the copyright of all such sources.
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