
Before I begin, I must give my deepest thanks to esotericarchives.com and my local OTO body. Without them, I would not have had access to half of these texts, or I would have spent a great deal of money buying copies only to donate them to my local library.
Angels have been a part of many faiths for centuries: messengers, healers, challengers, initiators, guides for the dead, allies. In the Jailbreaking series, I am re-interpreting the Catholic practices of my ancestors through a polytheist and animist lens. My bias is also anti-empire. I hold the Catholic church and many Christian churches (but not all) as forces of domination, oppression, and sometimes genocide. I don’t believe in Original Sin, nor in the “Christ” saving humanity. To me, Jesus of Nazareth is a folktale about a rabbi who was arguing with other rabbis regarding how to keep Judaism alive under the domination of Rome. He said some really wise things, but he didn’t end our disconnect from the divine. We were never disconnected.
So what are angels? The word angel comes form the greek angelos, meaning messenger. As I will explain, angels are not miracle working forces of good. The name angel is given to spirits who like humans and want to see us do well. Just because a spirit probably likes humans does not mean it likes all humans. But they are all approachable, and expect to be approached. To be blunt, it is possible to approach them from a wide variety of practices and perspectives, including polytheist animism.
This essay will not be a guide on how to contact these spirits. That topic requires preparatory work and will hopefully be the subject of a future book. This is a review of the historical records I could access in order to assess what these spirits are. The historical record is not pretty. Poor peoples’ magic tends to not be recorded as often as the practices of the rich and powerful. What we know about the magic of peasants, serfs, and workers is fractured and much harder to research. I will do my best to include the peoples’ work with these beings, but I want to make it clear that the scant material I have to work with is not due to a lack of care or respect.
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