Name That Angel!

rachelcat

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, rachelcat, and now it's time for the RWS edition of Name That Angel!

1. Who is the angel on the Lovers card? In other decks, the Lovers are joined/blessed by Cupid, a priest, the Hierophant, or the Hermit. But who is this angel?

2. (As is being discussed on another thread.) Who are the creatures on the corners of the Wheel? As far as I can tell, they are the Four Living Creatures of Ezekiel, whom he saw when he saw the Wheel in the sky. Is that the same as Cherubim? Since they have books, they are correlated to the four Evangelists. Which one is which? They can also be correlated to the four fixed signs of the zodiac: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. (Why is Scorpio represented by an eagle? Why is the Water Carrier an air sign?)

2. Is Justice the archangel Michael? No wings and looks pretty female, but my handy-dandy angel book I got out of the library shows Michael as judge of the dead with scales and a sword. According to the Llewellyn catalog, Michael is the archangel of direction and protection and the south.

3. Is Death the angel of death? Angel book says the angel of death is Suriel. Any other ideas?

4. Name the Temperance angel. (My vote is for Raphael; Llewellyn catalog says he is the archangel of healing, creativity and the sun and the east.)

5. Is this Devil the fallen angel, Lucifer? Or maybe Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies?

6. The Judgement angel is obviously Gabriel, horn and all. Llewellyn says archangel of inspiration and reconciliation and the west. Angel book says she is a female angel and has many illustrations of the Annunciation.

7. The four living creatures are back without their books in the World. Are they the same or different creatures? (In Thoth, they are also on the corners of the Hierophant, but only as masks, representing the empty shell of a worn out religion!)

8. What about those disembodied hands in the aces and the 4 of Cups? Are they part of/from angels?

Let's play Name that Angel! All answers will be entertained.
 

rosesred

Isn't the angel who blows his trumpet to herald the end of times Isfrael, not Gabriel? (I think you actually write it differently, anyway, his/her name starts with Isfr....) Think name is mentioned only once in bible. Isfrael is not the angel who guides or judges the souls. She's just the anouncer of the end of times. Might be that he is actually the angel depicted in judgement, rather than Gabriel.
 

caridwen

Difficult questions, some possibilities:


Raphael - key #6, super conscious, angel of air, God as healer, charity
Michael - key#14, angel of fire and sun, Son of God, Holiness
Gabriel - key #20, angel of water, calls to God, strength

Angel with red wings and flame hair is repeated from the Lovers card. According to the Practicus ritual of the Golden Dawn, it is MICHAEL, the Great Archangel, the Ruler of Solar Fire...?(Regardie, 172).

Temperance
Red Wings - probably reference once again to the archangel Michael represented with red wings on the Lovers and Judgment cards.
http://www.tarotpassages.com/old_moonstruck/oneill/10.htm


Who are the creatures on the corners of the Wheel?

The Wheel of Fortune contains a lot of symbolism. The angel in the top left corner is Aquarius. The eagle is Scorpio. The lion is Leo. The bull is Taurus.

These four beasts are the four Apocalyptic Beasts, the Cherubs of the four elements. The numbers of these animals add up to 26, the number of IHVH. The Hebrew letters IHVH (Yod Heh Vau Heh) are in the outermost ring of the Wheel, interspersed with the letters TORA. IHVH represents the unpronounceable name of God. The snake descending on the left side of the Wheel is the Egyptian god Typhon, the god of evil. The snake also represents the life force descending into the material world. (The same force the Magician is calling down). The anubis rising on the right side of the Wheel is Hermes, a symbol of intelligence or wisdom ascending.
http://www.biddytarot.com/major/wheeloffortune.html

The 4 beasts are from Revelations 4:7-8 The first animal was like a lion, the second like a bull, the third animal had a human face, and the fourth animal was like a flying eagle. A footnote in the Jerusalem Bible states that following Iraeneus the four beasts came to symbolize the four evangelists.
http://www.tarotpassages.com/old_moonstruck/oneill/10.htm

Angel of Death:

In Muslim and Islam theology, Azrael is the Angel of Death who is "forever writing in a large book and forever erasing what he writes: what he writes is the birth of man, what he erases is the name of the man at death."

Other faiths name the Angel of Death as a different angel:


In Judeo-Christian lore, Michael, Gabriel, Sammael, and Sariel all all named as the angel of death.

In Zoroastrianism the angel of death is Mairya.

In Babylon it is Mot.

In Rabbinical lore there are 14 angels of death: Yetzerhara, Adriel, Yehudiam, Abaddon, Sammael, Azrael, Metatron, Gabriel, Mashhit, Hemah, Malach ha-Mavet, Kafziel, Kesef, and Leviathan.

In Falasha lore it is Suriel.

The Arabic angel is Azrael.

Jewish lore says this angel is Rahab, who, lore goes on to say, was destroyed by God for refusing to part the waters of the red sea. The new angel of death then became Yama (Malach ha-Mavet).

The Talmud says the angel of death was equated with Satan, and thus became the legend that the angel of death was evil, rather than the good angel he is.

Azrael, also known as Izra'il, one of the four Archangels of Islam (Mikhail, Djibril, and Israfil), is pictured as having gigantic proportions: one foot rests in either the forth or the seventh heaven, while the other is on the bridge between hell and paradise. Supposedly Azrael brought God a handful of earth from which to create Adam and therefore earned his title as the Angel of Death. Izra'il keeps a roll of humanity, on which the names of the damned are circle in black and the names of the blessed, in light. When a person's day of death approaches, a leaf with the person's name on it falls from the tree beneath God's throne. After forty days have passed, Izra'il must sever the individual's soul from his or her body.

Azrael will be the last to die, but will do so at the second trump of the Archangel. He is the angel who accompanies your soul to Heaven.

The phrase 'the Wings of Azrael' refers to the approach of death; the signs of death coming on the dying.
http://www.sarahsarchangels.com/archangels/azrael.html
 

Aeon418

Who are the creatures on the corners of the Wheel? As far as I can tell, they are the Four Living Creatures of Ezekiel, whom he saw when he saw the Wheel in the sky.
That's right. But they are far older than the Hebraic tradition. Their origin can be found in Chaldean religion and the other forerunners of Judaism.
 

Fulgour

[XX] Michael is the symbol of "Divine Justice." Her name signifies
"she who is like God" and she is considered the greatest of all angels.

[VI] Gabriel is the Angel of Annunciation, she brings Compassion
and she is the divine messenger who reveals God's will to humanity.

[XIV] Raphael is the Angel of Dawn, the Protector of the Earth,
which she heals, and the Chief of the Virtues. Her name means
"God has healed" and she is known as the "divine physician."

[XVI] Uriel means "light of God" and she is referred to as the
"fire of God." She is also known as the "flame of the sun" and
she protects against lightning, thunder, volcanic eruptions, etc.

*

Awhile back it occurred to me that Gabriel only blows a horn
in the Gospel tunes, and so I checked my Encyclopaedia to see.
Comparing what I found in the Colman Smith Tarot revealed:

VI The Lovers features Gabriel, complete with rainbow wings.
XIV Temperance aligns with Raphael, patron of travellers.
XVI The Tower has an energetic Uriel thundering just offstage.
XX Judgement brings Michael at last, performing her known duties.

Most books follow after each other, and so get it all confused,
but all of this is available to anyone who might find it interesting
to study in detail. You might begin like I did, :) looking in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Gabriel does not blow a horn, sorry.)
 

velvetwhispers

Scorpio can be represented by both snake and eagle astrologically.
The thing I have picked up is that Scorpio can descend to the very depths and crawl on the ground like a snake and be really rotton, or they can be an eagle and fly above their baser nature, becoming spiritually aware and evolving.
There are some people who also say that the eagle is also a phoenix, because scorpios can burn themselves to ashes and rise again, completely transformed. I think that has a lot of merit because we are born of "the dust of the earth" and as we take on developing ourselves spiritually, we transcend that base beginning.
 

ArcanoMáximo

For me
in The Lovers card is the Archangel Chamuel, prince of Devine Love.
in The Justice card is Michael, prince of Devine Justice and Power.
in The Temperance card is Rapahel, prince of Devine Health.
in The Judgement card is Gabriel, prince of Ascention and Resurrection.
in The High Priestess card is Jophiel, prince od Divine Knowledge.
in The Star card is Uriel, prince of Devine Supply.
and in The World card is the Archangel Zadkiel, prince of Devine Transmutation.
 

ArcanoMáximo

Even when i think all archangels are hybrid - which is best shown in The Temperance card i guess, since they are the most evolved beings ( for me males are more evolved when not totally masculinized and viceversa with females )- there might be also Archangelines -Constance, Hope, Faith, Grace, Amatist, Carity, and Regina, ex Virgin Mary- who works as Devine Complements, and they are shown in the Tarot cards too, if we look closer. I don't wanna change the object of this thread, but i felt that should tell it...
AM*
 

rachelcat

Thanks everyone for your replies. I didn't see this thread until today!!! Looks like I've got more studying to do! I really appreciate all the information and opinions. I haven't read everything in detail yet . . .

But the one burning question (obviously only in my mind . . .) is which kerubic beast (as the esoterics say) is which evangelist? Is there a definitive list? When I was young, I learned this, but I've seen other attributions:

Matthew is the lion because he says that Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah.

Mark is the bull because he is down to earth, relating "just the facts, ma'am."

Luke is the man/angel because he is the most "humanistic." There is a tradition that he was a doctor. (???)

John is the eagle because he is the most spiritual and soars on the wings of spiritual inspiration.

Does this seem correct to you? What's the esoteric/magical list?